High School:Good Grades vs. Challenging Classes

[ZephyrHawk]

It is never better to take an easier courseload. Colleges do not care if you were valedictorian or whatever, they know that generally the kids who managed to get those levels of grades did so by taking classes that were beneath their level. I knew people who did this, taking art and home-ec specifically for the easy A. I knew people who went crying to our teachers when they were going to get a bad grade because it would ruin their chances of graduating perfect. I knew people who dragged their parents in to lobby on their behalf.

In my school the valedictorians and salutatorians were a joke. Everyone knew who the smart people were. They were the ones farther down in the class list who suffered through physics and AP calculus. They were the ones who took advanced biology and chemistry concurrently so that they could have the privilege of taking physics the following year.

And as for international bacclaureate, I have yet to meet anyone who took it who felt that it actually aided them in anything after high school.

 

[Kirby]

I think that it all depends upon the child. Both of mine have learning disabilities. My son, who is in his third year of college, took regular classes. He struggled to make A's but still graduated in the top 25% of his class and was accepted into all four of the colleges he applied to. He bombed the SAT and did better on the ACT. He makes decent grades in college and has transferred to another college where he is pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering.

My daughter is in her senior year of high school has already been accepted to a college off of her junior grades. She doesn't make as good of grades as my son did, didn't take the SAT and took the ACT twice, doing better the second time around.

Both of my kids were involved in extra curriculars and had/have jobs. What were the colleges looking for? I don't know. Definately more than GPA, class rank and test scores. Look on the college web sites that your child is interested in and see what the requirements are. My daughter's friend got accepted into college with an ACT score of 18. She takes AP courses, is involved in band and holds down a job.

 

[agnes!]

Ok, am I the only one that can't figure out how to correct their previous post? I never added the computer hitting smiley, and I want to correct my mistaken spellings, but I keep getting logged out. Ugh. Really, I am a more capable speller!

Anyway, I just wanted to add that while the grades not being weighted applies to Purdue, I don't know about other schools, so please don't think that my family's experience is the norm. My daughter only wanted Purdue, though we visited many schools, and this was Purdue's way of doing things. We never applied at other schools to know their criteria.

Oddly enough, for admission criteria, they did took the GPA from all her classes (non-weighted ), but for scholarship, they did not, just the 4 cour classes, which included an Honors Trig grade that was a "C", and an Honors Chem grade that was also a "C" (non-weighted). Both teachers had a habit of losing graded but unrecorded papers, which you would not know about until the end of the semester, and they never let the students make up the lost papers. A high proportion of students do not do well in those two teacher's classes, but not much is done by the school. Live and learn (and DD's experience with those teachers was part of her entrance essay for Purdue!). Bummer. Being out of state, that Presidential or Trustee scholarship would have been a great help!

I am sure there must be other schools out there that calculate GPA differently, hopefully in a way that is more indicitive of the work done by your students!

I am almost speechless. And that doesn't happen often. Luckily (knock on wood) my DD has not had a teacher who lost turned-in assignments on a regular basis, though one of her friends had a teacher last year who did just that and tried to get away with it. The parents of the kids who were getting screwed out of their rightful grades went to war and good for them - teachers like that are a menace.

I am so sorry about your DD's predicament.

agnes!

 

[disykat]

I'm glad to hear colleges are looking at regular GPA's along with or rather than weighted. My son's school doesn't weight grades. He's getting a B in one of his AP classes and has been sweating about how it's going to lower his GPA and he's not going to be competitive with kids who go to weighted schools.

To me, weighted grades in harder classes make sense, but only if EVERYONE weights them!

 

[punkin]

I am almost speechless. And that doesn't happen often. Luckily (knock on wood) my DD has not had a teacher who lost turned-in assignments on a regular basis, though one of her friends had a teacher last year who did just that and tried to get away with it. The parents of the kids who were getting screwed out of their rightful grades went to war and good for them - teachers like that are a menace.

I am so sorry about your DD's predicament.

agnes!

OK. I have to post this. So, two weeks ago was the last week of the semester. My daughter looks on line where they have all their grades posted and she sees 2 zeros for assignments she handed in. This brings her A average down to a B. So she emails her teacher and says "I have the 30 point assignment with your grade written on it in your handwriting and I handed in the 8 point assignment, but you never returned it. Either way, since I handed it in, it could not be a zero". He emails back to say he fixed everything. How did he fix it? He excused the 30 point assignment (instead of giving her the 30 points she actually earned) and left a zero for the 8 pointer. This brought her average up to a 93, which is an A. However, had he counted the 30 points and even given her 4 points out of 8 on the other assignment (I am sure she did better, but...), she would have gotten a 98.

