is grade deflation really hurting college admissions this year?

[Anonymous]

Are we at a point where we need to seriously consider whether NCS deserves to be Big 3? Maybe it’s time for it to drop a few rungs and make way for the schools that are rising in prestige. Maybe replace it with Basis McLean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are we at a point where we need to seriously consider whether NCS deserves to be Big 3? Maybe it’s time for it to drop a few rungs and make way for the schools that are rising in prestige. Maybe replace it with Basis McLean?

Absolutely. You should get right on that. Please compile a ranking in prestige from 1-20 and present it to the forum so it can be fully debated and voted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are we at a point where we need to seriously consider whether NCS deserves to be Big 3? Maybe it’s time for it to drop a few rungs and make way for the schools that are rising in prestige. Maybe replace it with Basis McLean?

Absolutely. You should get right on that. Please compile a ranking in prestige from 1-20 and present it to the forum so it can be fully debated and voted.

Mkay, how’s this:

1 Sidwell
2 BIM
3 STA
4 GDS
5 Holton
6 NCS
7 Maret
8 St Anselms
9 Georgetown Prep
10 Potomac School
11 Madeira
12 WIS
13 Landon
14 Episcopal
15 SAES
16 Stone Ridge
17 Bullis
18 Visi
19 Gonzaga
20 St John’s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought all of the colleges knew about and respected the rigor of the big 3. Or are publics getting more rigorous and now colleges believe they are comparing apples to apples?

The issue is that raw incoming GPA matters more than before for a lot of colleges because (a) ranking systems (which colleges still care deeply about even though they might moan about them publicly) use incoming GPA in the rankings and (b) the increase in test-optional and no tests considered at all means incoming GPA is much more heavily weighted. Then Covid changed grading substantially in a lot of public schools in particular, leading to these schools where over half the class has 4.0+ and if they even calculate valedictorian (and a lot don’t), there are 100+ of them. Plus, a lot of the public schools have removed any barriers to AP classes, so kids can easily take 10-12 AP classes. Public schools aren’t getting more rigorous (as someone with kids in both, I’d argue the opposite is true), but grade inflation and the impact of the grade inflation has gone up.

Rigor depends on what the student chooses. But, if one child starts Algebra in 6/7 and another in 8/9, one child obviously has a more rigorous education.

yes, but the courses are heavily gate-kept. There is no "choosing" courses at NCS. You can't "choose" to take Algebra in 6th grade. In my daughter's class there was not a single current student who took Algebra 1 before 8th grade. NOT ONE. The school heavily gate keeps the courses. Then about 10 girls were allowed to take geometry before 9th grade in order to accelerate by one grade. You could not petition or beg to be allowed into this cohort. Parents got involved but could not sway the system--the SCHOOL CHOSE. You were either selected or you were not. These 10 girls were allowed to take a summer geometry course (of their own payment) and then were allowed to enroll in Algebra 2 in 9th grade.
Math is the only subject in which girls are accelerated or allowed to choose their classes prior to APs (which have since been eliminated). So there is now really no choice at all except in what subjects one takes as electives but there are not levels of courses with more or less rigor.

No, you also choose the school and if you want more rigor, you choose a more flexible school. That sounds pretty terrible for really smart kids. That doesn't sound like in the girls best interests to make really smart kids wait till 8th for Algebra. Is that for the school's needs or the girls? You have to assume all these girls are very smart to get into that school, so it makes no sense not to offer more. But, we found that pretty typical at most privates when we tried to transfer our child to a private. They said we'd have to hold our child back and they'd have to repeat math, do it privately or pay them extra for a tutor/private class.

Those of us with seniors chose NCS before APs were eliminated, before college admissions went TO, etc. It is an entirely different admissions landscape that our daughters are now trying to navigate. I know intellectually that there are a lot of great colleges that aren’t highly ranked. However, it is hard when you think about that fact that you spent $200,000 on a high school education (which is an unbelievable education!) and your daughter is scoring in the 99% on entrance exams and the best college admit they have is ranked around 150 on USNWR. The lower NCS GPAs are not reflective of their ability, effort and intelligence.

Can we refer back to this thread and this bolded sentence whenever someone says they aren't sending their kids to private schools solely for college admissions? That they don't care where their kids go to college, they just want their kids to have the great private education?

