Does your high school have "+" and "-" grades?

[jfranklyn]

My daughter's high school is having a forum tonight to discuss the possibility of moving to a "plus" and "minus" grading system for next year. (Meaning you could earn a B+, A-, as opposed to just a B or an A).

Does anyone have any experience with a switch to such a grading system? Does it end up benefiting most students? Or does it make it harder for them to keep their GPA up?

I have no experience with such a grading system, so I'm really just wondering.

 

[scrapquitler]

My daughter's high school is having a forum tonight to discuss the possibility of moving to a "plus" and "minus" grading system for next year. (Meaning you could earn a B+, A-, as opposed to just a B or an A).

Does anyone have any experience with a switch to such a grading system? Does it end up benefiting most students? Or does it make it harder for them to keep their GPA up?

I have no experience with such a grading system, so I'm really just wondering.

I can't imagine NOT having the + and - as part if the grade! Where would the incentive to work harder come in if a student gets a B regardless of his average being an 80 vs an 89? That's a huge range of achievement for the exact same grade!

 

[design_mom]

Our school does not offer an A+ (even 100% is still just an A), nor do they offer an F+, but they do +/- for other grades.

In our school 93%+ is an A, 90-92% is an A-; 87-89% is a B+; 83-86% is a B; 80-82% is a B- and so on.

I would guess the switch will help some students' GPA, and hurt other students'. Some students' GPAs probably won't change at all. It will just depend on where you fall on the new grading scale.

For instance. Let's say 80-89% was all considered "B" (3.0 gpa) on the previous scale, but now 80-82 is B- (2.67 gpa), 83-86 is B (3.0 gpa), and 87-89 is a B+(3.33 gpa).
If you scored an 88%, your GPA will go up from 3.0 to 3.33.
If you scored an 85, your gpa will remain unchanged at 3.5.
If you scored an 82, your gpa will go down, from 3.0 to 2.67.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Yes, our schools use + and -

I have no experience with "changing" a system

To me, even though it's seemingly a "small" issue, it's really not. If my kid had a B+ one quarter, but dropped down to a B- the next, I know something's going on, and it's easy for my kid to see and understand, too - i.e. that he's in danger of dropping down to a lower grade, etc. It's also a small, but nice reward when the grade goes from a - to a + on the same letter grade.

 

[RitaE]

The High School my son graduated from last year did it for about 3 years. They found that overall GPAs dropped and the parents hated it because it looked worse on college Applications. I think it was partly because while you could get an A-, you couldn't get an A+

They quit doing it after awhile and recalculated everybody's GPAs using the old system.

 

[Shanna-like-Banana]

Our schools use percentages, not Alpha characters,

So no + or -, since we dont use "letters"

The reports or interims tells the exact number and nothing else.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Ours shows the + and - on the report cards, but for GPA purposes a B- and a B+ score the same. All it really does is show your progress at the end of the quarters so you have time to work on your grade for the end of the semester when it counts.

 

[jgh]

I never had the +/- system in grade school or even while in college getting my associates.

Now that I'm at a university and we have these...I don't understand why anyone WOULDN'T have them. Sure, they don't benefit everyone, but I think they're great.

I'm mostly a straight A student, with the exception of math.

Last summer while finishing my associates I took a Statistics class and got an 89! UGH! I would have loved for that to have been a B+ instead of just a "B" (I could have just gotten an 80 and it would have been the exact same ).

 

[Liberty Belle]

No.

93-100+ = A
84-92= B
75-83=C
68-74= D

I think that's how they were divided up. I may be off on the C and D, but I'm pretty sure about A and B.

So, if you got a 94 or 102 (with extra credit), it was still an A. On the report cards, it would show the percentage along with the letter grade.

 

[jgh]

No.

93-100+ = A
84-92= B
75-83=C
68-74= D
.

Wow that seems very strange to me. I've always grown up knowing:

100-90 = A
89-80 = B
79-70 = C
69 and below = F

We never had D's.

 

[poohfriend77]

Our schools use percentages, not Alpha characters,

So no + or -, since we dont use "letters"

The reports or interims tells the exact number and nothing else.