I was livid, but my DH says "why do you care, it's still an A".

 

[taximomfor4]

I am almost speechless. And that doesn't happen often. Luckily (knock on wood) my DD has not had a teacher who lost turned-in assignments on a regular basis, though one of her friends had a teacher last year who did just that and tried to get away with it. The parents of the kids who were getting screwed out of their rightful grades went to war and good for them - teachers like that are a menace.

I am so sorry about your DD's predicament.

agnes!

I can beat that. My dd's 10th grade PE teacher . At conference time, he told us all about how our dd was getting a D in PE, because she was hardly ever dressed for PE. My dd kept telling us the opposite, how she was TERRIBLE at soccer and volleyball, but laughed as hard as anyone whenever she messed up. How she was having a blast just trying her best, once she stopped being so disappointed in not being great at sports. We were sooo confused at the conference! When we got home, spitting mad, dd cried. Next day, she talked to her PE teacher. Turns out, he didn't realize it was HER he was talking about. He was connecting dd's name to a different girl (with a completely different name, in a completely different class). POerhaps he should use A GRADE BOOK. Anyway, Final Exam time came around, and we got the report card. DD had told us how easy the exam was (but lots of times, she thinks that and gets a C. ADHD, you know). SHE FAILED HER PE FINAL. She swears she didn't. We tried again and again to reach the teacher, through the guidance counselor and directly. He didn't return our call till over a month later, and "doesn't have the exams anymore." So dd is stuck with an F on her final report card, in PE.

 

[Christine]

We have had several incidences where homework assignments have not been recorded. Fortunately, my kids have had all their assignments and were able to get them put in; however, it never fails that this gets noticed right before a report card comes out and sometimes the grades haven't been able to be corrected on time and then they have to go back and make some heroic correction. Very nervewracking and it drives me nuts that some teachers can be so disorganized.

 

[agnes!]

OK. I have to post this. So, two weeks ago was the last week of the semester. My daughter looks on line where they have all their grades posted and she sees 2 zeros for assignments she handed in. This brings her A average down to a B. So she emails her teacher and says "I have the 30 point assignment with your grade written on it in your handwriting and I handed in the 8 point assignment, but you never returned it. Either way, since I handed it in, it could not be a zero". He emails back to say he fixed everything. How did he fix it? He excused the 30 point assignment (instead of giving her the 30 points she actually earned) and left a zero for the 8 pointer. This brought her average up to a 93, which is an A. However, had he counted the 30 points and even given her 4 points out of 8 on the other assignment (I am sure she did better, but...), she would have gotten a 98.

I was livid, but my DH says "why do you care, it's still an A".

NO, it is NOT the "same". You all have got to get this fixed! It could seriously affect her GPA for the *year* (law of averages and all that). Your DD did the responsible thing, contacted the teacher (leavinga paper trail - always a good thing) and the teacher has NOT given your DD her actual grade. If I were in your family's shoes, you all should start going up the chain of command - department head, asst principal for your DD's grade, your DD's counselor, the school principal, etc.


Good luck. Please update the thread if you get any traction on this issue.
agnes!

 

[agnes!]

We have had several incidences where homework assignments have not been recorded. Fortunately, my kids have had all their assignments and were able to get them put in; however, it never fails that this gets noticed right before a report card comes out and sometimes the grades haven't been able to be corrected on time and then they have to go back and make some heroic correction. Very nervewracking and it drives me nuts that some teachers can be so disorganized.

Oh yeah, some lost graded assignments along the way, etc. Luckily, DD keeps everything for the quarter until the grades come out, something I heartily recommend . The particular problem that some of her friends ran into was when a particular teacher would LOSE turned-in *major* assignments, not record a grade, not hand them back and then try to claim that they had never been turned in .

DD had a mistake this year on one of her interims, and went to the teacher who in turn made the erroneous assumption that DD was agitating for a higher grade (that she didn't deserve). Uh, *NO*.
She was able to set the teacher straight very quickly .

agnes!

 

[ColoradoMom!!]

I was just arguing all these points with my freshman last night - trying to decide what to take next year. What is interesting about him is that he prefers the honors classes because he hates how the kids goof off in the regular classes! They are offering AP American History to 10th graders next year. That's it - no honors. I don't think he can handle it, and I don't see the point at all. He says he'd take it even if he bombs the test for college credit anyway.

Also - I am BLOWN AWAY to learn that colleges ask for unweighted GPA's. I just thought you only had one GPA, and if the AP class you took weighted the grade, than that's it. WOW.

 

[tar heel]

I don't think there's any question that the really selective colleges EXPECT students to have taken the toughest course load their high schools offer. At least that's what they told us. That being said, I still believe that grades below B can hurt you if you're on the border.

