Fed up with MCPS Grading Policies

[Anonymous]

My senior is starting to receive their college decisions, and while they are doing fine (UMD honors, etc.), I'm getting more furious every time I think about their HS grades.

Take 14 AP classes? Same GPA/WPGA as a kid who takes 14 honors classes. Earn grades between 94 and 100 every single quarter in every single class in high school? Same GPA as a kid who gets 79.5 and 89.5 in their quarterly grades. I know colleges evaluate rigor, but if that 79.5/89.5 kid takes the same classes as my kid their rigor is identical.

So instead of maybe 20 or so kids who really stand out at each high school, you end up with 50+ kids applying to every top college.

I know small differences in academics can be outweighed during college admissions by ECs, jobs, volunteering, etc. But this grading system might as well be pass/fail.

Why did my kid put effort into her MCPS schooling? I guess the jokes on us. It would have been smarter just to coast through high school and still get As.

[Anonymous]

Cool story bro.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My senior is starting to receive their college decisions, and while they are doing fine (UMD honors, etc.), I'm getting more furious every time I think about their HS grades.

Take 14 AP classes? Same GPA/WPGA as a kid who takes 14 honors classes. Earn grades between 94 and 100 every single quarter in every single class in high school? Same GPA as a kid who gets 79.5 and 89.5 in their quarterly grades. I know colleges evaluate rigor, but if that 79.5/89.5 kid takes the same classes as my kid their rigor is identical.

So instead of maybe 20 or so kids who really stand out at each high school, you end up with 50+ kids applying to every top college.

I know small differences in academics can be outweighed during college admissions by ECs, jobs, volunteering, etc. But this grading system might as well be pass/fail.

Why did my kid put effort into her MCPS schooling? I guess the jokes on us. It would have been smarter just to coast through high school and still get As.

Yea for you. Our school barely offers any AP classes so consider your kid lucky they have the opportunities that mine don't.

[Anonymous]

Grades are inflated bc bad grades are often blamed on teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My senior is starting to receive their college decisions, and while they are doing fine (UMD honors, etc.), I'm getting more furious every time I think about their HS grades.

Take 14 AP classes? Same GPA/WPGA as a kid who takes 14 honors classes. Earn grades between 94 and 100 every single quarter in every single class in high school? Same GPA as a kid who gets 79.5 and 89.5 in their quarterly grades. I know colleges evaluate rigor, but if that 79.5/89.5 kid takes the same classes as my kid their rigor is identical.

So instead of maybe 20 or so kids who really stand out at each high school, you end up with 50+ kids applying to every top college.

I know small differences in academics can be outweighed during college admissions by ECs, jobs, volunteering, etc. But this grading system might as well be pass/fail.

Why did my kid put effort into her MCPS schooling? I guess the jokes on us. It would have been smarter just to coast through high school and still get As.

Your story rarely, if ever happened and no student aiming for top schools would have 79.5 and 89.5 grades.
But you like to repeat that nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Um, isn’t the goal to learn and master topics? The point of taking challenging courses is to become well-educated in those subject areas. I really don’t understand why that can’t be the reward unto itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take 14 AP classes? Same GPA/WPGA as a kid who takes 14 honors classes. Earn grades between 94 and 100 every single quarter in every single class in high school? Same GPA as a kid who gets 79.5 and 89.5 in their quarterly grades. I know colleges evaluate rigor, but if that 79.5/89.5 kid takes the same classes as my kid their rigor is identical.

I thought some colleges used their own formulas to do their own GPA calculations, instead of relying on schools' numbers. I don't know how many colleges do this.

[Anonymous]

Colleges understand MCPS grading very well a 4.0 is often considered a real 3.7. They look at APs, AP scores, extracurriculars, and SATs.

An apathetic 4.0 with no APs is not likely to get in UMD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My senior is starting to receive their college decisions, and while they are doing fine (UMD honors, etc.), I'm getting more furious every time I think about their HS grades.

