is grade deflation really hurting college admissions this year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason why colleges and universities have regional admissions representatives - so they are familiar with all the local schools in a certain area.
They understand the difference between NCS, Sidwell, GDS and Whitman, Wilson, TJ, etc.
Even large state schools have regional representatives. I don’t have a daughter at NCS. My kids go to the Potomac school but my feeling is that y’all are whining about nothing. Wait for all the regular decision results to come out and everyone will suddenly be oohing and aahing about the impressive admission results from NCS. This is a familiar pattern on here every year

Newsflash not every college admissions staff person has a lot of experience. Smaller colleges who get few applicants from a particular school need all the help they can get understanding the curriculum. No AP, no SAT, no class rank, no honors makes it pretty hard. All you can offer is "see where prior graduates go? we should get in to your school"

Well, for starters, the private schools decided to get rid of AP classes so that is self inflicted.
Smart of NCS to pause eliminating some AP classes. Guidance counsellors also send a school profile report with every application which helps colleges understand the rigor of the school. Finally, every reputable college and university in the US and internationally is aware of the prestige of NCS. It is hardly an unknown school. The problem is that NCS is a very stressful experience and most girls who graduate from there feel they should be rewarded extrinsically for surviving the school. They are not happy with moving onto Bates which is a great school that most kids would be thrilled to get into. Teenagers need external validation. They don’t fully appreciate or understand the strong educational foundation that NCS has gifted them.

You don’t see these types of posts from St. Albans parents. HS at St Albans is a more fun experience and the boys are less competitive than the NCS students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only rule about grade inflation is that it’s happening at every school but your own kid’s.

What on earth else do you call it when over 50% of a graduating class has above a 4.0 and there are literally hundreds of valedictorians? I’m asking seriously. Do you think that is NOT grade inflation somehow? What else could it be?

Which school?

Arlington public high schools.

[Anonymous]

So send your kid to public school. Problem solved, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason why colleges and universities have regional admissions representatives - so they are familiar with all the local schools in a certain area.
They understand the difference between NCS, Sidwell, GDS and Whitman, Wilson, TJ, etc.
Even large state schools have regional representatives. I don’t have a daughter at NCS. My kids go to the Potomac school but my feeling is that y’all are whining about nothing. Wait for all the regular decision results to come out and everyone will suddenly be oohing and aahing about the impressive admission results from NCS. This is a familiar pattern on here every year

Newsflash not every college admissions staff person has a lot of experience. Smaller colleges who get few applicants from a particular school need all the help they can get understanding the curriculum. No AP, no SAT, no class rank, no honors makes it pretty hard. All you can offer is "see where prior graduates go? we should get in to your school"

This is exactly right. There is lots of turnover in these regional college reps since it’s viewed as a starter job in admissions and with applicants up so much and from a broader array of schools and other institutional mandates to broaden schools fielding applicants, each rep has more schools to cover.

The reality is that some of the SLACs, and a number of the top 30 or so will know local DMV reputations when it comes to inflation/deflation etc but unless they actively try to refresh that knowledge every year, would logic not dictate that with test optional, institutional mandates at many colleges having shifted drastically in the last 5 years towards more diverse applicants, and over-stretched local admissions reps that a weighted 3.7 from NCS or GDS when compared to a 4.3 weighted from any other school at some point is a losing battle?

Admissions slots are basically fixed
Shifting institutional priorities at many schools
Applications keep going up to record levels
High turnover in local admissions reps
Less face time between high school counselors and local reps
And grade deflation at some of the NCS type schools

So what happens is that on the margins (and life is about the margins, right?) that 3.7 kid from NCS or GDS just won’t stack up against the 4.3 kid from elsewhere on just apples to apples.

This doesn’t mean the NCS or GDS kid isn’t going to a good school but it’s yet another reason why lists have “shifted down” in the perception of many parents who send there kids to these places

I’m not upset about it or grumbling but it’s just the facts as they are today. And I don’t see NCS changing this unless dozens of parents complain this year. And reality is that school will point to preparing kids for the future and their reputation with colllege reps but they can’t answer the question behind the question.

At GDS there is apparently one English teacher who refuses to give grades over a B+ to anyone in an upper level class. That’s stated upfront, a bunch of kids end up dropping out of the class etc but lots of kids stay because they feel they are getting college level seminar in that class.

