Anonymous
Post 10/29/2023 13:33     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My upperclassman is in a class where an essay turned by last week had an average grade of an 82%. This is what I mean by grade deflation.

My kid spent at least 10 hours on this (a one page essay) and received the average (82%).

It's just ridiculous. The school admitted kids who were at the very top of their sending public and private schools, refined them by fire for 2+ years
years (in very difficult humanities and writing classes) and is now continues to say, "oh no, despite your very best effort, most of you can only write at a B- level." I have a different kid in a top public and this would have been a 98% there. The standard at the private is just beyond unreasonable.

in 20
How long your student spends on something is completely irrelevant to the grade as I am sure you can understand. Does any supervisor you have ever had care about how long something took you or the quality of the work?



Whatever. You're being an ass and picking at the semantics of my post.
My reference to time was just to illustrate that my kid worked hard on this. It wasn't something she wrote in 30 minutes at 11pm. She gave best effort and it was very thoughtfully done and over the course of a week. Classmates were the same--they also all spent 5-15 hours on this---also all got Bs or Cs.

There is something messed up when you take kids who are actively trying to do their very best and are super bright and then you grade them to an average of a B-. And as another data point: this kid just got a 790 verbal SAT in October (1570 overall).




Just because some kid has a 790 verbal does not mean they can write beautiful essays or stories. Sorry, but there is usually a lot of room for improvement, even for kids who score 800. I got an 800 on the verbal SAT back in the day and got my writing torn apart in college whenever I took classes outside of my science major at a selective university. I wish my high school teachers had prepared me for the rigors of college level writing, so maybe your DC is lucky. Scoring well on a multiple choice standardized exam does not equal being a good writer. Writing is difficult and most people who want to be good writers need feedback and training.

I get that there is massive grade inflation elsewhere these days, and it's definitely true that any reasonably smart kid could breeze through and get an A at many schools without much effort. However, grade inflation is the PROBLEM, not the solution. This craziness has got to stop.


Ok, but it's hard when your child's school feels like the last holdout in America regarding not inflating grades.


There. You finally said it. The issue isn't that your school is deflating grades; it's that the other schools are inflating grades, at least from your perspective. Doesn't it seem odd to get mad at a school whose teachers are holding its students to some standards?
Anonymous
Post 10/29/2023 12:01     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My upperclassman is in a class where an essay turned by last week had an average grade of an 82%. This is what I mean by grade deflation.

My kid spent at least 10 hours on this (a one page essay) and received the average (82%).

It's just ridiculous. The school admitted kids who were at the very top of their sending public and private schools, refined them by fire for 2+ years
years (in very difficult humanities and writing classes) and is now continues to say, "oh no, despite your very best effort, most of you can only write at a B- level." I have a different kid in a top public and this would have been a 98% there. The standard at the private is just beyond unreasonable.

in 20
How long your student spends on something is completely irrelevant to the grade as I am sure you can understand. Does any supervisor you have ever had care about how long something took you or the quality of the work?



Whatever. You're being an ass and picking at the semantics of my post.
My reference to time was just to illustrate that my kid worked hard on this. It wasn't something she wrote in 30 minutes at 11pm. She gave best effort and it was very thoughtfully done and over the course of a week. Classmates were the same--they also all spent 5-15 hours on this---also all got Bs or Cs.

There is something messed up when you take kids who are actively trying to do their very best and are super bright and then you grade them to an average of a B-. And as another data point: this kid just got a 790 verbal SAT in October (1570 overall).




Just because some kid has a 790 verbal does not mean they can write beautiful essays or stories. Sorry, but there is usually a lot of room for improvement, even for kids who score 800. I got an 800 on the verbal SAT back in the day and got my writing torn apart in college whenever I took classes outside of my science major at a selective university. I wish my high school teachers had prepared me for the rigors of college level writing, so maybe your DC is lucky. Scoring well on a multiple choice standardized exam does not equal being a good writer. Writing is difficult and most people who want to be good writers need feedback and training.

