Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a recent St. Anselm's grad, I'm surprised to see it getting multiple nominations on this chain. It's hard to fall out of the 90s in many classes there and pretty straightforward to hit that mark in most of the others. There are only a couple of classes where it's actually a struggle to finish with an 'A' for most of the boys there.

How easy is the grading at other schools?

As another parent of a recent grad I think you’re smoking crack. AP Chem, ethics with alspaugh, calc and AP bio… it’s not easy at all to get A’s and for the kids that do consistently get A’s I know several of them and they work hard for them.

+1 But congrats to PP's kid! It's not at all hard to fall out of the 90s and once you do, that's it.

Dramatic much? You make it sound like a B is terminal

If you want to go to UVA, you better not have any Bs.

Yes, no one on the past ten years has been admitted to UVA without straight A's.

Or even this past year. 🙄

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a recent St. Anselm's grad, I'm surprised to see it getting multiple nominations on this chain. It's hard to fall out of the 90s in many classes there and pretty straightforward to hit that mark in most of the others. There are only a couple of classes where it's actually a struggle to finish with an 'A' for most of the boys there.

How easy is the grading at other schools?

As another parent of a recent grad I think you’re smoking crack. AP Chem, ethics with alspaugh, calc and AP bio… it’s not easy at all to get A’s and for the kids that do consistently get A’s I know several of them and they work hard for them.

+1 But congrats to PP's kid! It's not at all hard to fall out of the 90s and once you do, that's it.

Dramatic much? You make it sound like a B is terminal

No, not at all; just stating an unemotional fact. What PP said is not true: "it's hard to fall out of the 90s." No, it isn't, and in fact most do. A 90 average is a 4.0, and in the last few graduating classes, going into senior year, only 2-6 boys had a 4.0 average, and they didn't all keep it by graduation. So nearly everyone falls out the 90s. One of mine rarely stayed in the 90s for any class, and is an AP Scholar with Distinction, did well above the class average on SATs, and is attending a great college and doing well. He's happy, we're happy, no drama.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a recent St. Anselm's grad, I'm surprised to see it getting multiple nominations on this chain. It's hard to fall out of the 90s in many classes there and pretty straightforward to hit that mark in most of the others. There are only a couple of classes where it's actually a struggle to finish with an 'A' for most of the boys there.

How easy is the grading at other schools?

As another parent of a recent grad I think you’re smoking crack. AP Chem, ethics with alspaugh, calc and AP bio… it’s not easy at all to get A’s and for the kids that do consistently get A’s I know several of them and they work hard for them.

+1 But congrats to PP's kid! It's not at all hard to fall out of the 90s and once you do, that's it.

Dramatic much? You make it sound like a B is terminal

If you want to go to UVA, you better not have any Bs.

Yes, no one on the past ten years has been admitted to UVA without straight A's.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a recent St. Anselm's grad, I'm surprised to see it getting multiple nominations on this chain. It's hard to fall out of the 90s in many classes there and pretty straightforward to hit that mark in most of the others. There are only a couple of classes where it's actually a struggle to finish with an 'A' for most of the boys there.

How easy is the grading at other schools?

As another parent of a recent grad I think you’re smoking crack. AP Chem, ethics with alspaugh, calc and AP bio… it’s not easy at all to get A’s and for the kids that do consistently get A’s I know several of them and they work hard for them.

+1 But congrats to PP's kid! It's not at all hard to fall out of the 90s and once you do, that's it.

Dramatic much? You make it sound like a B is terminal

If you want to go to UVA, you better not have any Bs.

or most of us, A=excellent, B=good, and C=satisfactory. In DCUM land, A=excellent/good, B=satisfactory, and C=failure.

I have really tried hard to impress this on my kids.

"Back in the day," this was how grading was perceived and B students were really good students. An A meant you either really understood the material or it came naturally. Cs were more common. I feel like A+ students when I was growing up were truly rare, or truly gifted (and their parents were very matter of fact about it all).