I don't care where my kids go to college but they will go where we can afford which will be a state school as I am not ok with them taking out loans/debt. If we can do more great but I'd rather pay for graduate school. My spouse went to a no name school and has a good career. It really depends on the major.

We go back and forth about transferring to private school. We've done summer private classes and some are good and some, like last summer were the worst we've ever had so I cannot imagine spending $50-60K for that. And, we have the math issue since like those here are saying our child would have to backtrack math and they don't want to and I'd never force them to (nor did I push going this advanced but they choose it).

I want my kids to have a great education, public or private. My concerns with private are college admissions as schools only take in so many students per high school and you are competing against 100-200 or more similar students, some with far more money and connections who will get the edge. Let's be real. In public, you have 600-1000 in a graduating class with a huge mix of students so there is a better chance of getting into a school numbers-wise.

Private to me is better if they have a more formal education with books and textbooks which the public is very much lacking (but the last summer class we took did away with textbooks and it was awful at the private and the private school blew off complaints and didn't do anything so it cost us more money to hire a tutor to get through the class - in hindsight we should have just dropped the class as it was that bad). My child learns better with textbooks and a more formal style. But, the math track is a serious issue. But, after that class my child doesn't want private.

But, really, you are competing against 200 girls who are pretty similar so money, connections, and extra talents/sports will get chosen first.

You send your child to that school as it's a good fit for them and your family and it provides them a good strong high school experience. Not for college admission.

Which school had the terrible summer class and what kind of class was it?

I think this poster is talking about a Landon summer class. They've posted on here before.

It was Landon. Unqualified teacher. It’s a shame. Math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ED admissions has been a disaster for NCS.

Girls aren't even getting into safeties like W&M and GMU.

What the heck is happening?

I think this is a troll bc W&M has only released binding ED admissions. Why would a girl apply binding to her so-called safety? If you are OOS, that is a hard admit generally (and can be hard in-state too).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are we at a point where we need to seriously consider whether NCS deserves to be Big 3? Maybe it’s time for it to drop a few rungs and make way for the schools that are rising in prestige. Maybe replace it with Basis McLean?

Absolutely. You should get right on that. Please compile a ranking in prestige from 1-20 and present it to the forum so it can be fully debated and voted.

Mkay, how’s this:

1 Sidwell
2 BIM
3 STA
4 GDS
5 Holton
6 NCS
7 Maret
8 St Anselms
9 Georgetown Prep
10 Potomac School
11 Madeira
12 WIS
13 Landon
14 Episcopal
15 SAES
16 Stone Ridge
17 Bullis
18 Visi
19 Gonzaga
20 St John’s

Insert Flint Hill ahead of Bullis, BIM is too high, otherwise this is a good list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought all of the colleges knew about and respected the rigor of the big 3. Or are publics getting more rigorous and now colleges believe they are comparing apples to apples?

The issue is that raw incoming GPA matters more than before for a lot of colleges because (a) ranking systems (which colleges still care deeply about even though they might moan about them publicly) use incoming GPA in the rankings and (b) the increase in test-optional and no tests considered at all means incoming GPA is much more heavily weighted. Then Covid changed grading substantially in a lot of public schools in particular, leading to these schools where over half the class has 4.0+ and if they even calculate valedictorian (and a lot don’t), there are 100+ of them. Plus, a lot of the public schools have removed any barriers to AP classes, so kids can easily take 10-12 AP classes. Public schools aren’t getting more rigorous (as someone with kids in both, I’d argue the opposite is true), but grade inflation and the impact of the grade inflation has gone up.

Rigor depends on what the student chooses. But, if one child starts Algebra in 6/7 and another in 8/9, one child obviously has a more rigorous education.

yes, but the courses are heavily gate-kept. There is no "choosing" courses at NCS. You can't "choose" to take Algebra in 6th grade. In my daughter's class there was not a single current student who took Algebra 1 before 8th grade. NOT ONE. The school heavily gate keeps the courses. Then about 10 girls were allowed to take geometry before 9th grade in order to accelerate by one grade. You could not petition or beg to be allowed into this cohort. Parents got involved but could not sway the system--the SCHOOL CHOSE. You were either selected or you were not. These 10 girls were allowed to take a summer geometry course (of their own payment) and then were allowed to enroll in Algebra 2 in 9th grade.
Math is the only subject in which girls are accelerated or allowed to choose their classes prior to APs (which have since been eliminated). So there is now really no choice at all except in what subjects one takes as electives but there are not levels of courses with more or less rigor.

