Anonymous wrote:Yep. This is why people send their unhooked kids to public schools. Grade deflation hurts college admissions.

Anonymous wrote:This is nonsense. Grade deflation? In math/science classes the answer is wrong or right. It isn’t subjective. In classes like history and English I can see how it might be a little more complicated because writing style and how well someone communicates is tough to grade. But I never understand why people include STEM classes when discussing how difficult it is to achieve high marks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep. This is why people send their unhooked kids to public schools. Grade deflation hurts college admissions.

This article says otherwise: https://bethesdamagazine.com/2024/09/17/where-do-moco-students-attend-college/

Grade inflation in public schools actually hurts the strongest students by making it harder to distinguish themselves academically. It’s much harder to differentiate yourself when you’re 1 of 15 valedictorians. It’s easier when you attend a school like Sidwell or NCS and you’re the only student who graduated with a 4.0 (or even >3.98 GPA).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep. This is why people send their unhooked kids to public schools. Grade deflation hurts college admissions.

This article says otherwise: https://bethesdamagazine.com/2024/09/17/where-do-moco-students-attend-college/

Grade inflation in public schools actually hurts the strongest students by making it harder to distinguish themselves academically. It’s much harder to differentiate yourself when you’re 1 of 15 valedictorians. It’s easier when you attend a school like Sidwell or NCS and you’re the only student who graduated with a 4.0 (or even >3.98 GPA).

That story doesn’t say anything at all about grade inflation?

Anonymous wrote:This is nonsense. Grade deflation? In math/science classes the answer is wrong or right. It isn’t subjective. In classes like history and English I can see how it might be a little more complicated because writing style and how well someone communicates is tough to grade. But I never understand why people include STEM classes when discussing how difficult it is to achieve high marks.

Anonymous wrote:There is no such thing as grade deflation. That is how grades are supposed to be in reality.

Anonymous wrote:

Exorciststeps wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There absolutely a way to do grade deflation in STEM. In many STEM subjects, but especially math, all that is needed is to add 2, 5, 10 or more problems/questions that deal with material not yet covered in class but that can be said “logically flow” from that things that were. My kids get that on every STEM class that take. The classes are hard enough but when you throw PhD level questions on top, 96s become 82s very quickly.

PhD level questions? Pull the other one...

Am sorry your kids are underserved.

Exorciststeps wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Exorciststeps wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There absolutely a way to do grade deflation in STEM. In many STEM subjects, but especially math, all that is needed is to add 2, 5, 10 or more problems/questions that deal with material not yet covered in class but that can be said “logically flow” from that things that were. My kids get that on every STEM class that take. The classes are hard enough but when you throw PhD level questions on top, 96s become 82s very quickly.

PhD level questions? Pull the other one...

Am sorry your kids are underserved.

My kid is at TJ, but they have yet to report any "PhD level questions" on their tests...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell.

The English and History Departments’ grading is especially ridiculous! Math 1 to 4 (particularly 3 & 4) is equally ridiculous, and Chem 1A is pure, unadulterated nonsense.

Sidwell parent from 3 years ago. This PP nailed it. Obv I can’t compare to other schools my kids didn’t attend but very tough, honest grading is very real at Sidwell.

My kid and all of their close friends at Sidwell are finding grading curves much kinder at their current colleges, which include Brown, Yale, Vandy, Cornell, Swarthmore. The possible exception is Chicago. Not that these ^^ schools don’t ask a lot of questions- they do - but if you put in the extensive work then college grades seem higher. My kids friend group is balanced between STEM and humanities majors now fwiw

PP. edit to say these current colleges ask a lot of their students, not questions. My kid is assigned 1000 pages of reading per WEEK some semesters. Which he can do, because Sidwell 🤣

But when he does it and does it really well and better than his current classmates, he doesn’t always get a B because the DSA female must always be given the lone A in that class

Exorciststeps wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Exorciststeps wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There absolutely a way to do grade deflation in STEM. In many STEM subjects, but especially math, all that is needed is to add 2, 5, 10 or more problems/questions that deal with material not yet covered in class but that can be said “logically flow” from that things that were. My kids get that on every STEM class that take. The classes are hard enough but when you throw PhD level questions on top, 96s become 82s very quickly.

PhD level questions? Pull the other one...

Am sorry your kids are underserved.

My kid is at TJ, but they have yet to report any "PhD level questions" on their tests...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no such thing as grade deflation. That is how grades are supposed to be in reality.

Well, when you admit a class of kids who all had straight As and high standardized scores, and you know you cannot give them all straight As like they all used to have, you need to do gymnastics to make sure the distribution of grades looks reasonable to colleges. For one teacher that may mean a painful curve where 2 wrong is a C; for another it may be giving harder and harder questions so no one can get them all correct; for another it may be a hard pop quiz on the Monday after Prom to catch a few kids out; etc. I've heard teachers say at our school that if more than certain number of students are getting perfects scores on quizzes and tests, they aren't making it hard enough. That's how you get a class average over 1400 on the SAT and yet 25% of the class with multiple C grades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no such thing as grade deflation. That is how grades are supposed to be in reality.

Well, when you admit a class of kids who all had straight As and high standardized scores, and you know you cannot give them all straight As like they all used to have, you need to do gymnastics to make sure the distribution of grades looks reasonable to colleges. For one teacher that may mean a painful curve where 2 wrong is a C; for another it may be giving harder and harder questions so no one can get them all correct; for another it may be a hard pop quiz on the Monday after Prom to catch a few kids out; etc. I've heard teachers say at our school that if more than certain number of students are getting perfects scores on quizzes and tests, they aren't making it hard enough. That's how you get a class average over 1400 on the SAT and yet 25% of the class with multiple C grades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no such thing as grade deflation. That is how grades are supposed to be in reality.

Well, when you admit a class of kids who all had straight As and high standardized scores, and you know you cannot give them all straight As like they all used to have, you need to do gymnastics to make sure the distribution of grades looks reasonable to colleges. For one teacher that may mean a painful curve where 2 wrong is a C; for another it may be giving harder and harder questions so no one can get them all correct; for another it may be a hard pop quiz on the Monday after Prom to catch a few kids out; etc. I've heard teachers say at our school that if more than certain number of students are getting perfects scores on quizzes and tests, they aren't making it hard enough. That's how you get a class average over 1400 on the SAT and yet 25% of the class with multiple C grades.

Sorry, what you stated is not the reality.
SATs have nothing to do with course grades.
The "gymnastics" teachers do is not about not giving students Cs, but to not mark students down for anything. Teachers do this because of parents' and administration's pressures to keep the kids' grades up.
FWIW if the stdents at are all getting perfect scores, then you have to wonder 1) if the class has the right level of rigor 2) is there too much teaching to the test and handholding.