Grade inflation at School Without Walls?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the same about Deal when so many posted about their kids having 4.0s to even apply to Walls. I suspect its a national issue as teachers know how impactful grades are to college admissions.

A 3.5 used to be a really good GPA and now it's treated like a C average.

I agree. This a national issue driven by colleges. No one is getting an “A” in DCPS based on 50s and 63s alone. Those policies raise graduation rates; they don’t give anyone a weighted GPA over 4.0.

Before you try to get DCPS to unilaterally disarm, take a good look at what happened in college admissions this year to unhooked smart kids from private schools that tried unilateral disarmament.

BUT...won't this bite colleges in the butt? If the applicant pool is watered down with kids who aren't used to working hard, it doesn't seem like this is in the schools' best interest. I know people complain about millennials not liking to work hard, seems this next generation will be even worse.

It does not appear that colleges are particularly concerned about this.

Getting into a top college is not the primary goal. The goal is to prepare your kid to be able to handle the work and rigor of college.

Reality is top colleges don’t care, because there will always be alot if kids coming from better schools with the rigor and academic challenge. The issue is yourkid from walls will struggle against these kids and it will be sink or swim

You assume a kid from Walls will struggle because they got all As at Walls? Is there a higher grade they could have gotten?

The kids at Walls, if they went to any other public high school in DC, would be straight A students.

You over-estimate the Walls kids. They are good students but they are not exceptional. They would be in the upper 25% at J-R, but not any different than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought the same about Deal when so many posted about their kids having 4.0s to even apply to Walls. I suspect its a national issue as teachers know how impactful grades are to college admissions.

A 3.5 used to be a really good GPA and now it's treated like a C average.

I agree. This a national issue driven by colleges. No one is getting an “A” in DCPS based on 50s and 63s alone. Those policies raise graduation rates; they don’t give anyone a weighted GPA over 4.0.

Before you try to get DCPS to unilaterally disarm, take a good look at what happened in college admissions this year to unhooked smart kids from private schools that tried unilateral disarmament.

BUT...won't this bite colleges in the butt? If the applicant pool is watered down with kids who aren't used to working hard, it doesn't seem like this is in the schools' best interest. I know people complain about millennials not liking to work hard, seems this next generation will be even worse.

It does not appear that colleges are particularly concerned about this.

Getting into a top college is not the primary goal. The goal is to prepare your kid to be able to handle the work and rigor of college.

Reality is top colleges don’t care, because there will always be alot if kids coming from better schools with the rigor and academic challenge. The issue is yourkid from walls will struggle against these kids and it will be sink or swim

You assume a kid from Walls will struggle because they got all As at Walls? Is there a higher grade they could have gotten?

The kids at Walls, if they went to any other public high school in DC, would be straight A students.

You over-estimate the Walls kids. They are good students but they are not exceptional. They would be in the upper 25% at J-R, but not any different than that.

The upper 25% at JR get As too. Because DCPS grading policies are universal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: “The average high school grade point average increased significantly from 2010 to 2021, with most of the gains coming during the last five years, according to a new report released today by ACT. During the same time, composite scores on the ACT fell from 21.0 to 20.3, suggesting that grade inflation is a serious problem, the testing company said. In that same time period, most of the students studied changed the way they classify themselves, with A becoming the most common way and the number of B students and C students going down.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2022/05/16/act-says-high-school-gpas-are-rising

Actually the Walls class of 23 had really unusually high SAT scores. (Based on the school average published by DCPS and the number of students on the presidential scholars eligibility list.) I bet “grade inflation” at Walls doesn’t look as bad if you control for SAT score.

[Anonymous]

Did the Walls class this year have better college admissions than JR?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids that are gaming the system would do so regardless. Hopefully things will go back to normal next year. Just make sure your kid is organized and working hard. The rest will take care of itself.

A "WS" can also indicate a lot of unorganized and less than stellar teachers. Numerous times they have been entered when assignments have been completed and in Canvas. Those missing assignments can be the difference b/t a C and an A. I know teachers lose things all the time but stop blaming the kids for everything.

Don't be naive. WS is not a grade any teacher wants to give, It has been mandated by DCPS and administrators. It's a gift to kids who perpetually don't turn in work on time, but an F would cause trouble, so you give them a WS and time to get it in. Canvas has a time stamp. Turning it in does not mean it was turned in on time. It's the default "please don't fail this student" meant to appease parents and keep graduation rates higher. If teachers ever really gave your kids the grades they actually deserve, held them accountable for deadlines, you people would be up in arms and threatening to sue. There is absolutely grade inflation at every high school across the country, and that's why so many parents are left complaining that their "high stats" kids dd not get into colleges they wanted. That's because damn near everybody has high stats now. You need the other stuff. High GPA is nearly irrelevant at this point in admissions.

