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Post by matunuck on Jul 18, 2017 10:33:00 GMT -5
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Post by rickii on Jul 19, 2017 12:08:07 GMT -5
AIR, at HC after frosh year, we were allowed to take 1 course per semester as a 'pass-fail' grade with full credit(s). Came in handy when you had a real tough elective ( or a reputed tough grading prof ) where anything above a C+ was unlikely. Didn't hurt your current or trailing GPA and still got the required credits.
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Post by rgs318 on Jul 19, 2017 12:41:10 GMT -5
Almost 30 years ago I interviewed the class valedictorian at a Bergen County High School. He was going to Harvard and said "I got into Harvard in spite my school, not because of it." Every member of the football team got straight "A's" and one teacher was actually fired at hat school for giving out too many "C" grades. BUT, that is one school and as not the case where I taught for over 20 years - at a different school. From first hand knowledge of New Jersey schools, I know that most of the more extreme statements about grade inflation do not apy.Try not to use too broad a brush when evaluating grade inflation.
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Post by Tom on Jul 19, 2017 14:33:06 GMT -5
Interesting data, could be countless reasons why. I imagine some of it is simply lowering our standards. There's a lot of stuff I consider basic that high school kids can't handle. At the cash register, when the tab comes to $10.18 and you have a twenty in your hand before the kid finishes totaling the order, God forbid, he punches in cash received before you fish a quarter out of your pocket. That kid who can't handle simple math in his head might still be an A student. I imagine some of it is quieting nagging helicopter parents. There are plenty out there who will march to the school if little Johnny gets a B, and obviously it's the teacher's fault, not little Johnny's
On the other hand there's been a big uptick in AP's or other weighted courses. An A minus student has a GPA of about 3.7. It's kind of hard to make up for a mis-step if the ceiling is 4.0 If a school adds 0.5 to the grade to compensate for more the more challenging class, suddenly a single AP A makes up for a B when it used to be two A's to offset a B for that magic 3.7
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Post by rgs318 on Jul 19, 2017 14:40:03 GMT -5
In schools with weighted grades, the ceiling is indeed 4.5, not 4.0. Every grade in an honors or advanced course is with .5 higher (an "A" in such a course gets a 4.5. In one of the worst examples of screwed up class rank, a student of one was 12th in the class, even though he never got less than an "A" - he took three extra courses (before and after school in freshman year before transferring in). He got an A in each, but they were not considered "advanced" courses. He was moved from a tie for first in the class to 12th place. He was ranked lower because he learned more than anyone else with whom he was tied. When I raised the issue with the head of guidance, he had no problem with this because he said this is what the district parents wanted. (He also took grades to the 5th decimal place - even though Harvard stops at 2 places. When I asked him why, he said "...because that is as far as our computer program will take them. Does anyone really expect someone with this mindset to be concerned about grade inflation?
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Post by matunuck on Mar 8, 2018 13:34:40 GMT -5
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Post by Chu Chu on Mar 8, 2018 13:38:14 GMT -5
This is all I could access:
"This Saturday, hundreds of thousands of U.S. high-school students will sit down to take the SAT, anxious about their performance and how it will affect their college prospects. And in a few weeks, their older peers, who took the test last year, will start hearing back from the colleges they applied to. Admitted, rejected, waitlisted? It often hinges, in no small measure, on those few hours spent taking the SAT or the ACT, the other widely used standardized test."
What was the gist?
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Post by hcpride on Mar 8, 2018 15:42:42 GMT -5
I think it is an open secret that the un-weighted GPAs at many high schools are wildly inflated. - " Nearly half of America’s Class of 2016 are A students. Meanwhile, their average SAT score fell from 1,026 to 1,002 on a 1,600-point scale — suggesting that those A's on report cards might be fool's gold." - Of course inflation may not be equally present at all high schools. Which makes comparisons between students from different schools on the basis of GPAs a bit dicey for admission folks. Class rank is problematic in many ways, including - but not limited to - : "high schools are increasingly moving away from class ranking, a traditional metric that helps colleges figure out which students are really achieving above their peers.". I think it is an open secret that many students have quite a bit of 'help' while 'writing' their admissions essays. Crafted in untimed and unsupervised settings BTW. So GPAs, class rank, and college essays are quite a bit problematic (sometimes useless) as evaluative tools. |
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Post by somedaycamesuddenly on Mar 8, 2018 17:47:26 GMT -5
I think it is an open secret that the un-weighted GPAs at many high schools are wildly inflated. - " Nearly half of America’s Class of 2016 are A students. Meanwhile, their average SAT score fell from 1,026 to 1,002 on a 1,600-point scale — suggesting that those A's on report cards might be fool's gold." - Of course inflation may not be equally present at all high schools. Which makes comparisons between students from different schools on the basis of GPAs a bit dicey for admission folks. Class rank is problematic in many ways, including - but not limited to - : "high schools are increasingly moving away from class ranking, a traditional metric that helps colleges figure out which students are really achieving above their peers.". I think it is an open secret that many students have quite a bit of 'help' while 'writing' their admissions essays. Crafted in untimed and unsupervised settings BTW. So GPAs, class rank, and college essays are quite a bit problematic (sometimes useless) as evaluative tools. Why does that make class rank inherently problematic? Class rank contextualizes the performance of a student against their peers (those they went to high school with.) You can then look at things such as SAT scores to compare schools. |
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Post by hcpride on Mar 8, 2018 18:27:06 GMT -5
I think it is an open secret that the un-weighted GPAs at many high schools are wildly inflated. - " Nearly half of America’s Class of 2016 are A students. Meanwhile, their average SAT score fell from 1,026 to 1,002 on a 1,600-point scale — suggesting that those A's on report cards might be fool's gold." - Of course inflation may not be equally present at all high schools. Which makes comparisons between students from different schools on the basis of GPAs a bit dicey for admission folks. Class rank is problematic in many ways, including - but not limited to - : "high schools are increasingly moving away from class ranking, a traditional metric that helps colleges figure out which students are really achieving above their peers.". I think it is an open secret that many students have quite a bit of 'help' while 'writing' their admissions essays. Crafted in untimed and unsupervised settings BTW. So GPAs, class rank, and college essays are quite a bit problematic (sometimes useless) as evaluative tools. Why does that make class rank inherently problematic? Class rank contextualizes the performance of a student against their peers (those they went to high school with.) You can then look at things such as SAT scores to compare schools. No doubt within the same school one can certainly judge relative performance via rank (if a ranking is done). And yes, looking at average SAT/ACT scores for respective student bodies (some of whom still rank) could be used for approximate school/student comparisons. For schools like HC, one suspects an applicant with an identifier (rather than a formal rank) of 1st or 2nd decile is competitive for admission. I believe 60% of our enrolled students this past cycle were reported by HC as 1st decile (top 10% of high school graduating class). One could see how that stat can be problematic (for. ex. one would suspect a 2nd decile Regis HS, NYC student is very capable and a top candidate for admission at HC...yet adversely effects the stat). There is much discussion about comparative 1st deciles relative to admissions at the most competitive (top twenty-ish) schools. |
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