I get that there is massive grade inflation elsewhere these days, and it's definitely true that any reasonably smart kid could breeze through and get an A at many schools without much effort. However, grade inflation is the PROBLEM, not the solution. This craziness has got to stop.


Ok, but it's hard when your child's school feels like the last holdout in America regarding not inflating grades. The DMV publics inflate like mad, the area Catholics and most of the other privates do as well (Bullis, Landon, Field being prime examples) and even to a lesser extent so do places like Maret and Holton. The NYC privates inflate like crazy as to the Baltimore privates. It was clear from data presented on last year that Harvard-Westlake inflates. I don't know enough about the top NE boarding schools to know how they grade.

There are really very few schools left in America who don't grade to an average of an A (or at least some form of an A).
Anonymous
Post 10/29/2023 11:02     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My upperclassman is in a class where an essay turned by last week had an average grade of an 82%. This is what I mean by grade deflation.

My kid spent at least 10 hours on this (a one page essay) and received the average (82%).

It's just ridiculous. The school admitted kids who were at the very top of their sending public and private schools, refined them by fire for 2+ years
years (in very difficult humanities and writing classes) and is now continues to say, "oh no, despite your very best effort, most of you can only write at a B- level." I have a different kid in a top public and this would have been a 98% there. The standard at the private is just beyond unreasonable.

in 20
How long your student spends on something is completely irrelevant to the grade as I am sure you can understand. Does any supervisor you have ever had care about how long something took you or the quality of the work?



Whatever. You're being an ass and picking at the semantics of my post.
My reference to time was just to illustrate that my kid worked hard on this. It wasn't something she wrote in 30 minutes at 11pm. She gave best effort and it was very thoughtfully done and over the course of a week. Classmates were the same--they also all spent 5-15 hours on this---also all got Bs or Cs.

There is something messed up when you take kids who are actively trying to do their very best and are super bright and then you grade them to an average of a B-. And as another data point: this kid just got a 790 verbal SAT in October (1570 overall).




Just because some kid has a 790 verbal does not mean they can write beautiful essays or stories. Sorry, but there is usually a lot of room for improvement, even for kids who score 800. I got an 800 on the verbal SAT back in the day and got my writing torn apart in college whenever I took classes outside of my science major at a selective university. I wish my high school teachers had prepared me for the rigors of college level writing, so maybe your DC is lucky. Scoring well on a multiple choice standardized exam does not equal being a good writer. Writing is difficult and most people who want to be good writers need feedback and training.

I get that there is massive grade inflation elsewhere these days, and it's definitely true that any reasonably smart kid could breeze through and get an A at many schools without much effort. However, grade inflation is the PROBLEM, not the solution. This craziness has got to stop.
Anonymous
Post 10/28/2023 22:03     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:There is no grade deflation going on that I have heard of - sorry that your kids are not up to snuff. I have never heard of any school curving down the grades like people are describing here. I have seen teaching the course to the median student like described above, where the top students get A's, etc. Yeah, duh - that is literally how this works!

If your student is middle of the pack in the class, why would you expect them to get an A? If everyone got an A, the low end kids would have 90s and would still be at the bottom of the school. Better to compare students across a spectrum of 30% points rather than 10%. Your middle of the pack kid is not going to get into an Ivy regardless of the grading system.


Sorry you got mites in your drawers.
But goodness, OP’s kid doesn’t sound middle of the class.

We’ve artificially made HS a terrible grind. The joy of an inquiring mind
Pales next to being able to drop college names.
Anonymous
Post 10/28/2023 20:50     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My upperclassman is in a class where an essay turned by last week had an average grade of an 82%. This is what I mean by grade deflation.

My kid spent at least 10 hours on this (a one page essay) and received the average (82%).

It's just ridiculous. The school admitted kids who were at the very top of their sending public and private schools, refined them by fire for 2+ years
years (in very difficult humanities and writing classes) and is now continues to say, "oh no, despite your very best effort, most of you can only write at a B- level." I have a different kid in a top public and this would have been a 98% there. The standard at the private is just beyond unreasonable.


