Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Weighted GPAs

I think my son will always be near the top of his high school class (he is currently really high). But we make educational decisions based on his needs not looking at ranking. He actually needs all honors and AP to be happy and you can't get that because some classes don't come honors.

Maybe he will end up valedictorian, maybe not. But he will have gotten the education he wanted. There are 700 kids in his class and only one can be number one. Granted the drop out rate is high and his class will be smaller in 3 years. But still the chance is slim.

Any metric used for college admissions will be gamed, and I fear that holistic admissions is often used to smuggle in various preferences. In addition to GPA, maybe colleges should also look at the number of credits earned in academic subjects. Of course, if this becomes a commonly used metric, some people will take extra classes just to pile on credits. Elite college admissions processes will always be evolving.

I think you're correct, Bostonian. I've concluded that there pretty much IS no system that can't be gamed, no stat that can't be goosed somehow. Not really.

Cookie, this is the exact thinking that led DD to that number one spot. We had no idea what her class rank was until the school counselor offered us the info (#2 and then #3) when she grade-skipped again from 9th to 11th. That really hurt her chances, truthfully-- because she jumped from a class where she was one of just two very clear favorites to one in which there were about 5 elite performing students. I'm not the only parent who noted that about her graduating class, incidentally-- the top 5 in her group were truly an amazing bunch of kids.

Still-- it was definitely not a reason not to skip. Never even crossed our minds until later that it might have an impact. We were thinking about things the way that Cookie is. Those AP courses were the best preparation for college-- not in terms of level, necessarily, and definitely not in terms of pacing-- but in terms of the workload and time management. As a radically accelerated student, that was the set of domains that she most needed development in prior to post-secondary, so a fuller-than-typical schedule and AP coursework jammed with continuous assignments/expectations was ideal.

Agreed! Encouraging kids to listen to their inner voice, plan, and be flexible may be the enduring message.

The only constant is change.

Not true in my district you get a grade for athletics, marching band, drama, ASP (student council), art, and PE. There are some things like academic teams that are only 'clubs' but I've heard of schools that teams like Science Olympiad are classes with teachers and grades. Most of these classes ask more time of the students than most academic classes do even with the huge amount of homework some of them give. Not all classes get 'academic' credit but they all count towards graduation and the total GPA.

My kid takes two classes concert band & marching band. Both are classes & both get grades, marching band qualifies for PE credit. You can't be enrolled in marching band if you aren't enrolled in concert band. Concert Band 'counts' as a UC course (aka academic course) but Marching Band doesn't. In concert band you learn different skills than you would in a a math or english class. But learning to read music, learning to follow the instructor, work as a large group are all important educational skills. Students go to university to study music, shouldn't their H.S. music classes count for credit & a grade?