One of my kids has many friends who left private after 8th and went to BCC or Jackson Reed and those who left say that just showing up for class at the other schools and doing care minimum gets you a 4.0. If you actually push hard and hustle, a 4.3-4.6 is easily doable.

[Anonymous]

To people pointing at the school profile PDFs sent to colleges, have any of you actually read these?

The ones I’ve seen for one of the local top 3 schools shows NOTHING about rigor, deflation.

Instead, after 5 years of saying how they were getting rid of APs, and the first full year with no AP at all, the profile for this year sent to colleges right now still shows stats on how many kids took APs and what scores they received.

So there’s your college office being entirely duplicitous. I’m actually kind of shocked that parents have not stormed the office with pitchforks.

And when I’ve told my kid I will complain about this mixed messaging and lack of specificity about median grades or commentary about deflation in some way, my kid has said that parents who complain have kids who get sent (with great subtlety) to the back of the line for help with essays etc.

So the kid has asked me to hold off about complaining until after the office is done with what they need to send for RD cycle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason why colleges and universities have regional admissions representatives - so they are familiar with all the local schools in a certain area.
They understand the difference between NCS, Sidwell, GDS and Whitman, Wilson, TJ, etc.
Even large state schools have regional representatives. I don’t have a daughter at NCS. My kids go to the Potomac school but my feeling is that y’all are whining about nothing. Wait for all the regular decision results to come out and everyone will suddenly be oohing and aahing about the impressive admission results from NCS. This is a familiar pattern on here every year

Newsflash not every college admissions staff person has a lot of experience. Smaller colleges who get few applicants from a particular school need all the help they can get understanding the curriculum. No AP, no SAT, no class rank, no honors makes it pretty hard. All you can offer is "see where prior graduates go? we should get in to your school"

This is exactly right. There is lots of turnover in these regional college reps since it’s viewed as a starter job in admissions and with applicants up so much and from a broader array of schools and other institutional mandates to broaden schools fielding applicants, each rep has more schools to cover.

The reality is that some of the SLACs, and a number of the top 30 or so will know local DMV reputations when it comes to inflation/deflation etc but unless they actively try to refresh that knowledge every year, would logic not dictate that with test optional, institutional mandates at many colleges having shifted drastically in the last 5 years towards more diverse applicants, and over-stretched local admissions reps that a weighted 3.7 from NCS or GDS when compared to a 4.3 weighted from any other school at some point is a losing battle?

Admissions slots are basically fixed
Shifting institutional priorities at many schools
Applications keep going up to record levels
High turnover in local admissions reps
Less face time between high school counselors and local reps
And grade deflation at some of the NCS type schools

So what happens is that on the margins (and life is about the margins, right?) that 3.7 kid from NCS or GDS just won’t stack up against the 4.3 kid from elsewhere on just apples to apples.

This doesn’t mean the NCS or GDS kid isn’t going to a good school but it’s yet another reason why lists have “shifted down” in the perception of many parents who send there kids to these places

I’m not upset about it or grumbling but it’s just the facts as they are today. And I don’t see NCS changing this unless dozens of parents complain this year. And reality is that school will point to preparing kids for the future and their reputation with colllege reps but they can’t answer the question behind the question.

At GDS there is apparently one English teacher who refuses to give grades over a B+ to anyone in an upper level class. That’s stated upfront, a bunch of kids end up dropping out of the class etc but lots of kids stay because they feel they are getting college level seminar in that class.

One of my kids has many friends who left private after 8th and went to BCC or Jackson Reed and those who left say that just showing up for class at the other schools and doing care minimum gets you a 4.0. If you actually push hard and hustle, a 4.3-4.6 is easily doable.

So, in other words, it isn't "grade deflation" in private schools that is the problem. It's the grade inflation in public schools that is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason why colleges and universities have regional admissions representatives - so they are familiar with all the local schools in a certain area.
They understand the difference between NCS, Sidwell, GDS and Whitman, Wilson, TJ, etc.
Even large state schools have regional representatives. I don’t have a daughter at NCS. My kids go to the Potomac school but my feeling is that y’all are whining about nothing. Wait for all the regular decision results to come out and everyone will suddenly be oohing and aahing about the impressive admission results from NCS. This is a familiar pattern on here every year

Newsflash not every college admissions staff person has a lot of experience. Smaller colleges who get few applicants from a particular school need all the help they can get understanding the curriculum. No AP, no SAT, no class rank, no honors makes it pretty hard. All you can offer is "see where prior graduates go? we should get in to your school"

This is exactly right. There is lots of turnover in these regional college reps since it’s viewed as a starter job in admissions and with applicants up so much and from a broader array of schools and other institutional mandates to broaden schools fielding applicants, each rep has more schools to cover.