So no GPA at all? Hmmm, that's interesting. Is valedictorian selected based on highest average percentage? That actually seems better. A local school had something like 19 kids who all "tied" with 4.0 GPAs, so they were all valedictorians.

DD is in Catholic school 4th, which is the first year of letter grades. On their scale, 95 is an A, 94 is A-, 92 is B, etc. She has gotten a couple B/B+'s on her report cards, even though every grade has been above 90%. It's a little frustrating for a mama who grew up OBSESSED with getting straight A's. (I am still VERY proud of how DD has done. I don't mean to sound like I'm frustrated with her... just that I look at her grades and think, "well, really those are "A" grades. )

The interesting thing though, is that the Catholic HS just voted to change its policy. They followed a similar grading system, but parents complained so much that they are going to the straight 90/80/70/60 cutoffs. I think they still have +/- though. Parents were pulling their kids out of an EXCELLENT HS to go to public schools, because they knew the kids would easily get straight A's there. That is really sad to me... like teaching your kid to take the easy way out, rather than work for better grades.

 

[soccerdad72]

Our middle school does it. It's never really been a big deal, especially since honors roll has always been calculated on overall % average, not GPA (which, as far as I know, they don't calculate).

 

[jrmasm]

Wow that seems very strange to me. I've always grown up knowing:

100-90 = A
89-80 = B
79-70 = C
69 and below = F

We never had D's.

Our district is even harsher

A = 93 - 100
B = 86 - 92
C = 77 – 85
D = 70 – 76

 

[Katy Belle]

Our schools have no + or - .

I'm curious as to how it translates to GPA?

So an A+ is 4.0 what is an A? Or A-?

B+ is 3.0???

I'd be interested to know how that works.

We don't even get a bump up for AP classes. An A is 4.0.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Yes: A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, and F. No D's.

Anything below 70 is an F.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

So no GPA at all?

There are an infinite number of ways to calculate a GPA, including using numeric averages.

 

[thedonduck]

Our schools have no + or - .

I'm curious as to how it translates to GPA?

So an A+ is 4.0 what is an A? Or A-?

B+ is 3.0???

I'd be interested to know how that works.

We don't even get a bump up for AP classes. An A is 4.0.

We had +/- in high school.
A+=4.3
A=4.0
A-=3.7
B+=3.3
B=3.0
B-=2.7
C+=2.3
C=2.0
C-=1.7
D+=1.3
D=1
D-=0.7
F=0

If we took an honors or AP course, we would automatically have .025 onto our GPA. So we could graduate with above a 4.0 depending on how many AP/honors courses we took. This was an incentive to take the harder courses

In college we had a A, AB, B, BC, C, CD, D, and F grading system

A=4
AB=3.5
B=3
BC=2.5
C=2
CD=1.5
D=1
F=0

 

[RitaE]

Our schools have no + or - .

I'm curious as to how it translates to GPA?

So an A+ is 4.0 what is an A? Or A-?

B+ is 3.0???

I'd be interested to know how that works.

We don't even get a bump up for AP classes. An A is 4.0.

Ours it was like

A = 4
A- = 3.7
B+ = 3.3
B = 3
B- = 2.7

or something like that

 

[soccerdad72]

Ours it was like

A = 4
A- = 3.7
B+ = 3.3
B = 3
B- = 2.7

or something like that

Ours was too, except honors classes were a full point extra (so 5.0 for an A). You couldn't get a 5.0 average (not every class offered honors), but I think our valedictorian had a 4.7 or something like that.

Schools have to provide their grading scales to colleges so they can evaluated students on an even basis for admissions.

 

[ceemys]

We used to have a great system.
100 - A+

(with + and - for upper and lower end)

94-99 - A
86-93 - B
77-86 - C
70-76 - D
0-69 - F

Then they chagned it completely about 3 years ago. I hate it! For my kids, I still follow the original numer grades. I expect my kids to receive a B and above (86 through 100) It doesn't change the GPA, just the letter grade in the school. So a 93 used to be a B and now it is still an A. Just lets the kids slack off to get still get the better alpha grades. The A-B honor roll means crap now.

90-100 - A
80-89 - B
70-79 - C
60-69 - D
0-59 - F