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I'm surprised that they were taking AP physics. In Wisconsin, the valedictorian gets a full-ride to anywhere in the UW system. Due to this, many valedictorians

by sudont 16y ago

I'm surprised that they were taking AP physics. In Wisconsin, the valedictorian gets a full-ride to anywhere in the UW system. Due to this, many valedictorians I've seen take easy classes and graduate with a 4.1, whereas many of those with lower GPAs--due to difficult classes--end up going to better schools. One year the valedictorian went to UW-Whitewater, and the Salutatorian went to Yale.

dkarl 16y ago
In my school, any grade in an "Honors" or "AP" class got a ten-point boost (equivalent to a full letter grade) for GPA calculations. My graduating class had at least three kids with GPAs over 100, which would be impossible to match without taking honors classes. An A in an honors class always beats an A in a non-honors class, so it's hard to beat a kid who takes more honors classes than you.
- sudont 16y ago
  That definitely seems like a better way to do it.
- xiongchiamiov 16y ago
  For us, a A in an Honors course got 5 grade points (rather than the 4 standard), so doing really well in Honors courses put you above someone who did really well in non-Honors courses. The amount of work required, however, for a B in an Honors course was far more than for an A in a non-Honors, so for anyone who wasn't going to be getting top grades, their GPA would suffer. Of course, they are the ones who were more successful in university.
  - dkarl 16y ago
    I think the honors kids at my school were mostly headed toward college, so they made their decisions based on what would impress admissions officers. It might be different now, because Texas now has a 10% rule that grants a scholarship to students who graduate in the top ten percent of their class. (For a couple of years you got automatic admission to the state school of your choice for graduating in the top ten percent, but that resulted in half of UT's admissions going to 10% students, many of whom were very poorly prepared, so they changed the rule.) There were probably a few kids in my class -- very hard-working and curious but not as bright -- whose GPAs were hurt by taking honors classes, and they probably fell out of the top 10% because of it. There's no way anyone could crack the top 1% or 2% without taking lots of honors classes, though. It's possible our honors classes were less rigorous than yours, too. As I pointed out in a recent thread, AP classes at my school were noticeably more rigorous than honors classes, because our normal honors classes wouldn't have been sufficient preparation for an AP test.
- lukeschlather 16y ago
  That's all well and good, but the fact is "Honors" and "AP" classes are not well-defined as more difficult than the other classes. Also, it still penalizes students taking larger course loads. I had a friend who was robbed of Valedictorian basically because their A in Choir was pulling down their GPA, while they was taking all of the same courses as the Valedictorian in addition to choir, and outperforming the Valedictorian. So you need to somehow penalize students who take weaker course loads, possibly by multiplying GPA by number of graded credits.
  - ShardPhoenix 16y ago
    Australia has a good system (at least here in Victoria - different states vary). The ultimate goal is to produce a percentile ranking of students (as opposed to an absolute GPA), and to that end, classes are weighted by the quality of students taking them (as measured by a state-wide general test) and the final exams are all standardized. Plus, only the top 6 scoring subjects taken count (and only the top 4 scoring count fully), eliminating that issue.
ZachPruckowski 16y ago
"I'm surprised that they were taking AP physics." A lot of schools really heavily incentivize taking AP classes, because one of the main high school rankings (Newsweek/Washington Post) is literally "(AP tests taken)/(seniors graduated)". Yes, that's "taken", not "passed" or "aced". So you wind up in a situation in some schools where your options are "Physics for Jocks" or "AP Physics with a free +1.0 to your GPA". I was in a situation my senior year where I wound up taking 7 AP classes, not because I specifically wanted 7 AP classes, but because the alternatives were AP or "class that barely targets the standardized test you could already pass on Day 1"

by sudont 16y ago

dkarl 16y ago

In my school, any grade in an "Honors" or "AP" class got a ten-point boost (equivalent to a full letter grade) for GPA calculations. My graduating class had at least three kids with GPAs over 100, which would be impossible to match without taking honors classes. An A in an honors class always beats an A in a non-honors class, so it's hard to beat a kid who takes more honors classes than you.

sudont 16y ago
That definitely seems like a better way to do it.
xiongchiamiov 16y ago
For us, a A in an Honors course got 5 grade points (rather than the 4 standard), so doing really well in Honors courses put you above someone who did really well in non-Honors courses. The amount of work required, however, for a B in an Honors course was far more than for an A in a non-Honors, so for anyone who wasn't going to be getting top grades, their GPA would suffer. Of course, they are the ones who were more successful in university.
- dkarl 16y ago
  I think the honors kids at my school were mostly headed toward college, so they made their decisions based on what would impress admissions officers. It might be different now, because Texas now has a 10% rule that grants a scholarship to students who graduate in the top ten percent of their class. (For a couple of years you got automatic admission to the state school of your choice for graduating in the top ten percent, but that resulted in half of UT's admissions going to 10% students, many of whom were very poorly prepared, so they changed the rule.) There were probably a few kids in my class -- very hard-working and curious but not as bright -- whose GPAs were hurt by taking honors classes, and they probably fell out of the top 10% because of it. There's no way anyone could crack the top 1% or 2% without taking lots of honors classes, though. It's possible our honors classes were less rigorous than yours, too. As I pointed out in a recent thread, AP classes at my school were noticeably more rigorous than honors classes, because our normal honors classes wouldn't have been sufficient preparation for an AP test.
lukeschlather 16y ago
That's all well and good, but the fact is "Honors" and "AP" classes are not well-defined as more difficult than the other classes. Also, it still penalizes students taking larger course loads. I had a friend who was robbed of Valedictorian basically because their A in Choir was pulling down their GPA, while they was taking all of the same courses as the Valedictorian in addition to choir, and outperforming the Valedictorian. So you need to somehow penalize students who take weaker course loads, possibly by multiplying GPA by number of graded credits.
- ShardPhoenix 16y ago
  Australia has a good system (at least here in Victoria - different states vary). The ultimate goal is to produce a percentile ranking of students (as opposed to an absolute GPA), and to that end, classes are weighted by the quality of students taking them (as measured by a state-wide general test) and the final exams are all standardized. Plus, only the top 6 scoring subjects taken count (and only the top 4 scoring count fully), eliminating that issue.

ZachPruckowski 16y ago

"I'm surprised that they were taking AP physics." A lot of schools really heavily incentivize taking AP classes, because one of the main high school rankings (Newsweek/Washington Post) is literally "(AP tests taken)/(seniors graduated)". Yes, that's "taken", not "passed" or "aced". So you wind up in a situation in some schools where your options are "Physics for Jocks" or "AP Physics with a free +1.0 to your GPA". I was in a situation my senior year where I wound up taking 7 AP classes, not because I specifically wanted 7 AP classes, but because the alternatives were AP or "class that barely targets the standardized test you could already pass on Day 1"