The reality is that some of the SLACs, and a number of the top 30 or so will know local DMV reputations when it comes to inflation/deflation etc but unless they actively try to refresh that knowledge every year, would logic not dictate that with test optional, institutional mandates at many colleges having shifted drastically in the last 5 years towards more diverse applicants, and over-stretched local admissions reps that a weighted 3.7 from NCS or GDS when compared to a 4.3 weighted from any other school at some point is a losing battle?

Admissions slots are basically fixed
Shifting institutional priorities at many schools
Applications keep going up to record levels
High turnover in local admissions reps
Less face time between high school counselors and local reps
And grade deflation at some of the NCS type schools

So what happens is that on the margins (and life is about the margins, right?) that 3.7 kid from NCS or GDS just won’t stack up against the 4.3 kid from elsewhere on just apples to apples.

This doesn’t mean the NCS or GDS kid isn’t going to a good school but it’s yet another reason why lists have “shifted down” in the perception of many parents who send there kids to these places

I’m not upset about it or grumbling but it’s just the facts as they are today. And I don’t see NCS changing this unless dozens of parents complain this year. And reality is that school will point to preparing kids for the future and their reputation with colllege reps but they can’t answer the question behind the question.

At GDS there is apparently one English teacher who refuses to give grades over a B+ to anyone in an upper level class. That’s stated upfront, a bunch of kids end up dropping out of the class etc but lots of kids stay because they feel they are getting college level seminar in that class.

One of my kids has many friends who left private after 8th and went to BCC or Jackson Reed and those who left say that just showing up for class at the other schools and doing care minimum gets you a 4.0. If you actually push hard and hustle, a 4.3-4.6 is easily doable.

So, in other words, it isn't "grade deflation" in private schools that is the problem. It's the grade inflation in public schools that is.

This. A scale is way messed up when a lot of people are crammed at the top and, worse, beyond the top of the scale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason why colleges and universities have regional admissions representatives - so they are familiar with all the local schools in a certain area.
They understand the difference between NCS, Sidwell, GDS and Whitman, Wilson, TJ, etc.
Even large state schools have regional representatives. I don’t have a daughter at NCS. My kids go to the Potomac school but my feeling is that y’all are whining about nothing. Wait for all the regular decision results to come out and everyone will suddenly be oohing and aahing about the impressive admission results from NCS. This is a familiar pattern on here every year

Newsflash not every college admissions staff person has a lot of experience. Smaller colleges who get few applicants from a particular school need all the help they can get understanding the curriculum. No AP, no SAT, no class rank, no honors makes it pretty hard. All you can offer is "see where prior graduates go? we should get in to your school"

This is exactly right. There is lots of turnover in these regional college reps since it’s viewed as a starter job in admissions and with applicants up so much and from a broader array of schools and other institutional mandates to broaden schools fielding applicants, each rep has more schools to cover.

The reality is that some of the SLACs, and a number of the top 30 or so will know local DMV reputations when it comes to inflation/deflation etc but unless they actively try to refresh that knowledge every year, would logic not dictate that with test optional, institutional mandates at many colleges having shifted drastically in the last 5 years towards more diverse applicants, and over-stretched local admissions reps that a weighted 3.7 from NCS or GDS when compared to a 4.3 weighted from any other school at some point is a losing battle?

Admissions slots are basically fixed
Shifting institutional priorities at many schools
Applications keep going up to record levels
High turnover in local admissions reps
Less face time between high school counselors and local reps
And grade deflation at some of the NCS type schools

So what happens is that on the margins (and life is about the margins, right?) that 3.7 kid from NCS or GDS just won’t stack up against the 4.3 kid from elsewhere on just apples to apples.

This doesn’t mean the NCS or GDS kid isn’t going to a good school but it’s yet another reason why lists have “shifted down” in the perception of many parents who send there kids to these places

I’m not upset about it or grumbling but it’s just the facts as they are today. And I don’t see NCS changing this unless dozens of parents complain this year. And reality is that school will point to preparing kids for the future and their reputation with colllege reps but they can’t answer the question behind the question.

At GDS there is apparently one English teacher who refuses to give grades over a B+ to anyone in an upper level class. That’s stated upfront, a bunch of kids end up dropping out of the class etc but lots of kids stay because they feel they are getting college level seminar in that class.