So, wait a minute. Test scores don’t matter and GPA doesn’t matter, WTH? No wonder mental health issues are a thing for this generation. Mediocrity matters!

Honestly, in terms of mental health, I think the problem for ambitious students is that watering down grades and making tests less important can make it so much harder to know where you stand for future admissions. When I applied to college and law school a couple of decades ago, you knew at least generally where a certain GPA and test score would land you, with some wiggle room for other factors like extracurriculars. Now it all feels like more of a crapshoot and those “other factors” have become both more important and harder to quantify. No wonder so many kids are knocking themselves out trying to become as impressive as possible in as many areas as possible, without the peace of mind of having some objective idea where they stand before the actual admissions decisions come in. For every kid at a school like Walls who coasts because of grade inflation, there are at LEAST as many who are doing more and more work to distinguish themselves from the 4.0 pack.

I don’t have any personal stake in this topic — my kid is at a school that doesn’t practice grade inflation and she missed this year’s GPA cutoff for Walls. But I’ve never had this particular thought before on the ways that lack of objective rankings may feed mental health challenges for kids who want to go on to college. How incredibly stressful to be told that someone will be evaluating you on your life choices and performance in a couple of years, then not be given clear input into how that evaluation will be reached.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: “The average high school grade point average increased significantly from 2010 to 2021, with most of the gains coming during the last five years, according to a new report released today by ACT. During the same time, composite scores on the ACT fell from 21.0 to 20.3, suggesting that grade inflation is a serious problem, the testing company said. In that same time period, most of the students studied changed the way they classify themselves, with A becoming the most common way and the number of B students and C students going down.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2022/05/16/act-says-high-school-gpas-are-rising

Actually the Walls class of 23 had really unusually high SAT scores. (Based on the school average published by DCPS and the number of students on the presidential scholars eligibility list.) I bet “grade inflation” at Walls doesn’t look as bad if you control for SAT score.

You are comparing Walls SAT scores to DC schools which is a very low bar.

Compare it to test in high schools like Blair magnet in MD or TJ in VA and it’s much, much lower.

[Anonymous]

The Walls class of 2023 still had the admissions test in place...the classes that have been admitted based on grades plus interviews are noticeably weaker (according to a friend of mine who teaches there).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: “The average high school grade point average increased significantly from 2010 to 2021, with most of the gains coming during the last five years, according to a new report released today by ACT. During the same time, composite scores on the ACT fell from 21.0 to 20.3, suggesting that grade inflation is a serious problem, the testing company said. In that same time period, most of the students studied changed the way they classify themselves, with A becoming the most common way and the number of B students and C students going down.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2022/05/16/act-says-high-school-gpas-are-rising

Actually the Walls class of 23 had really unusually high SAT scores. (Based on the school average published by DCPS and the number of students on the presidential scholars eligibility list.) I bet “grade inflation” at Walls doesn’t look as bad if you control for SAT score.

You are comparing Walls SAT scores to DC schools which is a very low bar.

Compare it to test in high schools like Blair magnet in MD or TJ in VA and it’s much, much lower.

The article is comparing pre-pandemic Walls GPAs to Walls GPAs now. If Walls GPAs have gone up, but Walls SATs have also gone up, then that’s not “grade inflation” as the term is usually defined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: “The average high school grade point average increased significantly from 2010 to 2021, with most of the gains coming during the last five years, according to a new report released today by ACT. During the same time, composite scores on the ACT fell from 21.0 to 20.3, suggesting that grade inflation is a serious problem, the testing company said. In that same time period, most of the students studied changed the way they classify themselves, with A becoming the most common way and the number of B students and C students going down.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2022/05/16/act-says-high-school-gpas-are-rising

Actually the Walls class of 23 had really unusually high SAT scores. (Based on the school average published by DCPS and the number of students on the presidential scholars eligibility list.) I bet “grade inflation” at Walls doesn’t look as bad if you control for SAT score.

Actually, I bet it looks worse because the grade inflation became worse with COVID, which is when they dropped the test as part of admissions to Walls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting...if anything, teachers at J-R are raising standards and grading has become harder over the last year (at least if you look at the distribution of grades by assignment in Aspen). And they have to follow the same DCPS guidelines.

The JR profile data sheet (on their counseling page) seems to indicate some inflation. 5% of the students have GPAs of 4 but 35% are between 3.5-3.99 (unweighted). That is quite high.

No doubt, there is grade inflation...but the grading this year is harder than last year for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Walls class of 2023 still had the admissions test in place...the classes that have been admitted based on grades plus interviews are noticeably weaker (according to a friend of mine who teaches there).

