Grade inflation

[A1Janitor]

I knew a person with a 5.1 GPA that recently graduated from our school. It was mainly due to him taking a total of 15 AP courses throughout his high school years and earning well grades on them. I think it might be the school that people attend dictates whether there is or isn't an inflation of grades.

This is exactly my son’s school. They give a weighted bump for the AP scores. Because of this, he earned the highest GPA in the school’s history.

That is meaningless because you don’t know the number of AP classes the others took in comparison.

What isn’t meaningless is he also had a 99 unweighted average taking every advanced course offered. That is the number we remember. And the number I suspect was sent to USNA.

In your example, that kid might also have been competitive with his unweighted rank.

 

[TheRightStuff]

My post #60 where I said taking the test multiple times can be considered gaming the system was in reference to an earlier post in which the poster said that using tutors and taking prep classes is gaming the system. I failed to quote the post. I do not think taking the exam multiple times is gaming the system at all. All my kids took the exam three times each. I tried to correct myself in posts #63 and #64, but obviously that didn't work out so well...

I see that SAT has increased the fee waiver to four test attempts from two just this past year. I was not aware of that. Sorry for my 'silly' comment that poor students are affected by the expensive fee.

No need to apologize.

I don’t think that taking the test more than once is really gaming the system. More power to you if you have the time and resources to do it. 100% test affordability is a barrier to taking it more than once though that I’m going to chime in on here. I come from a household where taking it more than once would have been a huge stretch, and I knew that going in. It isn’t just the upfront cost of the test itself, because while $50 might not seem like a lot to most, it definitely can be…especially when you’re talking about taking it two, three, four…more times. That starts getting into the 100s of dollars. Not money my family had to justify taking it especially when there wasn’t any guarantee I’d improve my score….wasn’t like we were going to afford any outside prep. What I did for self prep was going to be it.

There are also unwritten costs such as transportation and time costs that these tests take not factored into that $50. Single parent household, didn’t have a license yet (let alone a second car), and my mom worked weekends to make the most out of her shifts to support the home. Our school wasn’t a test site. Taking it more than once would have been a logistical hurdle to sort out and required my mom to take a shift off, also cost in money to us.

I’m not saying this as a woe is me tale. It obviously worked out fine for me to take the test once and get to where I wanted to be, but I can very much empathize and understand where this would be a barrier to folks that fee waivers, which I would be very surprised to see if they would cover multiple times as most I would imagine would only cover a student’s first attempt to save these programs money to make sure it goes around. I’d just argue that this is a barrier that people shouldn’t dismiss and just be thankful if they’re coming from a position that it wouldn’t seem to be.

There are many barriers in life, but taking the SAT and ACT multiple times isn't really one of the larger ones that can't be overcome without Herculean effort.

I know many kids that were in a similar situation that you found yourself in, but between multiple fee waivers, abundant free prep resources and being able to find a way to the test site - they all found a solution and forged their own path through the adversity.

These are not all Horatio Alger stories, and not everyone needs to become a billionaire from nothing like Oprah or Soros. If everyone threw in the towel at the sight of those obstacles, we would all be home every day, crying in our subsidized beer. Taking the ACT or SAT multiple times is no different.

Life happens, find a way.

 

[brewmeist]

No need to apologize.

I know.

 

[CrewDad]

I personally don’t like the 4.0 system. In our school, you get an unweighted grade based on 100. My son graduated with a 99 average unweighted - taking all AP and honors courses offered.

Impressive!

 

[Old Enlisted Marine]

I've posted this a few times in the past... Learning how to take the test is almost just as important as having the subject knowledge. It is a unique test, and the only real way to learn it is to actually take it a few times. It's sort of like driving... You can read all the manuals you want, but you won't be a proficient driver until you actually get behind the wheel and learn from your mistakes.

Test taking strategies is an extremely important skill to develop. It should not be underestimated. I had a very difficult time trying to get this point across to both my kids. Once it clicked it made a big difference.

 

[Heatherg21]

Our DS had a crazy schedule his junior year as I assume most SA applicants had. We did qualify for a fee waiver (they offer up to 4) and it covered multiple attempts. Still was an hour each way to the test, gas, etc. He did no prep other than his normal honor-level coursework. He wasn't happy with his first score, he admitted he had timed it badly, it was midterms and he was running on 3 hours of sleep.