Why did you put them in private then knowing that they could get a much higher GPA in public? I agree the GPA does matter on college admissions and it is frustrating and seems unfair. I will say overall kids are Big 3s do fair much better than kids from publics with same grades. Yes factually speaking this is true.

In regards to this specific assignment your child needs to reach out to the teacher and ask why such strict grading and ask what percentage do the grade?


I'm curious what your goals are for your children. My DS had a 3.7 UM GPA and scored a 35 ACT in his first sitting from a Big 3. Maybe it's a humble brag. Feel free to judge.
He wanted to go to a big state school with school spirit and big time sports. That was his choice and we accepted his decision.

My son had a wonderful experience during his freshman year in college. He often says his college classes are easier than his upper school work. I guess some people that send their kids to private schools believe in Ivy or bust. That is ok with me. However, there are many kids that attend privates that have no aspiration to attend the Ivy's or top SLACS/LACS and are happy at their new schools. [/quote

I'm one of the above posters. Is this enough for a big state school in 2023? I'm a Big3 parent an I'm not so sure. I think it works well with the liberal arts colleges but I'm nervous about state schools.
Anonymous
Post 10/28/2023 18:32     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My upperclassman is in a class where an essay turned by last week had an average grade of an 82%. This is what I mean by grade deflation.

My kid spent at least 10 hours on this (a one page essay) and received the average (82%).

It's just ridiculous. The school admitted kids who were at the very top of their sending public and private schools, refined them by fire for 2+ years
years (in very difficult humanities and writing classes) and is now continues to say, "oh no, despite your very best effort, most of you can only write at a B- level." I have a different kid in a top public and this would have been a 98% there. The standard at the private is just beyond unreasonable.


Why did you put them in private then knowing that they could get a much higher GPA in public? I agree the GPA does matter on college admissions and it is frustrating and seems unfair. I will say overall kids are Big 3s do fair much better than kids from publics with same grades. Yes factually speaking this is true.

In regards to this specific assignment your child needs to reach out to the teacher and ask why such strict grading and ask what percentage do the grade?


I'm curious what your goals are for your children. My DS had a 3.7 UM GPA and scored a 35 ACT in his first sitting from a Big 3. Maybe it's a humble brag. Feel free to judge.
He wanted to go to a big state school with school spirit and big time sports. That was his choice and we accepted his decision.

My son had a wonderful experience during his freshman year in college. He often says his college classes are easier than his upper school work. I guess some people that send their kids to private schools believe in Ivy or bust. That is ok with me. However, there are many kids that attend privates that have no aspiration to attend the Ivy's or top SLACS/LACS and are happy at their new schools.
Anonymous
Post 10/27/2023 16:32     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:This is a real substantive difference between the good area public schools and good area private schools. It is exponentially more difficult to earn top marks. Candidly, it’s a reason that I moved my child. For us, we valued the way privates graded and chose this for reasons that have already been described. My sense is that others in our shoes either didn’t realize or didn’t believe this would happen to them/their child.


This. If you don’t like the grading talk to the teacher or academic admin about this. Else move your kid to another school. While the grading may not be fair or healthy is not like they are hiding what they are doing.
Anonymous
Post 10/27/2023 16:25     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:Maybe your kid should spend less time trying to piece together the grades of each of her 10 classmates and more time improving their paper.


Haha, you are so witty.
Anonymous
Post 10/27/2023 15:40     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Maybe your kid should spend less time trying to piece together the grades of each of her 10 classmates and more time improving their paper.
Anonymous
Post 10/27/2023 15:33     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My upperclassman is in a class where an essay turned by last week had an average grade of an 82%. This is what I mean by grade deflation.

My kid spent at least 10 hours on this (a one page essay) and received the average (82%).