Our parents didn't have an up to the minute idea of how we were doing (or did we, really, for that matter). We had to wait until the test or paper fell on our desks and we saw the red mark. And noone really discussed grades. You either perceived someone was off the charts smart, or they were like you (and everyone else).

Now, my 11th grader says if she gets a B she has failed.

What is the point of giving all students A’s? If your kid has a 90 they are still ranked as the bottom student and it’s worse for the kids that get 98.

ITYM "best grade deflation".

Kids learn a lot more if the grades are harder to obtain, and, over the long term, they're going to be less stressed out. Not going to off yourself over a C at Princeton if you had a D in English 10.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a recent St. Anselm's grad, I'm surprised to see it getting multiple nominations on this chain. It's hard to fall out of the 90s in many classes there and pretty straightforward to hit that mark in most of the others. There are only a couple of classes where it's actually a struggle to finish with an 'A' for most of the boys there.

How easy is the grading at other schools?

As another parent of a recent grad I think you’re smoking crack. AP Chem, ethics with alspaugh, calc and AP bio… it’s not easy at all to get A’s and for the kids that do consistently get A’s I know several of them and they work hard for them.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a recent St. Anselm's grad, I'm surprised to see it getting multiple nominations on this chain. It's hard to fall out of the 90s in many classes there and pretty straightforward to hit that mark in most of the others. There are only a couple of classes where it's actually a struggle to finish with an 'A' for most of the boys there.

How easy is the grading at other schools?

As another parent of a recent grad I think you’re smoking crack. AP Chem, ethics with alspaugh, calc and AP bio… it’s not easy at all to get A’s and for the kids that do consistently get A’s I know several of them and they work hard for them.

+1 But congrats to PP's kid! It's not at all hard to fall out of the 90s and once you do, that's it.

Dramatic much? You make it sound like a B is terminal

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a recent St. Anselm's grad, I'm surprised to see it getting multiple nominations on this chain. It's hard to fall out of the 90s in many classes there and pretty straightforward to hit that mark in most of the others. There are only a couple of classes where it's actually a struggle to finish with an 'A' for most of the boys there.

How easy is the grading at other schools?

As another parent of a recent grad I think you’re smoking crack. AP Chem, ethics with alspaugh, calc and AP bio… it’s not easy at all to get A’s and for the kids that do consistently get A’s I know several of them and they work hard for them.

+1 But congrats to PP's kid! It's not at all hard to fall out of the 90s and once you do, that's it.

It's fascinating to witness the level of anxiety among upper middle class parents that stems from the observation that their children may, from time to time, encounter situations that are not absolutely fair in all respects and/ or that are outside their control.

Particularly when one considers that these children have already won the birth lottery.

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a recent St. Anselm's grad, I'm surprised to see it getting multiple nominations on this chain. It's hard to fall out of the 90s in many classes there and pretty straightforward to hit that mark in most of the others. There are only a couple of classes where it's actually a struggle to finish with an 'A' for most of the boys there.

How easy is the grading at other schools?

As another parent of a recent grad I think you’re smoking crack. AP Chem, ethics with alspaugh, calc and AP bio… it’s not easy at all to get A’s and for the kids that do consistently get A’s I know several of them and they work hard for them.

Some schools have reputations for more rigor/harder grading.

The other open secret in independent schools is that grading is often wildly inconsistent between teachers. Almost every course taught by multiple teachers has student gossip about good/bad and easy/hard.

The partial subjectivity of humanities courses often compounds this.

As the parent of a recent St. Anselm's grad, I'm surprised to see it getting multiple nominations on this chain. It's hard to fall out of the 90s in many classes there and pretty straightforward to hit that mark in most of the others. There are only a couple of classes where it's actually a struggle to finish with an 'A' for most of the boys there.

How easy is the grading at other schools?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Explain?

There are at least two humanities teachers at Sidwell (or were, i think one mat have retired) who bestow a single /A/ grade per class. That /A/ grade coincidentally is received by a female who tracks with the national DSA platform.

The kids all talk among themselves so they figure out who got the straight A vs. an A- or B etc.

I’m lost. What is a “DSA female”?