Farewell, Class Rank. Hello, Rank Optional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because how can everyone get a medal if there are rankings?

The issue with rank on the basis of GPA is that (1) there are meaningful differences from school to school, such that a kid outside the Top 10 at a very high performing school deserves the medal over the literally hundreds of thousands of Top 10 kids at lesser performing schools; (2) there are meaningful differences in rigor and grading within schools, as well as minor differences in GPAs, such that a kid outside the Top 10 at any school might very well deserve the medal over many of the kids ahead of them
at the Top 10 at that school; and (3) GPAs can be distorted by the extent of a kid’s engagement and relationship with instructors (subjective grading), as well as a number of other factors.

But most importantly, nobody has a right to play the “everyone gets a trophy” card if they also oppose standardized testing.

I’m the PP and I’m very much in favor of standardized testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this a magnet school or a boundary school. If the former, then class rank is not good, because all the kids are supposedly amazing.

School district with approx. 9,000 students in the 9 - 12 grades and four school sites, all of which are open to any student in the district boundaries (subject to lottery in the event of imbalance). But to your point, the school in question is operated as a 4x4, highly rigorous academy (e.g., over 4,600 AP exams were administered this past May) and for that reason, it's akin to a magnet school. Around 60 NMSFs this year in a senior class of roughly 525, which is consistent with past years.

I LOL’d when I got to 4,600 AP exams and the NMSFs. The College Board is selling all that data to the colleges. Instead of rank they will use deviation from the mean.

Oh thank goodness! So standardized testing is not only alive and well, it’s actually vanquishing GPA in the admissions calculus?!

As a means of distinguishing among students at the same high school, yes.

As a means of distinguishing between students from different high schools, not so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this a magnet school or a boundary school. If the former, then class rank is not good, because all the kids are supposedly amazing.

School district with approx. 9,000 students in the 9 - 12 grades and four school sites, all of which are open to any student in the district boundaries (subject to lottery in the event of imbalance). But to your point, the school in question is operated as a 4x4, highly rigorous academy (e.g., over 4,600 AP exams were administered this past May) and for that reason, it's akin to a magnet school. Around 60 NMSFs this year in a senior class of roughly 525, which is consistent with past years.

I LOL’d when I got to 4,600 AP exams and the NMSFs. The College Board is selling all that data to the colleges. Instead of rank they will use deviation from the mean.

Oh thank goodness! So standardized testing is not only alive and well, it’s actually vanquishing GPA in the admissions calculus?!

As a means of distinguishing among students at the same high school, yes.

As a means of distinguishing between students from different high schools, not so much.

If the purpose of standardized testing is to measure one's capacity to learn, why not so much? The argument that disparate resources MAY lead to disparate outcomes on a standardized test is hardly convincing evidence that it WILL lead to such outcomes.

More directly, there's zero evidence I'm aware of that the biological factors of cognition are somehow consistently affected by the degree to which an individual has access to resources. In certain extreme cases, sure. But to assume that everyone having access to the exact same resources would lead to a wholesale redistribution of scores requires a suspension of disbelief that I'm unable to summon at this time.

[Anonymous]

Thank progressives for this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank progressives for this.

It’s just class rank redux. Colleges only adopted it because high schools have been strategically hiding useful information, as OP describes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because how can everyone get a medal if there are rankings?

Indeed.

The left keeps pushing “equity of outcomes.”