Some of the really selective colleges reweight the grades themselves. Some don't count some classes (p.e., tech classes, sometimes even arts) at all. A couple schools that my kids visited were also really into kids taking higher level math and foreign language, for what that's worth.

At our high school, you can't have a good class rank without taking honors and AP classes as most of the kids in the top 20% are going to have a 4.0 or higher. An A in regular classes is 4.0, in honors 5.0 and AP 6.0. Upper level foreign language classes count as honors. They have also made class rank very precise by giving number instead of letter grades on the report card. Both weighted and unweighted GPAs are on the transcript.

I think you've got to do as much honors/AP as possible, but also look at your child's strengths and weaknesses. My oldest didn't do honors/AP in social studies junior and senior year b/c he didn't like it and he just did honors instead of AP in English b/c that wasn't his strength. Middle son did regular sections of math and science and honors of English and social studies. My third child, who is in high school now, will likely do honors/AP sections of everything.

 

[shelly3girls]

It is never better to take an easier courseload. Colleges do not care if you were valedictorian or whatever, they know that generally the kids who managed to get those levels of grades did so by taking classes that were beneath their level. I knew people who did this, taking art and home-ec specifically for the easy A. I knew people who went crying to our teachers when they were going to get a bad grade because it would ruin their chances of graduating perfect. I knew people who dragged their parents in to lobby on their behalf.

In my school the valedictorians and salutatorians were a joke. Everyone knew who the smart people were. They were the ones farther down in the class list who suffered through physics and AP calculus. They were the ones who took advanced biology and chemistry concurrently so that they could have the privilege of taking physics the following year.

This is very surprising to me, I didn't even realize there were schools that did this. In our district this could not happen. There is no way a student could get even in the top 10% with regular classes. GPAs are weighted so an A in college prep is like a B in honors which is like a C in an AP class. The kids taking AP classes getting Bs are way ahead of the kids in college prep getting straight A's. The top of the class are always students taking challenging courses. I graduated top of my class taking all AP and honors with straight A's along with several others achieving just as high. I do not think it is fair to count an A in college prep the same as an A in AP.

 

[punkin]

NO, it is NOT the "same". You all have got to get this fixed! It could seriously affect her GPA for the *year* (law of averages and all that).

No, it really makes no difference to her GPA. All number grades are converted to letters before they are entered on the report cards and are averaged in order to come up with the cumulative GPA. The underlying number grades are never seen by anyone ever again. You can get all 100% or all 90% and have the same GPA regardless.

I am not planning to make a big deal with either the teacher or the administration because this is not one of the battles I choose to fight, but DD did promise to speak to her teacher about it.

 

[agnes!]

No, it really makes no difference to her GPA. All number grades are converted to letters before they are entered on the report cards and are averaged in order to come up with the cumulative GPA. The underlying number grades are never seen by anyone ever again. You can get all 100% or all 90% and have the same GPA regardless.

I am not planning to make a big deal with either the teacher or the administration because this is not one of the battles I choose to fight, but DD did promise to speak to her teacher about it.

Well, see our school system is different, the teachers enter a letter grade on the report cards but the grade for the year is the average of all the numeric scores.

And yeah, I hear ya about choosing battles . Our DD also gets first crack at handling any issues as well.

agnes!

 

[Christine]

Well, I got some more *cheery* news for this thread.

Just found out 5 minutes ago from one of DD's other safe schools (supposedly EVERYONE gets in here). Well, she didn't. Application denied. A woman at work was so sure my DD would get in here because her daughter's boyfriend got in last year with lots of D's and F's, barely a 1400 on the SATs. But yep, he got in. DD didn't.

 

[ZephyrHawk]

This is very surprising to me, I didn't even realize there were schools that did this. In our district this could not happen. There is no way a student could get even in the top 10% with regular classes. GPAs are weighted so an A in college prep is like a B in honors which is like a C in an AP class. The kids taking AP classes getting Bs are way ahead of the kids in college prep getting straight A's. The top of the class are always students taking challenging courses. I graduated top of my class taking all AP and honors with straight A's along with several others achieving just as high. I do not think it is fair to count an A in college prep the same as an A in AP.

Yeah, they didn't weight classes at my school. A in AP Calc counted the same as an A in remedial math. Maybe it's because I graduated in the 90's and the phenomenon just hadn't caught on yet, or perhaps it's because I was in a rather small school (there were about 120 in my graduating class) and we were a lot easier to manage. Our class valedictorian was in no AP classes and didn't take physics (which wasn't AP, but was at that level), I know because I was in all of those classes.