It's just ridiculous. The school admitted kids who were at the very top of their sending public and private schools, refined them by fire for 2+ years
years (in very difficult humanities and writing classes) and is now continues to say, "oh no, despite your very best effort, most of you can only write at a B- level." I have a different kid in a top public and this would have been a 98% there. The standard at the private is just beyond unreasonable.

in 20
How long your student spends on something is completely irrelevant to the grade as I am sure you can understand. Does any supervisor you have ever had care about how long something took you or the quality of the work?



Whatever. You're being an ass and picking at the semantics of my post.
My reference to time was just to illustrate that my kid worked hard on this. It wasn't something she wrote in 30 minutes at 11pm. She gave best effort and it was very thoughtfully done and over the course of a week. Classmates were the same--they also all spent 5-15 hours on this---also all got Bs or Cs.

There is something messed up when you take kids who are actively trying to do their very best and are super bright and then you grade them to an average of a B-. And as another data point: this kid just got a 790 verbal SAT in October (1570 overall).




I am the pp with the kid with the almost perfect SAT and I am sorry and that sucks and seems unfair. Hopefully this assignment won’t count for much of their grade.

I have to also ask How do you know so much about the other kids in her class and their grades and their study habits? That’s a little strange to me.


The kids find out. These are small classes at these schools (I think this one is 10 kids). The teacher reports the class average. The kids figure out the grades of most of the other classmates because most of them share/chat. They know the study habits of their friends in the class because they're friends and there is usually a class text thread. I think my kid is on text threads for 4 or 5 out of her 6 classes.
No, they or I don't know the grade of every single kid of the 10. But it's pretty easy to fill in the blanks once you know 6/10 or 8/10.
Anonymous
Post 10/27/2023 15:31     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:My upperclassman is in a class where an essay turned by last week had an average grade of an 82%. This is what I mean by grade deflation.

My kid spent at least 10 hours on this (a one page essay) and received the average (82%).

It's just ridiculous. The school admitted kids who were at the very top of their sending public and private schools, refined them by fire for 2+ years
years (in very difficult humanities and writing classes) and is now continues to say, "oh no, despite your very best effort, most of you can only write at a B- level." I have a different kid in a top public and this would have been a 98% there. The standard at the private is just beyond unreasonable.


Why did you put them in private then knowing that they could get a much higher GPA in public? I agree the GPA does matter on college admissions and it is frustrating and seems unfair. I will say overall kids are Big 3s do fair much better than kids from publics with same grades. Yes factually speaking this is true.

In regards to this specific assignment your child needs to reach out to the teacher and ask why such strict grading and ask what percentage do the grade?
Anonymous
Post 10/27/2023 15:24     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My upperclassman is in a class where an essay turned by last week had an average grade of an 82%. This is what I mean by grade deflation.

My kid spent at least 10 hours on this (a one page essay) and received the average (82%).

It's just ridiculous. The school admitted kids who were at the very top of their sending public and private schools, refined them by fire for 2+ years
years (in very difficult humanities and writing classes) and is now continues to say, "oh no, despite your very best effort, most of you can only write at a B- level." I have a different kid in a top public and this would have been a 98% there. The standard at the private is just beyond unreasonable.

in 20
How long your student spends on something is completely irrelevant to the grade as I am sure you can understand. Does any supervisor you have ever had care about how long something took you or the quality of the work?



Whatever. You're being an ass and picking at the semantics of my post.
My reference to time was just to illustrate that my kid worked hard on this. It wasn't something she wrote in 30 minutes at 11pm. She gave best effort and it was very thoughtfully done and over the course of a week. Classmates were the same--they also all spent 5-15 hours on this---also all got Bs or Cs.

There is something messed up when you take kids who are actively trying to do their very best and are super bright and then you grade them to an average of a B-. And as another data point: this kid just got a 790 verbal SAT in October (1570 overall).




I am the pp with the kid with the almost perfect SAT and I am sorry and that sucks and seems unfair. Hopefully this assignment won’t count for much of their grade.