He retested and improved by almost 200 points.

The other cost factor is test score sends. If you don't 'preselect' where to send your score, you pay for each and every one. He didn't want to send scores without seeing them first, so that racked up like crazy.

Another young man with a single-digit GPA took it once and nailed a near-perfect score. Not everyone tests well.

My own SAT score back when dinosaurs roamed was equal to my son's. I dropped out of college academically unsat. The standardized tests are not the ultimate means of assessing future performance in my opinion.

His GPA unweighted was 4.0. Weighted was like 4.5 something. But nobody can equalize the level of instruction across the spectrum or the manner in which high schools grade, so I guess they have to revert to test scores to account for that.

 

[StPaulDad]

Part of grade inflation is rooted in the increased number of options that schools are offering students. Basic, Prep and Honors tracks have forked into AP and dual enrollment and IB and goodness knows what else, and they had to do something in order to remove the risk that harder classes would result in lower grades and class rank. (In my 80s private high school one of the top ten was a stoner who took almost no hard classes but many studio courses and made really good looking pottery that could be converted to a bong by a knowing hand.) The two choices facing administrations were cheapening the easy track or gilding the hard ones, and no one wants to beat up the back of the class. For college admissions teams the solution is pair the grades and class ranks with test scores to see if things mostly align, and then to decide if you want to cut cards, throw darts, get input from the Development office and coaches, or try looking at the essays again. Tough problem.

EDIT: The grades are inflating for the kids that are willing to do the work, and the tests can be studied and worked by the kids that are willing to invest the time and money. The difficulty is the gap between those willing to work the system and those who aren't, and are thus implicitly getting left behind.

 

[UHBlackhawk]

I recently spoke to a German college student who was shocked when I described that our college admissions testing consisted of a single 3 - 4 hour test that you can take multiple times. Compared to German Abitur: 4 to 5 tests over several weeks covering multiple subjects with each test 3 - 4.5 hours long in addition to an oral exam.

But as kinnem said, it is the system, like it or not. As long as everyone is playing by the same rules, there is really no advantage/disadvantage. It's a less than optimal measure of academic potential, but the best we have for comparison given the lack of uniformity in grading at schools.

Germany also has a “class” system. Since the government pays for advanced education, everyone does NOT have an opportunity to attend university. It’s extremely selective and if you come from a poor background, good luck passing those exams. If your parents didn’t attend college you probably won’t as well.
Going back to school or changing your career field is also very difficult. I’ve had several Germans tell me very bluntly that my DW never would have gotten to university under their system, much less become a doctor.

 

[justme]

Germany also has a “class” system. Since the government pays for advanced education, everyone does NOT have an opportunity to attend university. It’s extremely selective and if you come from a poor background, good luck passing those exams. If your parents didn’t attend college you probably won’t as well.
Going back to school or changing your career field is also very difficult. I’ve had several Germans tell me very bluntly that my DW never would have gotten to university under their system, much less become a doctor.

I am unfamiliar with Germany, but my Indian friends have explained their annual testing process and it sound similar if not more intense. There were cases of mass suicides a couple years ago when scores were improperly communicated for a region and several families initially thought they didn't qualify for college.

 

[cb7893]

Germany also has a “class” system. Since the government pays for advanced education, everyone does NOT have an opportunity to attend university. It’s extremely selective and if you come from a poor background, good luck passing those exams. If your parents didn’t attend college you probably won’t as well.
Going back to school or changing your career field is also very difficult. I’ve had several Germans tell me very bluntly that my DW never would have gotten to university under their system, much less become a doctor.

I'm certainly no advocate of the class stratified education system in most of Europe, but in all fairness there is a much stronger system of higher education other than University post HS than here in the US. Their technical schools maybe a step below our University Engineering programs, but miles ahead of our community colleges. They are also free for the most part and are financed in large part by the industries that guarantee employment to the graduates.

 

[jl123]

Germany also has a “class” system. Since the government pays for advanced education, everyone does NOT have an opportunity to attend university. It’s extremely selective and if you come from a poor background, good luck passing those exams. If your parents didn’t attend college you probably won’t as well.
Going back to school or changing your career field is also very difficult. I’ve had several Germans tell me very bluntly that my DW never would have gotten to university under their system, much less become a doctor.