One of my kids has many friends who left private after 8th and went to BCC or Jackson Reed and those who left say that just showing up for class at the other schools and doing care minimum gets you a 4.0. If you actually push hard and hustle, a 4.3-4.6 is easily doable.

So, in other words, it isn't "grade deflation" in private schools that is the problem. It's the grade inflation in public schools that is.

This. A scale is way messed up when a lot of people are crammed at the top and, worse, beyond the top of the scale.

No, the problem is the exclusivity of private schools. Only 6% of students at JR have an unweighted 4.0. Meanwhile 33% of JR students have below a 3.0, and 14% have below a 2.0. That’s hardly a school where everyone is “crammed at the top.”

One big reason people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to NCS is to keep their daughters far away from the kids who make up the bottom of the class at JR. (Just read some of the comments in this thread!) But the flip side is, while the bottom third of the class at JR is not applying to selective colleges, the bottom third of the class at NCS is.

If NCS is going to grade on the same curve as JR, so that the bottom third of the class graduates with a GPA below 3.0, they need to find some way to convince selective colleges that those low grades are consistent with the ability to do college-level work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only rule about grade inflation is that it’s happening at every school but your own kid’s.

What on earth else do you call it when over 50% of a graduating class has above a 4.0 and there are literally hundreds of valedictorians? I’m asking seriously. Do you think that is NOT grade inflation somehow? What else could it be?

Which school?

Does it matter? Can you answer the question asked? What do you call it when a significant portion of the graduating class is above a 4.0? Is it not grade inflation? What else do you call that?

I’d call it a weighted GPA, actually. I’d reserve “grade inflation” for when the school curves to an A- instead of a B. Conflating these two things is leading you into a lot of analytic confusion.

Wow. That’s some insane rationalization. You’ll tell yourself anything, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only rule about grade inflation is that it’s happening at every school but your own kid’s.

What on earth else do you call it when over 50% of a graduating class has above a 4.0 and there are literally hundreds of valedictorians? I’m asking seriously. Do you think that is NOT grade inflation somehow? What else could it be?

Which school?

Does it matter? Can you answer the question asked? What do you call it when a significant portion of the graduating class is above a 4.0? Is it not grade inflation? What else do you call that?

I’d call it your fever dream and your pathetic excuse for why your kid got rejected from UVA.

Funny. Desperate to avoid reality, I see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only rule about grade inflation is that it’s happening at every school but your own kid’s.

What on earth else do you call it when over 50% of a graduating class has above a 4.0 and there are literally hundreds of valedictorians? I’m asking seriously. Do you think that is NOT grade inflation somehow? What else could it be?

Which school?

Does it matter? Can you answer the question asked? What do you call it when a significant portion of the graduating class is above a 4.0? Is it not grade inflation? What else do you call that?

I’d call it a weighted GPA, actually. I’d reserve “grade inflation” for when the school curves to an A- instead of a B. Conflating these two things is leading you into a lot of analytic confusion.

Wow. That’s some insane rationalization. You’ll tell yourself anything, I guess.

The terms “weighted GPA” and “unweighted GPA” are widely used in the college admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only rule about grade inflation is that it’s happening at every school but your own kid’s.

What on earth else do you call it when over 50% of a graduating class has above a 4.0 and there are literally hundreds of valedictorians? I’m asking seriously. Do you think that is NOT grade inflation somehow? What else could it be?

Which school?

Does it matter? Can you answer the question asked? What do you call it when a significant portion of the graduating class is above a 4.0? Is it not grade inflation? What else do you call that?

I’d call it a weighted GPA, actually. I’d reserve “grade inflation” for when the school curves to an A- instead of a B. Conflating these two things is leading you into a lot of analytic confusion.

Wow. That’s some insane rationalization. You’ll tell yourself anything, I guess.

The terms “weighted GPA” and “unweighted GPA” are widely used in the college admissions.

Yes, but unfortunately you don’t seem to understand how that works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So send your kid to public school. Problem solved, right?

I know you are trying for a snarky gotcha but as a parent with kids in both, no, there is a serious problem for kids in public too, just in the opposite direction. There are so many kids with identical highly ranked GPAs that admissions for them is essentially a lottery. If there are 500 kids in the senior class with weighted GPAs of 4.5 and above, competitive schools could essentially take all 500 in numbers alone, but of course they can’t. Now multiply that across all high schools in the country with hundreds of kids per school with close to 5.0 weighted GPAs. They are indistinguishable for the most part. It means they end up applying to 20-30 schools, hoping their application gets picked in the admissions lottery. Some kids win, some lose, but it doesn’t seem directly correlated to effort or talent.