Take 14 AP classes? Same GPA/WPGA as a kid who takes 14 honors classes. Earn grades between 94 and 100 every single quarter in every single class in high school? Same GPA as a kid who gets 79.5 and 89.5 in their quarterly grades. https a I know colleges evaluate rigor, but if that 79.5/89.5 kid takes the same classes as my kid their rigor is identical.

So instead of maybe 20 or so kids who really stand out at each high school, you end up with 50+ kids applying to every top college.

I know small differences in academics can be outweighed during college admissions by ECs, jobs, volunteering, etc. But this grading system might as well be pass/fail.

Why did my kid put effort into her MCPS schooling? I guess the jokes on us. It would have been smarter just to coast through high school and still get As.

The bolded is a fact of every grading system I've ever encountered in my life. Even you're making cutoffs, why are you treating the kids making 94s and the kids making 97s as one group compared to the kids making 89.5s?

[Anonymous]

I'm with you OP. It's the quarter system grading that is so odd. You get a B one quarter and an A the next, you get an A for the semester. That's what really throws everything off. It should be based on the average percentage of the two quarters as it used to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My senior is starting to receive their college decisions, and while they are doing fine (UMD honors, etc.), I'm getting more furious every time I think about their HS grades.

Take 14 AP classes? Same GPA/WPGA as a kid who takes 14 honors classes. Earn grades between 94 and 100 every single quarter in every single class in high school? Same GPA as a kid who gets 79.5 and 89.5 in their quarterly grades. https a I know colleges evaluate rigor, but if that 79.5/89.5 kid takes the same classes as my kid their rigor is identical.

So instead of maybe 20 or so kids who really stand out at each high school, you end up with 50+ kids applying to every top college.

I know small differences in academics can be outweighed during college admissions by ECs, jobs, volunteering, etc. But this grading system might as well be pass/fail.

Why did my kid put effort into her MCPS schooling? I guess the jokes on us. It would have been smarter just to coast through high school and still get As.

The bolded is a fact of every grading system I've ever encountered in my life. Even you're making cutoffs, why are you treating the kids making 94s and the kids making 97s as one group compared to the kids making 89.5s?

If MCPS included + and - on grades then yes a 94 would be an A and 97 would be an A+. Why not just keep things simple and report average for each class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm with you OP. It's the quarter system grading that is so odd. You get a B one quarter and an A the next, you get an A for the semester. That's what really throws everything off. It should be based on the average percentage of the two quarters as it used to be.

You're absolutely right - I mentioned that but only tangentially.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take 14 AP classes? Same GPA/WPGA as a kid who takes 14 honors classes. Earn grades between 94 and 100 every single quarter in every single class in high school? Same GPA as a kid who gets 79.5 and 89.5 in their quarterly grades. I know colleges evaluate rigor, but if that 79.5/89.5 kid takes the same classes as my kid their rigor is identical.

I thought some colleges used their own formulas to do their own GPA calculations, instead of relying on schools' numbers. I don't know how many colleges do this.

Many colleges do that, but the colleges can't reverse engineer number grades when MCPS only provides semester letter grades (A,B,C,etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My senior is starting to receive their college decisions, and while they are doing fine (UMD honors, etc.), I'm getting more furious every time I think about their HS grades.

Take 14 AP classes? Same GPA/WPGA as a kid who takes 14 honors classes. Earn grades between 94 and 100 every single quarter in every single class in high school? Same GPA as a kid who gets 79.5 and 89.5 in their quarterly grades. I know colleges evaluate rigor, but if that 79.5/89.5 kid takes the same classes as my kid their rigor is identical.

So instead of maybe 20 or so kids who really stand out at each high school, you end up with 50+ kids applying to every top college.

I know small differences in academics can be outweighed during college admissions by ECs, jobs, volunteering, etc. But this grading system might as well be pass/fail.

Why did my kid put effort into her MCPS schooling? I guess the jokes on us. It would have been smarter just to coast through high school and still get As.

College create their own gpa and remove classes like health, theater and art grades while also prioritizing AP and IB courses.

[Anonymous]

Yes! actual %'s should be reported on transcript for each quarter.

Total grade inflation in MCPS bc of whiny parents.

OP - I'm guessing/hoping that for consistently high A kids, this comes through in their recommendation letters.