Yes, part of the harshness of the German system. They separate those who are on a university track in the 5th or 6th grade (depending on state) from those who will become clerks, construction workers, mechanics, etc. Little room for late bloomers, like me - I would likely never have gone to college under the German system. The flip side is that German vocational training is excellent.

Germany also has about one-third fewer university slots per capita than the US and does not have the extensive sports programs and other extracurricular activities of the US system. When people here clamor for free college like many European countries my first question is whether they think we should lease out all of the athletic fields and buildings or just demolish them, since those facilities will no longer be required.

People often forget what makes the US great - you can start from anywhere and go as far as your talent and drive will take you.

 

[OldAFRet]

Germany also has a “class” system. Since the government pays for advanced education, everyone does NOT have an opportunity to attend university. It’s extremely selective and if you come from a poor background, good luck passing those exams. If your parents didn’t attend college you probably won’t as well.
Going back to school or changing your career field is also very difficult. I’ve had several Germans tell me very bluntly that my DW never would have gotten to university under their system, much less become a doctor.

I swore I was not going to trot out my experience with Germany's education system, but you're going to make me do it.

My experience is dated, and it's fair to point out that when I was stationed there, every man who was then as old as I am now had been a Nazi soldier, and Germany was still building its economy.

1. For the love of Jesus, can we please stop using terms like "free education" or "government paid" education. TAXPAYERS PAY FOR EVERYTHING. In Germany, when I lived there (half my AF career, btw), you could forget roughly half your paycheck. FREE HEALTHCARE, FREE EDUCATION, and a plethora of taxes, including a church tax, ate up most of your salary.

2. When I lived there, Germany was a very large majority Caucasian, Christian (mostly Catholic) population. They didn't have a lot of the social inequality issues we have (unless you want to count the numerous generations of Turks whose ancestors were invited there to rebuild after WWII, but that's another discussion) . I usually prepped any of my black friends, before bringing them into my German circles, with "yes, as a matter of fact, you are going to be the first black person they have met".

3. Tracking, or the class system, starts very early. IIRC in Germany a decision was made in the 6th year of school as to whether you would be a laborer or work in some sort of service industry, or go on to a trade school, or go the university preparedness route. By the age of 16, in the first two tracks, you were working and making a wage. College prep people continued on to get the Abitur (high school diploma) to enter college. At 18, all the men took a break to do their national service, either in the military, or one of the other routes available to conscientious objectors. Some university students managed to defer this service or get out of it completely.

4. Beating fate. If you did not like the role chosen for you before you were old enough to shave, you could hit the books and attend adult education (taxpayer funded), and become an engineer or whatever you showed the aptitude for. My landlord (don't use the term landlord in Europe - it is a term from their Feudal days they don't like) was assigned watchmaker training after the 3rd Reich fell and the war ended. He got into the night school program with no issues even though he was a -gasp- Pole, and became anengineer. His son, although very good with electronics, music, and computer programming, was assigned to telephone maintenance school. After a bit of apprenticeship, and his national service as an ambulance driver, Son went to night school and received his engineer certification. Night school isn't difficult to get into politically or socially, but you have to meet standards and show aptitude.

5. A lot of Germans are just plain arrogant, and forget they are where they are because of the investment in their country from NATO (oops, I mean the U.S.A.). I think would have b****-slapped someone who told me my daughter was too dumb to be a doctor in Germany.

6. It's not just Germany. I once dated an nurse from the former USSR. Very similarly, she was a trade school route kid, and was an RN, making a living wage at 16. At 19 she had used her taxpayer funded education benefits to get her anesthesiologist certification and was living large. Many of her contemporaries didn't take full advantage of things available and were cleaning bedpans their whole careers. Oh, and her particular Soviet Republic had zero diversity, ethnic or religious.

7. Other countries' systems simply won't work in the U.S.A. because we are a diverse culture, and promoting divisiveness seems to be our new national pastime.

 

[OldAFRet]

Germany (edit) does not have the extensive sports programs and other extracurricular activities of the US system.

