<p>My kids go to public HS on Long Island. All their tests grades are numeric and all of their report card grades are numeric. Therefore their GPA is also numeric. It’s just so much more clear than the 4.0 grading system. We have a weighting system that is also numeric and it depends on AP classes and your final score in them. I would think that admissions would have an easier time comparing transcripts if everyone used the same system. </p>
<p>How would you compare course rigor between schools? Harshness of grading? Even level of teaching?</p>
<p>Though having the same grading system is a great idea, the first thing that the US education system should deal with is the lack of rigor in some of the schools that has made the number 1 country in the world fall so behind compared to other countries in core classes in addition to what HappyHelper said unfair grading systems, and why college is getting so damn expensive.</p>
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<p>It’s been a while since I’ve read something so ethnocentric…</p>
<p>let me edit that sentence "… has made supposedly the number one country less into education and more into getting famous on the internet for doing stupid things and care more about taking a picture of their meal/ record a kid getting beat up rather than making better use of that smartphone or trying to help.</p>
<p>I’d edit it to reflect that it’s “Supposedly the number one country in the world according to Americans, but not according to the rest of the world.”</p>
<p>I can see some merit to a new grading scale. I’m not sure that it needs to be changed though. The 4.0 scale can be a little exasperating at times. My college doesn’t do ± grades, just flat letter grades. Last semester I got my first B, so I lost my 4.0. I finished General Chemistry II with an 89.3%. Had I gotten that extra .2%, it would have been an A. What irritates me about this is that I’m in the same bracket as a person that got a 79.5% in the class. Clearly I had a greater demonstrated understanding of the material than that person did. </p>
<p>Personally I think the problem is with grade inflation. When people are bumping up against an artificial barrier (100%), it becomes hard to distinguish because suddenly an 85% looks so much more terrible than a 93 (twice as far away from “perfection”), making it more about the mistakes that you’ve made rather than the points you’ve earned.</p>
<p>Perhaps purely a psychological issue, but I think it makes a difference in things.</p>
<p>One of the reasons that high school differs from college is that high school teachers are constrained by absolute grading scales to give relatively easy assignments and tests that C students can get 70% (or whatever the threshold is) on. Some students find their first college courses a shock when the median score on a test is 50%, but a 30% would get a C grade and 60% a B grade.</p>
<p>All high schools using the same grading system - that’s called the ACT/SAT. When you take it, you suddenly discover your 4.0 isn’t worth much.</p>