High School Guide: Admissions, reviews, and advice

rowdypanther12 said:So, why is it that some schools seem perfectly fine with grading below average, while in others, it’s treated like a major crisis?
Is it actually possible that the principal is the one calling the shots on this?

I’ve honestly never heard anyone say a whole school grades one way or another; it’s always just about one specific teacher being a tough grader or an easy one.

Michelle Nelson4 said:Anyway, let us know how it turns out! I'm actually really curious to see what happens...

Will do.
I'm just relieved we aren't in that category—my kid managed a decent B, which I suppose is fine. Honestly, I am satisfied. The idea of having to deal with some aggressive inspector during the last few days of the school year—when everyone is already at their absolute breaking point—is just unthinkable to me. I guess I'd rather take my chances elsewhere.

says:
I've never heard of a school making those kinds of final decisions, just individual professors coming to their own conclusions.

Yeah, you're right. I got the impression from Sarah Hall53 that they don't handle grading or conclusions that way at her school.
Maybe I should rephrase: why is it that some professors decide things arbitrarily while others don't? 😁

Nah, I was really just pointing out that hardly anyone is actually going to take the risk of grading below the class average—I mean, let’s be real, most of us already know exactly how much of a headache that's going to cause when parents start calling the front office.
There isn't some magic, one-size-fits-all rulebook for this stuff; it basically just comes down to teacher autonomy.

rowdypanther12 said:

says:
I've never heard of a school making those kinds of final decisions, just individual professors coming to their own conclusions.

Yeah, you're right. I got the impression from Sarah Hall53 that they don't handle grading or conclusions that way at her school.
Maybe I should rephrase: why is it that some professors decide things arbitrarily while others don't? 😁

It’s because not every component carries the same weight.

I make that perfectly clear to them, and believe me, they get it.

I always leave the door open for them to respond or take a final exam.

Sarah Hall53 said:Nah, I was really just pointing out that hardly anyone is actually going to take the risk of grading below the class average—I mean, let’s be real, most of us already know exactly how much of a headache that's going to cause when parents start calling the front office.
There isn't some magic, one-size-fits-all rulebook for this stuff; it basically just comes down to teacher autonomy.

I don't follow the logic regarding a complaint? If you're grading them below the average, you're essentially doing them a favor—so why would they even report you? Honestly, the best I can do is light a candle for you and say thanks for being so kind.

It’s below, not above. When you hit 3.6, wrap it up at 3.
If you try to close it higher than that, the IRS is going to come knocking and give you a hard time—maybe even toss you a cookie just to be polite while they're at it.

Sarah Hall53 said:It’s below, not above. When you hit 3.6, wrap it up at 3.
If you try to close it higher than that, the IRS is going to come knocking and give you a hard time—maybe even toss you a cookie just to be polite while they're at it.

Oh, absolutely. At this rate, we’re looking at a formal report being filed here too.

rowdypanther12 said:

says:
I've never heard of a school making those kinds of final decisions, just individual professors coming to their own conclusions.

Yeah, you're right. I got the impression from Sarah Hall53 that they don't handle grading or conclusions that way at her school.
Maybe I should rephrase: why is it that some professors decide things arbitrarily while others don't? 😁

Honestly? It’s because some of them actually have the backbone🍿
to stand by their subject matter and how they choose to grade effort, progress, and everything in between...

Or, if you look at it from a different angle, some just plain dislike kids and want to make their lives miserable.
It really just depends on how you view it. 🤣

says:

Not to mention that grades really should be calculated to two decimal places. Right now, it’s way too easy to just round a 3.5 up to a 4.0. Keeping decimals would prevent that frantic end-of-semester scramble where kids sitting at a 4.3 or 4.4 fight tooth and nail for an A, essentially putting them on the same level as students who maintained a steady 4.8 or 5.0 all year long. I honestly can't wrap my head around why they won't just implement two decimal places. This current simplification puts so much unnecessary pressure on teachers at the end of the term, and it feels totally unfair to the kids who have been consistently high achievers. So many people are calling for this change, yet it keeps getting ignored—I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that. 🤔 Have we ever actually used two decimal places in the American grading system? I don't recall it ever being a thing, though I haven't looked closely into the history. 🤔

Switching to two decimal places for GPA would just cause a massive wave of straight A's starting as early as elementary school, whereas before it was mostly just middle and high schoolers.
Because that second decimal point could seriously change a student's class rank.
You really have to think about what you want for your kid.

I personally feel like every child deserves the right to have a bad day, a rough test, or a chance to do a retake...
In my opinion, using those extra decimals would just lead to more kids skipping school, followed by a spike in medical excuses.
We really need to rethink how elective credits are graded (or at least stop weighing non-core subjects so heavily).

haha, how exactly are you supposed to pull off a 4.0 GPA when you're stuck dragging along Cs in math and physics? 😂

I suppose I’m also in agreement regarding the abolition of that general GPA metric—or at least, ensuring it doesn't count toward admission scores.
An entrance exam combined with middle school grades in equal measure... that would probably be a much fairer system, I guess.

Sarah Hall53 said:haha, how exactly are you supposed to pull off a 4.0 GPA when you're stuck dragging along Cs in math and physics? 😂

Not necessarily. I mean—it’s not like everyone needs to be an absolute genius in calculus and physics to maintain a high average.