Mind you, the college I eventually went to automatically tacked on an extra .8 or something to everyone's GPA as a mere fact that they graduated from my high school (which is known to be one of the most challenging in the state), so technically I did have a weighted GPA when I applied.

 

[goofy4tink]

If the kid is planning to go to a good college, hands down, no question; he has to take the most challenging curriculum the high school offers.

Hmmmm, wonder what constitutes a 'good college'.

DS' English teacher told her class that they are better off with a "C" in an AP class than with an "A" or a "B" in an Honors class. I have to disagree with that!

We will find an AP course geared towards DS' interests. I can tell you...there's no way he'll ever take AP English.

I'm hearing the exact same thing.

Thank you for sharing this. I am seriously thinking the heavily weighted courses make the high schools look good and that's why it's being pushed. I figured the GC has the inside track, and as I posted before she said go for the higher GPA.

I know this is the case here in our high school. Drives me nuts.

for top colleges, she is 100% correct

Again...what constitutes a 'top college'?? Somewhat elitist comments.

You know...I've been down this road with my eldest, many years ago, before AP and Honors classes became such a big deal. Those students who 'qualified' for those classes were few and far between. Now? Every 4th kid gets into an AP or Honors class. Any you all wonder why colleges aren't always paying that much attention to that? It's mind boggling to see how many kids are in those classes at our high school.
Last year, in 8th grade, my dd took the second half of French 1. It was spread out over 7th and 8th grade. She did okay the first year, but by Oct of grade 8, was told by the teacher that should probably think about dropping it. She worked with a tutor, for about a total of 6 hrs, and got on the stick. The end of the year came and she was recommended for honors French II. We opted not to do that...way too much stress for someone who wasn't going to be a language major. She is in level 3 French II, a college prep class and doing just fine..getting B's. The majority of her classes are college prep, with a level 2 in Algebra...not her strong suit. But, she did get an A in that last quarter...we'll see what happens this Friday when grades come out.
But....all in all...I just can't understand why anyone would put a kid in an AP or Honors class just to challenge them. Here, in our high school, a parent can not just have their child put into that class, the child has to be recommended by their current subject teacher. Even then, as in my dd's case, I would much rather see a lot of good work go into that Level 3, college prep, class with good grades the result than overwork my child in a too advanced class.
Let's face it, if your child is put into the right level class, they will be challenged. Sure, my dd's best friend couldn't sit in dd's Algebra class. She would wither away..but she is in an advanced math class. However, my dd is plenty challenged right were she is, in a much lesser level class.

What kind of college will she be able to get into?? Who knows. I'm sure she won't be going to an Ivy League school..not a shot. And probably not any well known college or university. But that's okay. There are plenty of smaller, less known colleges that turn out well rounded students who are contributing members of society. I hesitate to say that 'even' the state schools are more than fine.....at least here in Mass they are. But, there are always going to be those who turn their noses up at these schools. And they will push their kids to get into 'good' colleges, even if their child is miserable doing it. And what will it accomplish? Pretty much the ability to say...'Oh, Susie went to Yale..isn't that wonderful?' Down the road, it really doesn't matter all that much. Not unless you did something very specific to that school, that you couldn't get accomplished anywhere else. I mean, you don't go to school in Kansas for marine biology!!
Nope, I just can't get all that worried about class rank, or GPA's anymore.

 

[punkin]

Well, I got some more *cheery* news for this thread.

Just found out 5 minutes ago from one of DD's other safe schools (supposedly EVERYONE gets in here). Well, she didn't. Application denied. A woman at work was so sure my DD would get in here because her daughter's boyfriend got in last year with lots of D's and F's, barely a 1400 on the SATs. But yep, he got in. DD didn't.

You are giving me palpitations. I have no idea anymore what constitutes a "safety". What do these colleges even want anymore?

ETA: I am really sorry for your DD. Maybe she's have better luck with the "matches" and "reaches".

 

[punkin]

I hesitate to say that 'even' the state schools are more than fine.....at least here in Mass they are. But, there are always going to be those who turn their noses up at these schools.

You've got to be kidding. I'd be pleased as punch if DD could get into our state school, but it is not looking too comfortable that she can, even with several APs and all honors.

 

[agnes!]

Well, I got some more *cheery* news for this thread.

Just found out 5 minutes ago from one of DD's other safe schools (supposedly EVERYONE gets in here). Well, she didn't. Application denied. A woman at work was so sure my DD would get in here because her daughter's boyfriend got in last year with lots of D's and F's, barely a 1400 on the SATs. But yep, he got in. DD didn't.

Oh no Christine, I'm so sorry . Keeping you & yours in prayer.

agnes!