Gpa and variance in grading?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do colleges account for this? Same high school may have two teachers teaching the same subject who grade very differently.

bottom line is they do not account for it.
my Ds moved from Whitman where he was getting 100% in his 10th grade Honors English. We moved to CA where his teacher was giving him 91% and calling it a B because she had the latitude to define where A grades started and ended. I raised this as a query with the counselor who was befuddled and had no reply and then the principal told me according to law, CA teachers can do this at will.

so there's no accounting for this in my kid's end results, he was a straight A student with a B for 1 semester. the colleges don't know and don't care how he got that grade.

Oh this is interesting. We’re in CA too, and my kid has claimed the teachers can determine this, which surprised me (I didn’t believe it actually). I would think each school would have a policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges get a sheet from the high schools that tells them things like the breakdown of grades over the senior class...like % of 4.5 % over 4.0 etc. It tells them which schools have lots of grade inflation and which do not. They know that MCPS is basically out of 5 with huge numbers of kids have over 4.0 and 4.5

This isn’t true when kids couldn’t possibly take every class as a highest possible of a 5
Again misinformation

Oh, in MCPS, it’s entirely possible. My junior is on track to have only two unweighted classes in their entire HS career: freshman PE, and an entry-level music ensemble.

After that, their audition-only music ensemble was counted as “honors,” they took honors health over the summer, and used AP Computer Science Principles for the required tech credit. Everything else is either Honors, AP, or IB, which are all weighted equally at 5.0. Started junior year with a 4.85 weighted, will probably be 4.9 by the end of this year.

But it would actually be possible to go ever higher. Mine took 2 semesters of unweighted PE when only one was required, and there are a handful of honors options (like the audition-only ensembles) that satisfy the fine arts requirement. You could really have all but that one semester of PE weighted, if you planned carefully.

Hopefully, admissions officers will take a closer look at the transcript and see that my kid did take every AP and IB option their school offered and got As in them, and that their ridiculous weighted GPA isn’t only due to the MCPS honors-for-all bump. They also have a 3.97 unweighted, which should also help. But yeah, it’s ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do colleges account for this? Same high school may have two teachers teaching the same subject who grade very differently.

bottom line is they do not account for it.
my Ds moved from Whitman where he was getting 100% in his 10th grade Honors English. We moved to CA where his teacher was giving him 91% and calling it a B because she had the latitude to define where A grades started and ended. I raised this as a query with the counselor who was befuddled and had no reply and then the principal told me according to law, CA teachers can do this at will.

so there's no accounting for this in my kid's end results, he was a straight A student with a B for 1 semester. the colleges don't know and don't care how he got that grade.

This is the kind of thing to put in that additional information section of the common application.

At the verry end and there’s a box asking if there’s anything else you wish to disclose or explain. Very specific grade in a class would make sense there.

Yes if it had greater impact on him, his transcript etc. It doesn't. He still got an A grade at the end of the year and a bump for the honors. So it's not worth mentioning at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Counselors clue them in sometimes.

The counselor letter is literally the most important thing.

Absolutely frightening if your kid attends a large, high performing public high school where most of the students couldn't pick out their counselor in a police lineup.

So true. Wish these letters weren’t a thing.

[Anonymous]

I think it's more about comparing students within the same school, especially if the college typically takes students from the school. For example, every year Yale may accept 1-2 students from that school. in this case, it's just a matter of looking at the pool of applicants from the school and picking the 1-2 strongest.

I think in undergrad this is also how law school admissions work. Basically you're competing more with the students from your own school than students from other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's more about comparing students within the same school, especially if the college typically takes students from the school. For example, every year Yale may accept 1-2 students from that school. in this case, it's just a matter of looking at the pool of applicants from the school and picking the 1-2 strongest.

Many elite schools only get 1 or 2 apps from a particular high school.

Anonymous wrote:I think in undergrad this is also how law school admissions work. Basically you're competing more with the students from your own school than students from other schools.

No, that's not how law school admissions work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's more about comparing students within the same school, especially if the college typically takes students from the school. For example, every year Yale may accept 1-2 students from that school. in this case, it's just a matter of looking at the pool of applicants from the school and picking the 1-2 strongest.

Many elite schools only get 1 or 2 apps from a particular high school.

Um no--elite schools get tons of apps from competitive DMV high schools.

Anonymous wrote:I think in undergrad this is also how law school admissions work. Basically you're competing more with the students from your own school than students from other schools.

No, that's not how law school admissions work.

[Anonymous]

Many elite schools only get 1 or 2 apps from a particular high school.