No, you also choose the school and if you want more rigor, you choose a more flexible school. That sounds pretty terrible for really smart kids. That doesn't sound like in the girls best interests to make really smart kids wait till 8th for Algebra. Is that for the school's needs or the girls? You have to assume all these girls are very smart to get into that school, so it makes no sense not to offer more. But, we found that pretty typical at most privates when we tried to transfer our child to a private. They said we'd have to hold our child back and they'd have to repeat math, do it privately or pay them extra for a tutor/private class.

Those of us with seniors chose NCS before APs were eliminated, before college admissions went TO, etc. It is an entirely different admissions landscape that our daughters are now trying to navigate. I know intellectually that there are a lot of great colleges that aren’t highly ranked. However, it is hard when you think about that fact that you spent $200,000 on a high school education (which is an unbelievable education!) and your daughter is scoring in the 99% on entrance exams and the best college admit they have is ranked around 150 on USNWR. The lower NCS GPAs are not reflective of their ability, effort and intelligence.

Can we refer back to this thread and this bolded sentence whenever someone says they aren't sending their kids to private schools solely for college admissions? That they don't care where their kids go to college, they just want their kids to have the great private education?

Are you always unable to distinguish between one person and multiple people? That’s an unfortunate lack of sophisticated thought processes.

Right - I’m sure you would be fine with your 1500 SAT kid attending Ole Miss.

Ole Miss, no as I will not let my kid go down south but I want them at our state school so we can comfortably afford college and graduate school and hopefully help them with their first car and possibly house. Nothing special about the Ivy's except if you are big law, business or medicine.

I'm curious why can't your kid go down south? I'm pretty sure Emory, Tulane, Vandy, etc. are all in the south. Seems pretty narrow minded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought all of the colleges knew about and respected the rigor of the big 3. Or are publics getting more rigorous and now colleges believe they are comparing apples to apples?

The issue is that raw incoming GPA matters more than before for a lot of colleges because (a) ranking systems (which colleges still care deeply about even though they might moan about them publicly) use incoming GPA in the rankings and (b) the increase in test-optional and no tests considered at all means incoming GPA is much more heavily weighted. Then Covid changed grading substantially in a lot of public schools in particular, leading to these schools where over half the class has 4.0+ and if they even calculate valedictorian (and a lot don’t), there are 100+ of them. Plus, a lot of the public schools have removed any barriers to AP classes, so kids can easily take 10-12 AP classes. Public schools aren’t getting more rigorous (as someone with kids in both, I’d argue the opposite is true), but grade inflation and the impact of the grade inflation has gone up.

Rigor depends on what the student chooses. But, if one child starts Algebra in 6/7 and another in 8/9, one child obviously has a more rigorous education.

yes, but the courses are heavily gate-kept. There is no "choosing" courses at NCS. You can't "choose" to take Algebra in 6th grade. In my daughter's class there was not a single current student who took Algebra 1 before 8th grade. NOT ONE. The school heavily gate keeps the courses. Then about 10 girls were allowed to take geometry before 9th grade in order to accelerate by one grade. You could not petition or beg to be allowed into this cohort. Parents got involved but could not sway the system--the SCHOOL CHOSE. You were either selected or you were not. These 10 girls were allowed to take a summer geometry course (of their own payment) and then were allowed to enroll in Algebra 2 in 9th grade.
Math is the only subject in which girls are accelerated or allowed to choose their classes prior to APs (which have since been eliminated). So there is now really no choice at all except in what subjects one takes as electives but there are not levels of courses with more or less rigor.

No, you also choose the school and if you want more rigor, you choose a more flexible school. That sounds pretty terrible for really smart kids. That doesn't sound like in the girls best interests to make really smart kids wait till 8th for Algebra. Is that for the school's needs or the girls? You have to assume all these girls are very smart to get into that school, so it makes no sense not to offer more. But, we found that pretty typical at most privates when we tried to transfer our child to a private. They said we'd have to hold our child back and they'd have to repeat math, do it privately or pay them extra for a tutor/private class.