I have to also ask How do you know so much about the other kids in her class and their grades and their study habits? That’s a little strange to me.
Anonymous
Post 10/27/2023 15:20     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My upperclassman is in a class where an essay turned by last week had an average grade of an 82%. This is what I mean by grade deflation.

My kid spent at least 10 hours on this (a one page essay) and received the average (82%).

It's just ridiculous. The school admitted kids who were at the very top of their sending public and private schools, refined them by fire for 2+ years
years (in very difficult humanities and writing classes) and is now continues to say, "oh no, despite your very best effort, most of you can only write at a B- level." I have a different kid in a top public and this would have been a 98% there. The standard at the private is just beyond unreasonable.

in 20
How long your student spends on something is completely irrelevant to the grade as I am sure you can understand. Does any supervisor you have ever had care about how long something took you or the quality of the work?



Whatever. You're being an ass and picking at the semantics of my post.
My reference to time was just to illustrate that my kid worked hard on this. It wasn't something she wrote in 30 minutes at 11pm. She gave best effort and it was very thoughtfully done and over the course of a week. Classmates were the same--they also all spent 5-15 hours on this---also all got Bs or Cs.

There is something messed up when you take kids who are actively trying to do their very best and are super bright and then you grade them to an average of a B-. And as another data point: this kid just got a 790 verbal SAT in October (1570 overall).




Maybe you should’ve sent her to the same public school then that your other kid is at? Why would you put them in a rigorous top school knowing that it is more difficult work and grading? It’s no secret that it’s harder to get A’s at these top schools. It’s also no secret the kids that had A averages at their previous schools come to these top three or four schools and don’t necessarily keep an average and that could be hard for some kids. They tell you this during the admissions process if you pay attention closely. It happens to everyone and by the way my child had a near perfect SAT and they had a good GPA but it certainly did not correlate to their SAT score!
Anonymous
Post 10/27/2023 14:08     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
The problem is that private schools in this area market themselves as a place to get a rigorous education. Parents, with the massive fees they are paying, expect a more transactional approach in that they pay for good grades.

COVID exacerbated this problem because many schools did shift to handing out A's given the circumstances, but this has been a long shift. Now some schools are returning to the status quo and some are keeping up with the pretend to teach, pretend to learn approach where everyone gets an A.

Teachers that give out all A's are beloved by all - parents, students, admin cause they deal with no complaints about them. The only people who don't like them are the teachers who have to teach those kids next - because they overwhelmingly don't know a thing yet have already received the feedback of an A that they have mastered the content. Any deviation from that A results in headaches for the teacher from the bully parents and the rest is history.
Anonymous
Post 10/27/2023 14:04     Subject: The deflated grading is just exhausting.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My upperclassman is in a class where an essay turned by last week had an average grade of an 82%. This is what I mean by grade deflation.

My kid spent at least 10 hours on this (a one page essay) and received the average (82%).

It's just ridiculous. The school admitted kids who were at the very top of their sending public and private schools, refined them by fire for 2+ years
years (in very difficult humanities and writing classes) and is now continues to say, "oh no, despite your very best effort, most of you can only write at a B- level." I have a different kid in a top public and this would have been a 98% there. The standard at the private is just beyond unreasonable.

in 20
How long your student spends on something is completely irrelevant to the grade as I am sure you can understand. Does any supervisor you have ever had care about how long something took you or the quality of the work?



Whatever. You're being an ass and picking at the semantics of my post.
My reference to time was just to illustrate that my kid worked hard on this. It wasn't something she wrote in 30 minutes at 11pm. She gave best effort and it was very thoughtfully done and over the course of a week. Classmates were the same--they also all spent 5-15 hours on this---also all got Bs or Cs.

There is something messed up when you take kids who are actively trying to do their very best and are super bright and then you grade them to an average of a B-. And as another data point: this kid just got a 790 verbal SAT in October (1570 overall).



Are most teachers doing this or only a couple? It is a problem if most teachers are doing it. Also, is it the seasoned teachers who have been at the school 10+ years who are grading harshly or is the deflation trend occurring with younger teachers as well