Not if you go to an elite high school.

No, that's not how law school admissions work.

I have been through the process, LSAC literally compiles a profile on you in which they give the law schools your percentile in terms of LSAT score and GPA amongst applicants from your college. Above certain GPA and LSAT cutoffs, your primary competitors are within your own school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges get a sheet from the high schools that tells them things like the breakdown of grades over the senior class...like % of 4.5 % over 4.0 etc. It tells them which schools have lots of grade inflation and which do not. They know that MCPS is basically out of 5 with huge numbers of kids have over 4.0 and 4.5

It also has a breakdown of AP exams scores so they can get a feel of the teaching quality..

This is not true at all schools. My DC’s private school doesn’t give any break down of gpa range or grades at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Many elite schools only get 1 or 2 apps from a particular high school.

Not if you go to an elite high school.

No, that's not how law school admissions work.

I have been through the process, LSAC literally compiles a profile on you in which they give the law schools your percentile in terms of LSAT score and GPA amongst applicants from your college. Above certain GPA and LSAT cutoffs, your primary competitors are within your own school.

You could have the lowest college GPA and LSAT from your college and still be competitive for T14s. (As well as the converse, the highest college GPA and LSAT from your college and still not be competitive.)

--also been through the process

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's more about comparing students within the same school, especially if the college typically takes students from the school. For example, every year Yale may accept 1-2 students from that school. in this case, it's just a matter of looking at the pool of applicants from the school and picking the 1-2 strongest.

I think in undergrad this is also how law school admissions work. Basically you're competing more with the students from your own school than students from other schools.

And some years not choosing one or two at all, but rejecting them all. My kids are at a Los Angeles public high school and while their school profile has admits to Brown, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford etc etc they do not happen every single year and they do not always mean more than a single acceptance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have to believe it evens out in the end for each student. One semester you may have the harsh grader and then another you have a gentler grader. So, I feel like in even in MCPS it is extremely difficult to have a perfect 4.0 (at least at our school and if taking the most challenging classes).

Kids change teachers each semester? My junior has never had a class that wasn't a year with the same teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to believe it evens out in the end for each student. One semester you may have the harsh grader and then another you have a gentler grader. So, I feel like in even in MCPS it is extremely difficult to have a perfect 4.0 (at least at our school and if taking the most challenging classes).

Kids change teachers each semester? My junior has never had a class that wasn't a year with the same teacher.

Whitman changes each semester for English, Math, Social Studies, Science. Rarely for languages as there's sometimes only 1 teacher. In our experience you'd get a bad teacher 1 semester and a good one the next. I am guessing it's a way of dampening down the parental complaints.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do colleges account for this? Same high school may have two teachers teaching the same subject who grade very differently.

They don't. It just averages out over 28+ courses throughout high school. Oh, they used to mandate something called standardized tests that helped with this problem until the woke crowd got their hands on it.. but, such is life..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges get a sheet from the high schools that tells them things like the breakdown of grades over the senior class...like % of 4.5 % over 4.0 etc. It tells them which schools have lots of grade inflation and which do not. They know that MCPS is basically out of 5 with huge numbers of kids have over 4.0 and 4.5

This isn’t true when kids couldn’t possibly take every class as a highest possible of a 5
Again misinformation

Oh, in MCPS, it’s entirely possible. My junior is on track to have only two unweighted classes in their entire HS career: freshman PE, and an entry-level music ensemble.

After that, their audition-only music ensemble was counted as “honors,” they took honors health over the summer, and used AP Computer Science Principles for the required tech credit. Everything else is either Honors, AP, or IB, which are all weighted equally at 5.0. Started junior year with a 4.85 weighted, will probably be 4.9 by the end of this year.

But it would actually be possible to go ever higher. Mine took 2 semesters of unweighted PE when only one was required, and there are a handful of honors options (like the audition-only ensembles) that satisfy the fine arts requirement. You could really have all but that one semester of PE weighted, if you planned carefully.

Hopefully, admissions officers will take a closer look at the transcript and see that my kid did take every AP and IB option their school offered and got As in them, and that their ridiculous weighted GPA isn’t only due to the MCPS honors-for-all bump. They also have a 3.97 unweighted, which should also help. But yeah, it’s ridiculous.

My DD got to take Honors Chorus because she sang in middle school no audition or anything. Her only class out of 4 was PE. She got 1 B in math freshman year s she graduated with a 4.88 or something. She worked for that in a magnet and some luck of course too but pretty close to a 5.