Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums High School Best H.S. class placement, grades vs challenge?

Well, with regret, I have to say that IMO the grades do matter. Our DD is a senior this year and it has been surprising what the grade cutoffs and criteria are for scholarships and honors college admission at mid tier universities. On the high end, the GPA cut off for national merit finalist seems to be above a 3.8 (may be a 3.85). This comes from both online forums and my daughter's friends failing to progress from semi-finalist (got the good scores on PSAT and SAT) to finalist due to their academic performance. There also seems to be a hard cut off of 1-2 semester Cs and a good behavioral record is needed. For Honors Colleges the cut off seems to be a 3.5 GPA with good test scores, although there is flex here (high SAT can have slightly lower GPA and presumably the reverse). Please note that all of these are unweighted GPAs. Our experience has been that most of the universities do not look at weighting in the initial phase of admissions. As far as I can tell "holistic admissions" means meeting some threshold (3.5 GPA, 2200 SAT, athletic recruitment, etc) and then they look at the students application in depth with extracurriculars, curriculum, and trajectory. YMMV.

Since most of this is calculated in the middle of senior year, running some quick numbers on an excel spreadsheet reveals that (with a load of 6 courses per semester for 7 semesters) only one B per semester is needed to bring the GPA down to a 3.83. You can play with the numbers to see what one yearlong C will do.

Anyway. With the benefit of hindsight, I would strive for a happy medium. If Calc BC gives your DS a B how much will it impact his GPA? Do the math (sorry for the pun). Does he have all As otherwise? Is he on the borderline of an A average (3.6 GPA)? What if he gets a C for one or both semesters?

What do the schools he is looking at want? Look at the GPA of admitted freshmen. Can he take the AP calculus BC exam and do well to offset taking "just" the AP calculus AB class?

Learning to work hard to succeed is important. Learning to move on after failure is important. Sometimes I think that the most educational failures are the ones we are not anticipating.

It's kind of like having a college scholarship that requires a 3.0 GPA and progress in your declared major. If you really need the scholarship, you need to protect the GPA and take the required classes. If you don't really need it, you can take what you want and worry less about grades.

I know that, this tread got a bit off topic about the Calc sequences. The calc class was supposed to be only one example. In my DS's case he is doing a lot better in the math/science classes than humanities. It is unlikely he will get A's in the humanities classes. Therefore he really could use the boost of getting A's in his science and math classes to improve the overall GPA.

Challenge always. That is where the fun is. There is no point in getting 100+ or 4.0+ - you want to be challenged - that's the learning zone; that's exciting. The student will have an easier time in their career(s) (my opinion). It is awful to see a colleague realize they are in over their head and were not challenging themselves from K through 12 or 16. It makes a difference in real life. There is a mental conditioning happening. For people who like cars, there are certain performance vehicles that are meant to be put to the test. For athletes, I think of an Olympian - they are not made in one year; they have ongoing physical conditioning. Go with what you think is right and how you truly feel most passionately. If going for the grades is what your student needs, then you don't have to listen to this response.

I agree-- you can pay now, or you can pay later.

Trust me, I write those words with a certain degree of angst.

My older son really wants harder classes.

I really wish they could dial up Spanish for him. I realize that it is hard to do that while building vocabulary and grammar from scratch but he HATES with a passion the stupid group projects that just waste time (really if you could hear him talk about them you would agree...I know not all group projects are stupid, these particular ones just happen to be). Spanish is really practical for where I live but I think he might have been happier in a very rigorous Latin course of study (unfortunately not offered by his school). From what I understand Spanish III (becomes honors level at that point) and the two AP Spanish classes are where the challenge and intensity pick up. Unfortunately he has to slog through the rest of this year in Spanish I and next year in Spanish II.

Honors math classes aren't hard enough for him but it isn't like he knows the math already. He needs the class. He gets 100% on practically everything. This is one where if they would just pick up the pace to one and a half speed it would make it more challenging for him (but then lose the other kids in the process).

BUT even though he would love harder, harder, harder. Sometimes I think it is nice that school isn't 100% a grind. (He doesn't look at it that way).

Boy, this is coming my way. Believe it or not, I just saw this happen with MIDDLE SCHOOL admission. The kids at my DD's school, which is really a very challenging program compared to a typical elementary, did not do very well in terms of admission to our application-only middle schools because they were compared to kids at standard schools, and there was no weighting for the gifted program. The same thing will happen again when DD applies to application-only high schools. Having learned this did actually play into our thinking about which middle school DD should go to. Middle school. (It was just one factor, and a small one. But.)

To a lareg extent, though, I think the question is: what IS the challenge on offer? Is it something really good--really worth doing--or is it over the top with busywork, a teacher who never gives A's no matter what, etc.?

Then also, you have to think about the child's mental health...

Larding students up with massive amounts of undergraduate debt harms mental health.

This strikes a nerve. I am decades out of high school school but I still remember an experience where learning took a way back seat to certification of the alleged learning.

And it seems worse now.

If a kid can't experiment and try some offbeat classes in high school (or even middle school) for fear of besmirching his/her permanent record, well, that seems just nuts.

Yes, I completely agree. Then again, inpatient treatment for eating disorders/depression/suicide attempts isn't so great either....

What a dilemma. I see this as an issue facing my grade skipped son. He's getting Bs in half his classes-- not because they're too hard, but because he just has never had to study in any way before and doesn't have study skills. Fortunately, he's in 8th grade and we're working with him to figure it out before next year, but I do worry about it.

My other concern is that I don't want to send the message to him that he has to be perfect. But I also think it would be a real shame if we didn't push him to get As (which he could get with a minimum amount of work), and as a result, when he's a senior, he can't get into the colleges he wants. It's a real mixed message: "You don't have to be perfect. But if you don't get all A's, you limit your choices." He's already got great ACT scores, so his GPA will be important in his college apps.