Does this mean that Choate is significantly easier/has more inflation than Hotchkiss and Deerfield?
No!
Choate has significantly more students than H or D and is NOT a grade-inflated school.
Apples and Oranges.
Schools can report their scattergrams however they choose. Choate’s 64 with a 3.75+ does not equate with Deerfield’s 2 with 4.0 (95%)+ or Hotchkiss’ 8 with a 4.0 (10.5)+. Bottom line, all three schools are very rigorous.
Grade inflation does not imply a school is not rigorous. In fact, Harvard is accused of grad inflation.
At some point, if 11% of the student body has a 4.0/4.0, the bell curve seems a little off.
Agreeing with @laenen.
If average high schools give 30% A’s, but a similarly or more rigorous school gives 10~20% A’s on average, I consider the school’s grade is deflated regardless of its rigor. On the other hand, if a school gives 70% A on average, well, it’s hard to say that the grade is not inflated regardless of its rigor.
Assuming that the three schools have similar student profile in terms of academic ability, the easiest way to compare their grade inflation or deflation would be looking at their average grade distribution, if there is one published.
Of course, one can argue that your grade is your own when a course is not curved. Your performance is not measured against other students in the same class. But it’s not hard to figure out that is just an illusion. Teachers can always adjust the exam level or grading policy to artificially maintain his desired, or school recommended grade distribution. After trying to be top 2~3 in a course with 20 motivated classmates, whether successfully or not, one tends to avoid courses from old school prof. who believes that only 10~15% of his students deserve A.
To get into a good University from a prep school doesn’t require a 4.0, and nor will it secure your chances! I bet that’s somewhere already in this thread and I should have read it lol. But @natakwali is completely 100% correct. Couldn’t have said it better myself. If it makes you feel better a girl at my school got a 3.something and is enjoying Yale to the fullest :). Grades aren’t everything, extra curriculars count, and colleges take the school you go to into consideration.
So I actually reviewed published data from each of the three schools. While exact comparison was not possible, it seems roughly 30~33% of students at all three schools get average A- or above. So answer to the OP’s question would be that there seems is no significant difference between the three schools. Make your choice based on other factors.
Although Choate does have roughly 3/2 of the students present at Deerfield and Hotckiss, that is not attributable to 64 students in the highest percentile versus 8 at Hotchkiss.
@Imyhyder That’s because they used word “highest” with different standard. Exact comparison is hard because they used different formats. It’s best to see in own eyes. They seem remarkably similar to me.
http://www.choate.edu/uploaded/Documents/Academics/CollegeProfile_1415.pdf
https://deerfield.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/School-profile-2015.pdf
http://www.hotchkiss.org/documents/14-15_Hotchkiss_SchoolProfile.pdf
I don’t know about Deerfield or Choate but I can tell you you certainly won’t get a free ride at Hotchkiss. There are no easy classes or “easy As”. Grads come out well prepared to succeed in college.