I forgot to mention that - you go to school, you learn, you come home. Want to play sports, or join a club? Each community has teams and clubs, separate from school.

 

[UHBlackhawk]

I swore I was not going to trot out my experience with Germany's education system, but you're going to make me do it.





5. A lot of Germans are just plain arrogant, and forget they are where they are because of the investment in their country from NATO (oops, I mean the U.S.A.). I think would have b****-slapped someone who told me my daughter was too dumb to be a doctor in Germany.

Just to clarify. My German friends didn’t say DW was too dumb to be a doctor. Just that she came from a very, very poor background and would have had a tough time overcoming the hand she was dealt. She was the first person in her family to graduate from high school. She only was able to attend a junior college after graduation, but worked her tail off and got accepted to a regular university.
As a matter of fact, one German friend is a journalist who also came from a very poor background but was able to attend a prominent German university. He mentioned several times how tough it was for him- all his classmates were upper middle to upper class. He was an outlier.
It’s also unusual to “remake yourself” as you can in the US. DW started out as a logistics officer. Then was accepted to flight school as a 1LT. Finally, after flying for several years she went to medical school in her late 30s. Granted, an unusual route in the US, but not unheard of. I’ve mentioned my cousin before in this thread who was an EMS technician, then became a Navy pilot. After his ADSO he became a doctor. Again, my German friends said this was unheard of. I’m sure it happens, but it’s not as common as it is in the US.

 

[RJB1690]

I always read these grade inflation threads with interest. I'm personally not a fan of the whole weighted GPA system. My son was in orchestra, a regular 4-point class. Because of this, he was actually at a disadvantage because by junior and senior years, many students were able to only take AP classes (we are fortunate that our public high school offers a ton of them, the most in our district) which are graded on a 5-point scale. Someone only taking AP courses could therefore score a higher GPA than someone who had 4-point classes mixed in (assuming straight As). So anyone taking a non-weighted elective based purely on interest was automatically behind in the class rank race. A system that works as a disincentive for students to pursue classes in things like the arts (beyond what is required for graduation) is a big fat bummer to me. I get that schools are trying to use weighted GPAs to equalize the extra effort that the more rigorous AP classes entail, but it's all so non-standard. For example, at my son's school, honors classes carry a regular 4-point weight. From these threads, it seems that many schools weight honors classes the same as IB/AP. There really is no right answer, I guess. The service academies, and really all colleges, must have a time trying to make apples to apples comparisons of their applicants. No doubt it's even harder for them in a standardized test-optional environment.

 

[A1Janitor]

There is a disadvantage in our school with the arts too. It is a valid criticism imo.

 

[StPaulDad]

At my kids' school there are a couple honors arts courses, but most are on the base 4.0 scale. JROTC has no honors options either, which means that they rarely appear in the top of the class rankings. My oldest thought that honors band was pretty cheap so she stayed with basic band and missed the top of her class by a tiny margin. Her sister (now at an SA) played the GPA games but couldn't do anything about her four years of military and also missed top ten. No easy answer that addresses all problems.

 

[lipton_hot_tea]

Theoretically, taking the test more than once can be considered gaming the system. It is well-known that scores generally improve with subsequent tests, because the test-taker gets more familiar with how to take the test more efficiently. But many people simply can't afford to take the test more than once.

It is very easy to get a fee waiver even for someone outside of school. You have sign a paper about which category you fall under and the secretary gives you a blue card with a code. There is no burden of verifying documents on the student. It is nothing like public assistance where you turn in a lease and then need to obtain 187 other documents within 14 days. The SAT fee waiver card gives you two exams.
The practice exam book is under under $25 on Amazon and they are plentiful on FB Marketplace for less. Libraries have them also have them but some are closed due to Covid. The practice exams could be taken every Sat morning just like a test.
The big issue I saw that could be an advantage of a higher vs lower incomes was access to transportation to take the test out of the student's area due to covid closures.

 

[lipton_hot_tea]

I am unfamiliar with Germany, but my Indian friends have explained their annual testing process and it sound similar if not more intense. There were cases of mass suicides a couple years ago when scores were improperly communicated for a region and several families initially thought they didn't qualify for college.

It is all testing in MENA and South Asia. The progressive educational leaders are trying to change it. In many areas there are integrity issues too.