Colleges Flagging MCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD came home today and told me that her teacher told her that grade inflation is really rampant in MCPS and that he is told to grade really leniently and that it is really hard for someone to fail. He says that it is so bad that colleges will flag an application once they see it is from MCPS and make sure to look deeper into what classes they took to see how rigorous it is to make sure they really deserved that 4.0 gpa. Not sure how true this is, has anyone else heard about this?

I have been told that we need to do more to set our students apart when we write a rec letter. That is because so many of our kids are graduating with extremely high (above 4.5) weighted GPAs. This makes he GPA meaningless. Colleges cannot tell between the solid all As student and the student who routinely has mix of As and Bs but in the right sequence to be all As at semester break.

I have also been told by a friend who works with freshman at UMD that advisors need to tell students that the 50% rule does not exist in college, they do not have retakes, and the due date is the deadline period.

My former MCPS kid is at UMD right now, and based on my kid's experience, it's not at all true that "the due date is the deadline period". Also, there are a lot of former MCPS kids at UMD.

I don't know about UMD, but I have had some kids shocked that their MC professor for dual enrollment would not take late work.

yup, MC prof here, I do not take late work. But it probably varies prof to prof. STEM profs know if you get behind, you will never catch up. Our dual enrollment students though, handle it better than our

"other students"

(sorry must have hit submit by accident)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Colleges also have grade inflation

What I came to post. My college kids get retakes, option to drop, late options to hand in with a 10%penalty...etc

[Anonymous]

All high schools grade inflate.

My HS in 1980 did but. All classes were scored 1-100. And nothing rounded us. A 89.61 is just that. We had a valedictorian.

Very hard to fake grades. Nerds had to take shop, cooking classes, gym and jocks had to take chemistry and Algebra. We all had to take music.

To add to it was group projects assigned at random. Your grade was groups grade.

And really make ups or lates. Literally your car broke down and missed quiz you got zero.

Take AP physics vs woodworking same count in GPA plus they give out a F just like that. I got a 49 average in geometry and that was that. I took it again and got an 87 but that 49 well it is what it is.

To get valedictorian you needed good grades in everything. I graduated with a 78 average and got into good schools.

MoCo is just chugging along on this 50 year grade inflation scam

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Colleges cannot tell between the solid all As student and the student who routinely has mix of As and Bs but in the right sequence to be all As at semester break.

Quick correction: the sequence doesn't matter. Instead of using a trend, MCPS always rounds up. A+B=A. B+A=A. A+D=B. D+A=B.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges also have grade inflation

What I came to post. My college kids get retakes, option to drop, late options to hand in with a 10%penalty...etc

I knew someone who went to Stanford who dropped their class the week before finals. They let them retake the class 2x to get a B.

Publics won't let you drop a class the week before finals. You get the grade you get, and that's it.

[Anonymous]

Grade inflation is worse in Fairfax from what I hear. Every test with a grade below an A can be retaken. Not sure why that’s not getting more outrage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Grade inflation is worse in Fairfax from what I hear. Every test with a grade below an A can be retaken. Not sure why that’s not getting more outrage.

Because our kids are in MCPS, not FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All high schools grade inflate.

My HS in 1980 did but. All classes were scored 1-100. And nothing rounded us. A 89.61 is just that. We had a valedictorian.

Very hard to fake grades. Nerds had to take shop, cooking classes, gym and jocks had to take chemistry and Algebra. We all had to take music.

To add to it was group projects assigned at random. Your grade was groups grade.

And really make ups or lates. Literally your car broke down and missed quiz you got zero.

Take AP physics vs woodworking same count in GPA plus they give out a F just like that. I got a 49 average in geometry and that was that. I took it again and got an 87 but that 49 well it is what it is.

To get valedictorian you needed good grades in everything. I graduated with a 78 average and got into good schools.

MoCo is just chugging along on this 50 year grade inflation scam

Graduated around the same time. 94 to 100 was an A. I was an officer in NHS and less than 5% of the class had a 3.5 or higher. Nobody got bonus points for class rigor. There were at most 6 APs and a dozen honors classes. They carried the same weight as any class. Half the people above me in class rank even never took an AP.

Nevertheless, I don't think any of this matters. A 4.5 today is like a 3.5 back then. It's pretty simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All high schools grade inflate.

My HS in 1980 did but. All classes were scored 1-100. And nothing rounded us. A 89.61 is just that. We had a valedictorian.

Very hard to fake grades. Nerds had to take shop, cooking classes, gym and jocks had to take chemistry and Algebra. We all had to take music.

To add to it was group projects assigned at random. Your grade was groups grade.