Those of us with seniors chose NCS before APs were eliminated, before college admissions went TO, etc. It is an entirely different admissions landscape that our daughters are now trying to navigate. I know intellectually that there are a lot of great colleges that aren’t highly ranked. However, it is hard when you think about that fact that you spent $200,000 on a high school education (which is an unbelievable education!) and your daughter is scoring in the 99% on entrance exams and the best college admit they have is ranked around 150 on USNWR. The lower NCS GPAs are not reflective of their ability, effort and intelligence.

Can we refer back to this thread and this bolded sentence whenever someone says they aren't sending their kids to private schools solely for college admissions? That they don't care where their kids go to college, they just want their kids to have the great private education?

Are you always unable to distinguish between one person and multiple people? That’s an unfortunate lack of sophisticated thought processes.

Right - I’m sure you would be fine with your 1500 SAT kid attending Ole Miss.

Ole Miss, no as I will not let my kid go down south but I want them at our state school so we can comfortably afford college and graduate school and hopefully help them with their first car and possibly house. Nothing special about the Ivy's except if you are big law, business or medicine.

I'm curious why can't your kid go down south? I'm pretty sure Emory, Tulane, Vandy, etc. are all in the south. Seems pretty narrow minded.

No, maybe Vandy but we could not afford it so it’s not one we’d consider.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing to note is that massive grade inflation hurts a lot of kids as well in some universities because the applicants are essentially indistinguishable. So for some schools, yes, the lack of grade inflation hurts. But for other schools, grade inflation hurts. It’s a mixed bag.

I agree that grade inflation hurts the top kids. I've seen this happen at Jackson Reed (Wilson). There are so many kids with top grades that it's really hard to get to distinguish oneself and almost all the kids going top 20 schools have another hook (whereas 5 years ago when grade inflation was not as extreme, top grades were enough). But the Wilson kids don't seem to have any difficulty getting into schools in the 20-100 range. They have a 4.3 or 4.4+---they find plenty of schools that are very happy to admit them. Very different from trying to find a spot that will take a 3.2 from NCS.

You have to also look at numbers for the graduating class. Big difference with a class of 500-1000 vs 100-200. Colleges will not take all kids from just one school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing to note is that massive grade inflation hurts a lot of kids as well in some universities because the applicants are essentially indistinguishable. So for some schools, yes, the lack of grade inflation hurts. But for other schools, grade inflation hurts. It’s a mixed bag.

I agree that grade inflation hurts the top kids. I've seen this happen at Jackson Reed (Wilson). There are so many kids with top grades that it's really hard to get to distinguish oneself and almost all the kids going top 20 schools have another hook (whereas 5 years ago when grade inflation was not as extreme, top grades were enough). But the Wilson kids don't seem to have any difficulty getting into schools in the 20-100 range. They have a 4.3 or 4.4+---they find plenty of schools that are very happy to admit them. Very different from trying to find a spot that will take a 3.2 from NCS.

NCS grads with a 3.2 are often still going to top schools. Look at last years list of colleges they are now at attending. Top liberal arts and top universities. They have the most graduates going to ivies in the DMV percentage wise of their class. STA is close behind them and also did well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED admissions has been a disaster for NCS.

Girls aren't even getting into safeties like W&M and GMU.

What the heck is happening?

I think this is a troll bc W&M has only released binding ED admissions. Why would a girl apply binding to her so-called safety? If you are OOS, that is a hard admit generally (and can be hard in-state too).

They are a total troll - I think they are the basis McLean poster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are we at a point where we need to seriously consider whether NCS deserves to be Big 3? Maybe it’s time for it to drop a few rungs and make way for the schools that are rising in prestige. Maybe replace it with Basis McLean?

Basis McLean is not in the same sentence as being prestigious. I am sorry but most parents at the top DC schools would never even consider that school. It takes more than academics to provide a good school experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are we at a point where we need to seriously consider whether NCS deserves to be Big 3? Maybe it’s time for it to drop a few rungs and make way for the schools that are rising in prestige. Maybe replace it with Basis McLean?

Yes. NCS is on the decline.

[Anonymous]

NCS is a phenomenal school. Excellent teachers, extremely bright girls. You won't find a school with a better faculty, curriculum or student body. These girls go on to be the top of their class in universities. It's time to stop with the grade deflation. The deflation is much more extreme than its brother school St. Alban's. Not even close. T

[Anonymous]

NCS provides an incredible education--it's classes are on par with those I took at a top college. It's just it's grading that needs to rise to the year 2022.
It no longer works to graduate half of your class with a sub 3.4 GPA.