I think you have to be willfully blind to not see just how inflated the GPAs are in a lot of public schools these post-Covid days, and how much that hurts those kids, particularly the driven and high-achieving ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason why colleges and universities have regional admissions representatives - so they are familiar with all the local schools in a certain area.
They understand the difference between NCS, Sidwell, GDS and Whitman, Wilson, TJ, etc.
Even large state schools have regional representatives. I don’t have a daughter at NCS. My kids go to the Potomac school but my feeling is that y’all are whining about nothing. Wait for all the regular decision results to come out and everyone will suddenly be oohing and aahing about the impressive admission results from NCS. This is a familiar pattern on here every year

Newsflash not every college admissions staff person has a lot of experience. Smaller colleges who get few applicants from a particular school need all the help they can get understanding the curriculum. No AP, no SAT, no class rank, no honors makes it pretty hard. All you can offer is "see where prior graduates go? we should get in to your school"

This is exactly right. There is lots of turnover in these regional college reps since it’s viewed as a starter job in admissions and with applicants up so much and from a broader array of schools and other institutional mandates to broaden schools fielding applicants, each rep has more schools to cover.

The reality is that some of the SLACs, and a number of the top 30 or so will know local DMV reputations when it comes to inflation/deflation etc but unless they actively try to refresh that knowledge every year, would logic not dictate that with test optional, institutional mandates at many colleges having shifted drastically in the last 5 years towards more diverse applicants, and over-stretched local admissions reps that a weighted 3.7 from NCS or GDS when compared to a 4.3 weighted from any other school at some point is a losing battle?

Admissions slots are basically fixed
Shifting institutional priorities at many schools
Applications keep going up to record levels
High turnover in local admissions reps
Less face time between high school counselors and local reps
And grade deflation at some of the NCS type schools

So what happens is that on the margins (and life is about the margins, right?) that 3.7 kid from NCS or GDS just won’t stack up against the 4.3 kid from elsewhere on just apples to apples.

This doesn’t mean the NCS or GDS kid isn’t going to a good school but it’s yet another reason why lists have “shifted down” in the perception of many parents who send there kids to these places

I’m not upset about it or grumbling but it’s just the facts as they are today. And I don’t see NCS changing this unless dozens of parents complain this year. And reality is that school will point to preparing kids for the future and their reputation with colllege reps but they can’t answer the question behind the question.

At GDS there is apparently one English teacher who refuses to give grades over a B+ to anyone in an upper level class. That’s stated upfront, a bunch of kids end up dropping out of the class etc but lots of kids stay because they feel they are getting college level seminar in that class.

One of my kids has many friends who left private after 8th and went to BCC or Jackson Reed and those who left say that just showing up for class at the other schools and doing care minimum gets you a 4.0. If you actually push hard and hustle, a 4.3-4.6 is easily doable.

So, in other words, it isn't "grade deflation" in private schools that is the problem. It's the grade inflation in public schools that is.

This. A scale is way messed up when a lot of people are crammed at the top and, worse, beyond the top of the scale.

No, the problem is the exclusivity of private schools. Only 6% of students at JR have an unweighted 4.0. Meanwhile 33% of JR students have below a 3.0, and 14% have below a 2.0. That’s hardly a school where everyone is “crammed at the top.”

One big reason people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to NCS is to keep their daughters far away from the kids who make up the bottom of the class at JR. (Just read some of the comments in this thread!) But the flip side is, while the bottom third of the class at JR is not applying to selective colleges, the bottom third of the class at NCS is.

If NCS is going to grade on the same curve as JR, so that the bottom third of the class graduates with a GPA below 3.0, they need to find some way to convince selective colleges that those low grades are consistent with the ability to do college-level work.