And really make ups or lates. Literally your car broke down and missed quiz you got zero.

Take AP physics vs woodworking same count in GPA plus they give out a F just like that. I got a 49 average in geometry and that was that. I took it again and got an 87 but that 49 well it is what it is.

To get valedictorian you needed good grades in everything. I graduated with a 78 average and got into good schools.

MoCo is just chugging along on this 50 year grade inflation scam

Wow, sounds like how MCPS was in the mid '80s. I was blown away at how many kids in my children's graduating class had perfect or near perfect grades-things have changed and not for the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD came home today and told me that her teacher told her that grade inflation is really rampant in MCPS and that he is told to grade really leniently and that it is really hard for someone to fail. He says that it is so bad that colleges will flag an application once they see it is from MCPS and make sure to look deeper into what classes they took to see how rigorous it is to make sure they really deserved that 4.0 gpa. Not sure how true this is, has anyone else heard about this?

Competitive colleges have always done this, and do it for all schools and all school districts.

It's true that MCPS makes it difficult for top students to differentiate themselves (if everyone has a 4.0, it's hard to set yourself apart from the crowd). But colleges always take a close look at course rigor--in fact, at info sessions, they'll tell you that course rigor (APs over honors over regular courses) is more important to them than GPA. That is probably even more true in MCPS, where so many kids have 4.0s or close-to-4.0s.

This also means that 'weighted GPA' is irrelevant in MCPS. AP courses are much harder than Honors, and get the same GPA bump.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD came home today and told me that her teacher told her that grade inflation is really rampant in MCPS and that he is told to grade really leniently and that it is really hard for someone to fail. He says that it is so bad that colleges will flag an application once they see it is from MCPS and make sure to look deeper into what classes they took to see how rigorous it is to make sure they really deserved that 4.0 gpa. Not sure how true this is, has anyone else heard about this?

Competitive colleges have always done this, and do it for all schools and all school districts.

It's true that MCPS makes it difficult for top students to differentiate themselves (if everyone has a 4.0, it's hard to set yourself apart from the crowd). But colleges always take a close look at course rigor--in fact, at info sessions, they'll tell you that course rigor (APs over honors over regular courses) is more important to them than GPA. That is probably even more true in MCPS, where so many kids have 4.0s or close-to-4.0s.

This also means that 'weighted GPA' is irrelevant in MCPS. AP courses are much harder than Honors, and get the same GPA bump.

This is the way to stand out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Grade inflation is worse in Fairfax from what I hear. Every test with a grade below an A can be retaken. Not sure why that’s not getting more outrage.

In Montgomery, students can retake assignments that were graded at less than 100%. I am not sure I understand your point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grade inflation is worse in Fairfax from what I hear. Every test with a grade below an A can be retaken. Not sure why that’s not getting more outrage.

In Montgomery, students can retake assignments that were graded at less than 100%. I am not sure I understand your point.

No, they cannot retake a test just because they had less than 100%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD came home today and told me that her teacher told her that grade inflation is really rampant in MCPS and that he is told to grade really leniently and that it is really hard for someone to fail. He says that it is so bad that colleges will flag an application once they see it is from MCPS and make sure to look deeper into what classes they took to see how rigorous it is to make sure they really deserved that 4.0 gpa. Not sure how true this is, has anyone else heard about this?

Competitive colleges have always done this, and do it for all schools and all school districts.

It's true that MCPS makes it difficult for top students to differentiate themselves (if everyone has a 4.0, it's hard to set yourself apart from the crowd). But colleges always take a close look at course rigor--in fact, at info sessions, they'll tell you that course rigor (APs over honors over regular courses) is more important to them than GPA. That is probably even more true in MCPS, where so many kids have 4.0s or close-to-4.0s.

This also means that 'weighted GPA' is irrelevant in MCPS. AP courses are much harder than Honors, and get the same GPA bump.

MCPS really needs to fix this. Especially since the district has implemented the "Honors-for-all" model in many of its high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grade inflation is worse in Fairfax from what I hear. Every test with a grade below an A can be retaken. Not sure why that’s not getting more outrage.

In Montgomery, students can retake assignments that were graded at less than 100%. I am not sure I understand your point.

No, they cannot retake a test just because they had less than 100%.

Fairfax uses a cumulative gradebook. This means that final grades are determined by combining all assignments and assessments. It is not an average of quarter grades. The grades posted at the end of the quarter are just a snapshot of the student's progress in the course. This sounds like a step up. Students would need to be focused all quarter to learn all material. They could not just get a C in 1 quarter and pass the course. At the same time, if it takes a little longer to learn the material, that is fine. The point is learning the material.