Yes but isn’t the article mostly about 23-24? If you look at the SAT data out of Walls, the scores have been rising and the rise has been accelerating. Which is what you would predict, given a test-in school with a fixed number of seats and a growing number of applicants. A teacher could see a noticeable drop between the class of 24 and the class of 25, and yet the class of 25 could still be as strong as the class of 16.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: “The average high school grade point average increased significantly from 2010 to 2021, with most of the gains coming during the last five years, according to a new report released today by ACT. During the same time, composite scores on the ACT fell from 21.0 to 20.3, suggesting that grade inflation is a serious problem, the testing company said. In that same time period, most of the students studied changed the way they classify themselves, with A becoming the most common way and the number of B students and C students going down.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2022/05/16/act-says-high-school-gpas-are-rising

Actually the Walls class of 23 had really unusually high SAT scores. (Based on the school average published by DCPS and the number of students on the presidential scholars eligibility list.) I bet “grade inflation” at Walls doesn’t look as bad if you control for SAT score.

Actually, I bet it looks worse because the grade inflation became worse with COVID, which is when they dropped the test as part of admissions to Walls.

They didn’t kick out the kids who were already there. The classes of 23 and 24 were admitted by exam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to this article in Walls’ school newspaper, there is rampant post-quarantine grade inflation now.

“The junior class at Walls has an average GPA of 3.93, a number school counselor Kathryn Moore called “very high.” She also noted that the median GPA was over a 4.0. That means that well over half the class had a GPA above 4.0 at the start of the 2022-23 school year. This number will likely only increase, as juniors take on more AP classes, which are graded on a 5.0 scale.”

https://www.swwrookery.com/post/hugely-inflated-are-pandemic-era-grading-policies-doing-more-harm-than-good

My rising 9th grader is heading to Walls in the fall, but this article gives me pause. She’s an excellent, hardworking student, but how will she be able to distinguish herself from more middling, less hardworking, students if their grades are pretty much the same when applying to college? Can any current Walls parents offer insight? Especially parents of juniors and seniors. Thanks!

Wow--massive grade inflation!

+1. This is not good for the school and especially the kids. Speaks to the decline of rigor and hard work. Things are way too easy and it hurts kids from working hard to reach their fullest potential.

It’s bad enough they can retake tests, not get 0, etc….and now everyone doesn’t need to do much to even get an A.

Just when you think there is still 1 high school with high standards, you have DCPS trying to destroy it. Just get out of DCPS and their sh*tshow as soon as you can.

FYI, it's not just DCPS and the other DMV public schools...my family in the Minnesota suburbs also have this crazy grade inflation/retakes/everyone-gets-an-A system....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to this article in Walls’ school newspaper, there is rampant post-quarantine grade inflation now.

“The junior class at Walls has an average GPA of 3.93, a number school counselor Kathryn Moore called “very high.” She also noted that the median GPA was over a 4.0. That means that well over half the class had a GPA above 4.0 at the start of the 2022-23 school year. This number will likely only increase, as juniors take on more AP classes, which are graded on a 5.0 scale.”

https://www.swwrookery.com/post/hugely-inflated-are-pandemic-era-grading-policies-doing-more-harm-than-good

My rising 9th grader is heading to Walls in the fall, but this article gives me pause. She’s an excellent, hardworking student, but how will she be able to distinguish herself from more middling, less hardworking, students if their grades are pretty much the same when applying to college? Can any current Walls parents offer insight? Especially parents of juniors and seniors. Thanks!

Wow--massive grade inflation!

+1. This is not good for the school and especially the kids. Speaks to the decline of rigor and hard work. Things are way too easy and it hurts kids from working hard to reach their fullest potential.

It’s bad enough they can retake tests, not get 0, etc….and now everyone doesn’t need to do much to even get an A.

Just when you think there is still 1 high school with high standards, you have DCPS trying to destroy it. Just get out of DCPS and their sh*tshow as soon as you can.

FYI, it's not just DCPS and the other DMV public schools...my family in the Minnesota suburbs also have this crazy grade inflation/retakes/everyone-gets-an-A system....

+1

My cousin in a New York suburb was crushed when he didn’t get into Penn with his straight As. There is major grade inflation at his school too. It sets kids up for disappointment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: “The average high school grade point average increased significantly from 2010 to 2021, with most of the gains coming during the last five years, according to a new report released today by ACT. During the same time, composite scores on the ACT fell from 21.0 to 20.3, suggesting that grade inflation is a serious problem, the testing company said. In that same time period, most of the students studied changed the way they classify themselves, with A becoming the most common way and the number of B students and C students going down.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2022/05/16/act-says-high-school-gpas-are-rising

Actually the Walls class of 23 had really unusually high SAT scores. (Based on the school average published by DCPS and the number of students on the presidential scholars eligibility list.) I bet “grade inflation” at Walls doesn’t look as bad if you control for SAT score.

DCPS shows that an SAT score average of 1317.

Average SAT score at Sidwell is probably 1440 or so.