So the poster above who was claiming that you literally just have to show up to class to get a 4.0 is full of BS.
My kids are in private. We can afford it and they are getting a solid education but I have to say what I can’t stand about private school is the large number of entitled parents and students. Even at GDS, where folks are more self aware than many other schools, there is a distinct air of exclusivity and the feeling that our kids are getting screwed over by the college process. All our kids have had access to the best resources practically in the world. Of course, they should be held to a higher standard than public school kids. And our kids will do great in life. Just don’t get obsessed with one particular college or university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason why colleges and universities have regional admissions representatives - so they are familiar with all the local schools in a certain area.
They understand the difference between NCS, Sidwell, GDS and Whitman, Wilson, TJ, etc.
Even large state schools have regional representatives. I don’t have a daughter at NCS. My kids go to the Potomac school but my feeling is that y’all are whining about nothing. Wait for all the regular decision results to come out and everyone will suddenly be oohing and aahing about the impressive admission results from NCS. This is a familiar pattern on here every year

Newsflash not every college admissions staff person has a lot of experience. Smaller colleges who get few applicants from a particular school need all the help they can get understanding the curriculum. No AP, no SAT, no class rank, no honors makes it pretty hard. All you can offer is "see where prior graduates go? we should get in to your school"

This is exactly right. There is lots of turnover in these regional college reps since it’s viewed as a starter job in admissions and with applicants up so much and from a broader array of schools and other institutional mandates to broaden schools fielding applicants, each rep has more schools to cover.

The reality is that some of the SLACs, and a number of the top 30 or so will know local DMV reputations when it comes to inflation/deflation etc but unless they actively try to refresh that knowledge every year, would logic not dictate that with test optional, institutional mandates at many colleges having shifted drastically in the last 5 years towards more diverse applicants, and over-stretched local admissions reps that a weighted 3.7 from NCS or GDS when compared to a 4.3 weighted from any other school at some point is a losing battle?

Admissions slots are basically fixed
Shifting institutional priorities at many schools
Applications keep going up to record levels
High turnover in local admissions reps
Less face time between high school counselors and local reps
And grade deflation at some of the NCS type schools

So what happens is that on the margins (and life is about the margins, right?) that 3.7 kid from NCS or GDS just won’t stack up against the 4.3 kid from elsewhere on just apples to apples.

This doesn’t mean the NCS or GDS kid isn’t going to a good school but it’s yet another reason why lists have “shifted down” in the perception of many parents who send there kids to these places

I’m not upset about it or grumbling but it’s just the facts as they are today. And I don’t see NCS changing this unless dozens of parents complain this year. And reality is that school will point to preparing kids for the future and their reputation with colllege reps but they can’t answer the question behind the question.

At GDS there is apparently one English teacher who refuses to give grades over a B+ to anyone in an upper level class. That’s stated upfront, a bunch of kids end up dropping out of the class etc but lots of kids stay because they feel they are getting college level seminar in that class.

One of my kids has many friends who left private after 8th and went to BCC or Jackson Reed and those who left say that just showing up for class at the other schools and doing care minimum gets you a 4.0. If you actually push hard and hustle, a 4.3-4.6 is easily doable.

So, in other words, it isn't "grade deflation" in private schools that is the problem. It's the grade inflation in public schools that is.

This. A scale is way messed up when a lot of people are crammed at the top and, worse, beyond the top of the scale.

No, the problem is the exclusivity of private schools. Only 6% of students at JR have an unweighted 4.0. Meanwhile 33% of JR students have below a 3.0, and 14% have below a 2.0. That’s hardly a school where everyone is “crammed at the top.”

One big reason people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to NCS is to keep their daughters far away from the kids who make up the bottom of the class at JR. (Just read some of the comments in this thread!) But the flip side is, while the bottom third of the class at JR is not applying to selective colleges, the bottom third of the class at NCS is.

If NCS is going to grade on the same curve as JR, so that the bottom third of the class graduates with a GPA below 3.0, they need to find some way to convince selective colleges that those low grades are consistent with the ability to do college-level work.

So the poster above who was claiming that you literally just have to show up to class to get a 4.0 is full of BS.
My kids are in private. We can afford it and they are getting a solid education but I have to say what I can’t stand about private school is the large number of entitled parents and students. Even at GDS, where folks are more self aware than many other schools, there is a distinct air of exclusivity and the feeling that our kids are getting screwed over by the college process. All our kids have had access to the best resources practically in the world. Of course, they should be held to a higher standard than public school kids. And our kids will do great in life. Just don’t get obsessed with one particular college or university.

Sorry. I meant to say above - show up at JR and do no work and still get a 4.0. That is obviously BS. The top 10% of kids at JR are clearly very strong. And they are the only ones at JR with a chance at a top 10 school. I don’t begrudge them of that opportunity. They have clearly earned it