To me, high standards make sense at the high end. A's are for excellence and excellence isn't easily attained. But C's are for mediocrity and if a school is saying we give C's where most other schools give A's AND it's got highly academically selective admissions, something is screwed up.

Sometimes what's screwed up is curriculum or workload -- not evaluation. What smart kids need to learn to do well at even the most difficult college can be taught in four years of high school in ways that don't lead to burnout. And that simultaneously build competence and self-confidence. But the misplaced emphasis on elitism and rigor seem to be getting in the way of education.

Anonymous wrote:What bugs me about high schools that have selective admissions, select on the basis of intellectual aptitude/performance, and then take pride in giving lots of C's is that it's either a counterproductive affectation on their parts (we're not impressed with the work of most of the students we consider to be among the best and brightest) or a sign that their curriculum/teaching/workload is dysfunctional for most students. If you start with bright and highly motivated students and your goal is to prepare them to do well in good undergrad programs, then you should be able to get those kids to the point where most are generally doing good work or better. The emphasis, especially at the HS level, should be on teaching and mastery (at an age and stage appropriate level) rather than ranking and sorting.

I sort of agree with the point you're making here - that a high school (or any school) is giving a blind quota of C's is off-course - but I think the reality is more complex than you acknowledge. For starters, I'm not sure what you mean by "lots of C's." I haven't noticed anyone saying her child's school gives mostly C's. If by "lots of C's" you just mean the bottom 25% of the class is earning C's and D's, that doesn't seem to odd to me. In lots of respects, it all boils down to what the school's expectations are for its students. If the expectation is just that each student will clear some threshold of knowledge - like a proficiency model - then I agree most students should be earning A's at a highly selective school. But if the grading model is far higher, or perhaps even a grading curve approach, then it makes perfect sense lots of students will get lower grades. I don't consider it an "affectation" but rather just a different model. The challenge for schools using that more rigorous model is to ensure the colleges understand that a C at Private School X might mean the student would earn an A or B under a proficiency threshold model. SAT and AP scores can be useful indicators for such comparisons.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is exceedingly difficult to get As at Sidwell even with lots of studying. When colleges and universities admissions look at applications, they apply some sort of formula that takes this into consideration. But it is difficult for the students not to get discouraged, and to take time away from studies to do fun things. Sidwell is not for students who need to get straight As in order to feel good about themselves.

totally agree and why DD is doing fine there. If she was obsessed with being top student we would looked at other options more closely.

Mine is obsessed and when I did look at options it seemed like you had to sacrifice cohort to escape the pressure cooker environments. GDS is kind of a bait and switch wrt grades and competition. Anti- in the lower school, but it kicks in with a vengeance by HS. In retrospect, it's probably better to have grades throughout so familiarity can breed the requisite level of contempt by HS.

Cont'd

Harvard has become increasingly meritocratic. Gender, race, nationality, and economic status play less of a role in admissions than they used to. Makes sense that the "Gentleman's C" isn't awarded as often. And I wonder whether they're still actively searching for "the happy bottom quarter." I'm Ok with the vast majority of Harvard undergrads graduating with B or higher GPAs if they can all do a good (or better than good) job at college-level work.

What bugs me about high schools that have selective admissions, select on the basis of intellectual aptitude/performance, and then take pride in giving lots of C's is that it's either a counterproductive affectation on their parts (we're not impressed with the work of most of the students we consider to be among the best and brightest) or a sign that their curriculum/teaching/workload is dysfunctional for most students. If you start with bright and highly motivated students and your goal is to prepare them to do well in good undergrad programs, then you should be able to get those kids to the point where most are generally doing good work or better. The emphasis, especially at the HS level, should be on teaching and mastery (at an age and stage appropriate level) rather than ranking and sorting.

Anonymous wrote:It is exceedingly difficult to get As at Sidwell even with lots of studying. When colleges and universities admissions look at applications, they apply some sort of formula that takes this into consideration. But it is difficult for the students not to get discouraged, and to take time away from studies to do fun things. Sidwell is not for students who need to get straight As in order to feel good about themselves.

totally agree and why DD is doing fine there. If she was obsessed with being top student we would looked at other options more closely.

Re grade inflation. It's important to think about who and what grades are for. On one level, grades are a way of giving students feedback on how well they've mastered the material. At the same time, they give the teacher feedback on how well s/he has taught the material. On this theory, low grades don't necessarily mean high standards -- they can mean that the material hasn't been presented in a way that most students can master -- e.g. too much too fast, inadequate background, poor teaching, or badly conceived assessments. So it's time to review, re-teach, re-learn the material and/or make sure subsequent lessons/evaluations give students more practice in the areas where they are weak.

On another level, grades are used to rank and sort students for purposes outside of the particular class -- e.g. employment, admissions.

Often the two objectives are out of sync -- especially when cohort and curriculum vary wildly across schools whose students will be competing against each other for subsequent opportunities, which is why we see all the crazy new weighting formulas for GPAs, as well as why standardized tests are in the mix. It's also why universities that devote a lot of resources to admissions accumulate HS-specific data (or impressions) of their own re how kids with a GPA of X from school Y typically perform as undergrads in our college.

Re grade inflation at a place like Harvard. Arguably, two things are going on. One is that, over the past few decades

Boys St. Albans girls Holton

That's an interesting point of view

So GDS=confidence building

Sidwell=soul crushing

As a tutor with a lot of direct contact with kids at both schools, I would agree to a certain extent. I think the stereotype of Sidwell grind v. GDS kumbaya has some truth to it. But the middle pack and lower kids at Sidwell are better "students" in my experience. They are motivated to do well and can't because they are struggling with a concept or a subject. GDS kids - painting with a broad brush here - have generally fallen further behind when they get to me. They are catching up with foundational issues and it tends to be more of struggle to catch them up.

So GDS=confidence building

Sidwell=soul crushing