Explain grade inflation to me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is what we saw in HS. Example below for illustrative purposes for 1 course and 2 students.

Student 1 who is very bright and excels in the course:
MP 1 99% = A
MP 2 98.2% = A

Semester 1 grade which appears on the transcript = A

MP3 98.9% = A
MP 4 99.1% = A

Semester 2 grade which appears on the transcript = A

Now, let's review a 2nd student, who is in the same exact class, yet this person is not exceling in the course and so their parents intervene with help, paid tutoring, and extra work...to get their college bound student into the B+ and even A- range.

MP 1 84.5% = B
MP 2 90.1% = A

Take the higher of the two marking period grades and award an A for Semester 1 on the transcript

MP 3 91.2% = A
MP 4 83% = B

Take the higher of the two marking period grades and award an A for Semester 2.

So, we have 2 students applying to the same college. They look very similar, with Semester grades of As for the course.
Yet, in reality, one is a very high earning A student and the second is a solid B student, with a sprinkle of A-.

And, if these is an Honors Course, it's scored the same as an AP grade! Think about the difference between the AP student who got all A's and student#2. Now multiply this calc. over years and years of courses. Your strong, even low, B student just has to break the 90% threshold for 2 marking periods a year to capture the A.

In my opinion, this is grade inflation.

This isn’t how class grades were determined at my our FCPS high school. I’ll admit that my kid graduated with an unweighted 4.0, but she worked very hard and is incredibly bright. She also did really well on AP exams (one 4 and the rest 5s). In college, she’s on the Deans list in a top 10 engineering program. I feel like there was enough in her transcript, LOR, and essays to distinguish her as a really strong student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is what we saw in HS. Example below for illustrative purposes for 1 course and 2 students.

Student 1 who is very bright and excels in the course:
MP 1 99% = A
MP 2 98.2% = A

Semester 1 grade which appears on the transcript = A

MP3 98.9% = A
MP 4 99.1% = A

Semester 2 grade which appears on the transcript = A

Now, let's review a 2nd student, who is in the same exact class, yet this person is not exceling in the course and so their parents intervene with help, paid tutoring, and extra work...to get their college bound student into the B+ and even A- range.

MP 1 84.5% = B
MP 2 90.1% = A

Take the higher of the two marking period grades and award an A for Semester 1 on the transcript

MP 3 91.2% = A
MP 4 83% = B

Take the higher of the two marking period grades and award an A for Semester 2.

So, we have 2 students applying to the same college. They look very similar, with Semester grades of As for the course.
Yet, in reality, one is a very high earning A student and the second is a solid B student, with a sprinkle of A-.

And, if these is an Honors Course, it's scored the same as an AP grade! Think about the difference between the AP student who got all A's and student#2. Now multiply this calc. over years and years of courses. Your strong, even low, B student just has to break the 90% threshold for 2 marking periods a year to capture the A.

In my opinion, this is grade inflation.

What school is this? This is not at all how our LCPS was. Your final grade was the average of all four quarters (as it should be) and honors classes were only bumped .5 compared to 1.0 for AP. Also kids could only retake if a grade was under 80 and the best they could do is an 80 if they got a 100 on the retake.

Your student B would have a B or a B+ compared to an A+ for student A.

[Anonymous]

I’ll respond to the college comment. What I’ve observed is not that the students are dumber than ever. But rather, they are surprised by the level of effort that they have to put in to get the grade they want. I am very clear in my syllabus. A B is what you earn for meeting the requirements. If you want an A, you have to deliver beyond the requirements. That could be additional analysis, inclusion of alternative perspectives, or tying the assignment into the larger overall topic, or anything else that is beyond the scope. Students seem to believe that if they turn in a document, it should be an A because “they worked hard on it”.

I offer my students a pre-read with comments retuned before the assignment is due. I also offer them 2 additional opportunities to resubmit. This is college. I am not going to address every single item that needs work. I am going to give you guidance and ask questions for you to consider or point out contradictions. I do expect that your paper is grammatically correct and I can follow the flow of your document. If you make the same error throughout your document, I will note it the first time but I expect that you understand you need to correct every subsequent error.

It’s the lack of effort and to a certain degree, the lack of pride in their work that I object to.

Last semester I had a student resubmit rewritten paragraphs. Not rewritten within the context of the original document, just rewritten paragraphs on a piece of paper. When I returned it with a F, her comment was that I didn’t ask for corrections on the other paragraphs and since those were okay, she assumed I would just insert her new paragraphs into her original document. I don’t know if this is lazy or dumb, but I do know I’m not doing your work for you.

[Anonymous]

In MCPS during covid, you automatically earned one grade higher than your grade pre-covid. So if you got a B previously you earned an A. This led to inflated GPAs.

[Anonymous]

Really, it does not.

It definitely does. A student who earns a 79.5 quarter 1 and an 89.5 quarter 2 and therefore earns an A for the semester is NOT the same as a student who earns a 98 each quarter and an A for the semester, but both students have the same grade on their report card.

[Anonymous]

Why would a school take the higher grade as the overall grade? Which school system does that? (Our FCPS school does not do that. Student 2 would have a B in the class.)

MCPS. They also have retests and are not allowed to give final exams, so there is no exam grade to factor in.

[Anonymous]

Have none of you attended school before? Have you had easy teachers, reasonable teachers and teachers that really push you to the limits ?

Think of a school with teachers filled with the latter. They grade essays harder. They have higher standards. You don’t get make up tests if you F up and late work gets a zero. You have pop quizzes

The above is my children’s high school.

They left a school where if they showed up, they basically got an A. And everyone in the class eventually got in A with late work accepted for grade, retakes, redos and very little writing or research. Books selected for reading/analyzing were also not as complex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Why would a school take the higher grade as the overall grade? Which school system does that? (Our FCPS school does not do that. Student 2 would have a B in the class.)

MCPS. They also have retests and are not allowed to give final exams, so there is no exam grade to factor in.

Omg.

My children’s private high school has midterms and final exam week which mirrors how colleges do it. Finals are 20% of grade or more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In MCPS during covid, you automatically earned one grade higher than your grade pre-covid. So if you got a B previously you earned an A. This led to inflated GPAs.

Good lord.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your dd’s b+ in Ap bio equates to a 4.3 on a weighted basis.

And that is why Dean J says they do not go by gpa. The above would be a 3.366 at DC school (yes AP B+).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If more than half the kids in a class get an A, there is grade inflation. And yes, I understand that there is grade inflation everywhere. Everyone gets a trophy.

why? If a teacher teaches well, the kids learn the material, it’s an honors/advanced class with smart motivated kids, why can’t 80% of them earn an A? If they actually earn 90% on tests?

My kids calc bC teacher has 99.9% of students earn a 4 or 5 and about 75% are actual 5s. I’d say they learned the material and deserve As

[Anonymous]

Highly competitive colleges recalculate GPAs, so ya’ll are just spinning yarns for the heck of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your dd’s b+ in Ap bio equates to a 4.3 on a weighted basis.

And that is why Dean J says they do not go by gpa. The above would be a 3.366 at DC school (yes AP B+).

She’s full of sh@t. They almost go strictly by GPA. In-state below a 4.4 minimum forget it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In MCPS during covid, you automatically earned one grade higher than your grade pre-covid. So if you got a B previously you earned an A. This led to inflated GPAs.

Good lord.

how does every MCPS grad not have a 4.0 unweighted? It is almost impossible to not. That district's grading is INSANE.

[Anonymous]

UVA (the school itself) was always known to have grade inflation compared to the other state universities.