Reply to APS MS Straight As

Forum Index » VA Public Schools other than FCPS

Reply to "APS MS Straight As "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Extremely common.  Just read up on the HS threads on valedictorians where [b]everyone with above a 4.0 [/b]gets to be #1 in the class, meaning like 200 kids.   [/quote]

This does not mean they are all getting straight As. It means they take a lot of AP/IB/DE classes and likely get a mix of As and Bs. My DD was a W-L "valedictorian". She got a lot of Bs and occasionally had a C and once a D on a quarter report card. Fortunately for her GPA, that's based only on the final grade for the year.

In APS "valedictorian" means something more like "magna cum laude", aka the top tier of students in GPA but it's a pretty big tier.[/quote]

Wow. Ridiculous that kids with Bs would be valedictorian. Not to say they aren’t good students but it makes the distinction meaningless. [/quote]

Valedictorian has never meant “straight As.”  It means “highest GPA.”  The silly part is giving it to many kids at once, not that they might have gotten a B in an AP class. [/quote]

They really just should not use the word "valedictorian", that's what people get so touchy about. As a PP said it's more like "cum laude." I get trying to reduce the pressure and competition for hundredths of GPA points at the top, which is why lots of HS's don't rank at all. APS is trying to have it both ways by essentially not ranking students with a 4.0+ but ranking the rest of the class. 
[/quote]

How old are your kids? It’s really not a big deal. No one cares about it. [/quote]

My kids have graduated from W-L. Both as "valedictorians", one of them by the skin-of-her teeth. Reducing pressure at the top just adds some pressure when you are on the border of hitting 4.0 or not at the end of junior year. It means reporting a class rank of "1" vs. 200-something. IMO if they want to do this not-ranking-4.0+ they should just not rank, plenty of HSs don't rank at all. Both my kids felt really weird about reporting a rank of 1 on applications when they know they are not #1 in the class. It feels disingenuous even though that is what is reported on the transcript. Who gets recognized at graduation really is irrelevant.  [/quote]
Ranking is inherently problematic because a kid who takes a study hall instead of orchestra or art will have a higher GPA because most electives aren't weighted.  But if you rank based on unweighted GPAs, kids who get all As with no AP classes will have the top GPA.

Unfortunately, even if a high school doesn't rank some schools (mostly service academies) do require rank to be reported.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics