Grading Scales

Carol,
My son is 10th grade. He has the original grading system, but is in a very rigorous high school, one rated within the top 20 out of about 400 public high schools. Anyway, he finds it unfair that some students have an easy teacher in some academics and can coast while others have extremely tough teachers within this same top school. He asks me how colleges would know that a B- in one class means more than an A with a different instructor for the exact same class. The truth is that the colleges do not. I feel that deciding scholarship $s based on GPA is unfair, as someone who scores well on the SAT or ACT from a less challenging high school with a higher GPA will be offered more than my B student in this high school. I do not worry about acceptance bcs I know he is not Harvard bound and we will be looking into second teir schools, where I know he will get in, the $ will be the issue, as will be staying in as person with an LD. It is one thing to gain admission, it is quite another to experience success and not wind up a college drop out.

My son went to a private school that had a more rigorous grading scale (the 94-100 etc.) than do the local public schools (90-100 etc.) Since he went to community college after graduation rather than to a four-year school, it wasn’t really an issue for us. But I know that other LD students in his school made a point of mentioning the grading scale in their college essays and interviews. I also know that the University of Washington (we’re in Seattle) uses a scale by which it weights applicants from various local high schools, depending on how comparable their graduates’ university gpa is to their high school gpa. In other words, if graduates of school “X” average a 3.7 gpa coming out of high school, but average a 2.7 gpa after their freshman year at the UW, they will assume certain grade inflation at school “X’ and factor that into admissions decisions. On the other hand, if students from school “Y’ average a 3.5 coming out of high school, and have a 3.1 gpa average after freshman year, they will have different assumptions. (I’m making up the numbers - but you get the concept.) It’s not perfect, and they have to have a big enough pool from the various schools to make it work, but I like the concept!

A fair number of states have that higher grading standard — it was always an issue where I taught. Most colleges, though, *are* aware of different states’ grading scales.
So… it’s not necessarily fair — but not worth wasting any sweat over. You can bet there are other unfair elements to the process too.

Some college students have told me that they were turned down for acceptance bythe same colleges that accepted students with a much lower gpa and SATs from a different hs, and they feel it is bcs it is a “blue ribbon school” that the students w the lower gpas came from. The students turned down for admission came from a “very good” hs, but not a “blue ribbon” school.

My state does not have a statewide grading scale. I didn’t know any state did.

College admissions officers take these things into account. If your entire state’s grading scale is more rigid than other states, they will know that. Indeed, every single high school submits its school’s cumulative average. All of the grades earned by all of the seniors are averaged together and that number is transmitted to colleges. Seniors’ cums are compared to the school’s overall cum.

If your school’s overall cum is lower than other schools - as it must be with this demanding grading scale - than your son’s cum will good by comparison.

Remember that no student’s grades and cum are looked at in isolation. They are always compared to the school’s overall record.