Susan James said:

says:

Not to mention that grades really should be calculated to two decimal places. Right now, it’s way too easy to just round a 3.5 up to a 4.0. Keeping decimals would prevent that frantic end-of-semester scramble where kids sitting at a 4.3 or 4.4 fight tooth and nail for an A, essentially putting them on the same level as students who maintained a steady 4.8 or 5.0 all year long. I honestly can't wrap my head around why they won't just implement two decimal places. This current simplification puts so much unnecessary pressure on teachers at the end of the term, and it feels totally unfair to the kids who have been consistently high achievers. So many people are calling for this change, yet it keeps getting ignored—I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that. 🤔 Have we ever actually used two decimal places in the American grading system? I don't recall it ever being a thing, though I haven't looked closely into the history. 🤔

Switching to two decimal places for GPA would just cause a massive wave of straight A's starting as early as elementary school, whereas before it was mostly just middle and high schoolers.
Because that second decimal point could seriously change a student's class rank.
You really have to think about what you want for your kid.

I personally feel like every child deserves the right to have a bad day, a rough test, or a chance to do a retake...
In my opinion, using those extra decimals would just lead to more kids skipping school, followed by a spike in medical excuses.
We really need to rethink how elective credits are graded (or at least stop weighing non-core subjects so heavily).

But why aren't they looking at the decimals right now?
A 4.9 in fifth or sixth grade ends up being less than 80 points on those calculators. 🤔

I think they mean they aren't rounding up individual grades anymore, just keeping everything as decimals.
So, instead of getting a 4 in math, maybe it’s more like a 4.67.

rowdypanther12 said:But why aren't they looking at the decimals right now?
A 4.9 in fifth or sixth grade ends up being less than 80 points on those calculators. 🤔

Well, I guess you could say that's true.
That’s exactly why people start obsessively hoarding straight A's as far back as fifth grade. When you're looking at your GPA, every single decimal point matters. Even a small win, like pulling a 5 in VJ class, can be the thing that finally nudges your average up. 🥳)

Maiken suggested that we should start using decimal points for individual course grades too. 😲

Sarah Hall53 said:haha, how exactly are you supposed to pull off a 4.0 GPA when you're stuck dragging along Cs in math and physics? 😂

Well, they won't necessarily need straight As 🤣
they'd focus on what actually matters for their goals. 🤷

And if you think removing grades for elective subjects is a good idea—if we stop grading things like those or decide they don't count toward a GPA—just imagine how much interest would drop in VJ.

I was just thinking—what if they actually got rid of those elective grades? You know, the ones where kids just coast through? It’d be so much better if you were just left with the real stuff, like your actual math or geography scores, maybe a B in English or history, instead of being padded out by easy A's in art, music, gym, shop class, or religion...

Sarah Hall53 said:I was just thinking—what if they actually got rid of those elective grades? You know, the ones where kids just coast through? It’d be so much better if you were just left with the real stuff, like your actual math or geography scores, maybe a B in English or history, instead of being padded out by easy A's in art, music, gym, shop class, or religion...

Exactly! 🤣
By then, students wouldn't be coasting through high school with perfect GPAs; instead, we'd see much more realistic grades starting from the middle school years...
Or, on the flip side, the pressure on the teachers would just intensify right from the start. 😂

northerntiger9 said:The whole point of the recent reform was to move away from focusing solely on averages—grades shouldn't just be about the numbers. The idea was to reduce the number of formal, numeric grades and increase qualitative feedback, looking at the student's progress as a whole. It’s not a bad approach—even top students deserve a bad day now and then. If we did it the way you suggest, a straight-A student could have a few perfect scores, then catch a stomach bug or a fever during a test and end up with a 4.43 average—which effectively drags them down to a B.

Or take a kid with solid grades around a 4.6 or 4.7 all year. Then, in the final week of school, they take a big exam, the teacher is exhausted, and because there weren't enough prior grades recorded, the teacher decides to break that one exam into three separate mini-grades. Since each part carries less weight, one mistake results in a 4—suddenly, you have three 4s on the record, the average drops to 4.4, and the kid loses their A. We're talking about 10-year-olds in elementary school here, not high schoolers.

So—God forbid we ever go back to a system where elementary schools rely exclusively on robotic, arithmetic-based grading.

I see the logic there. For students with genuinely high averages across most subjects, having decimals helps smooth out the variance. Instead of everything being simplified into a blunt integer, it rewards those with higher precision. Someone with a 3.91 in Science or a 3.88 in Math clearly earns that rounding advantage over someone sitting at a 3.51. It’s also different when you compare a student with a 2.5 in Science to one with a 3.4. Ultimately, a grade can be raised through extra effort, such as turning in extra credit, improving a notebook, or performing well on an oral presentation. We also deal with massive inconsistency regarding failing grades; some teachers allow retakes while others don't, and some still count the original failing mark in the final average while others ignore it once it's corrected. It creates a lot of uncertainty.

I agree that the overall GPA isn't the most important thing. Usually, the most frustrating gap is seeing a student stuck between a 3.5 and a 4.4.

We actually have "winners" this year; kids with a 3.5-something have to show up on Friday or Monday to prove they deserve an A. The report card already shows a "proposed B," with a note saying, "Proposed B, but if the student wants an A, they must pass this specific assessment." You can't beat that level of pressure! 🙏🤦

It's interesting how much more lenient teachers are when rounding a 2.6 or 2.7 up to a 3.0, compared to the kids sitting at a 3.6 or 3.7 trying to reach a 4.0. They find it easiest to help the kids who need a passing grade or a slight nudge toward a C. That's why the real struggle is always for those hovering right at the edge of an A or a B. 😁