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Old 06-30-2010, 02:08 AM
 
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What do you think? There are a lot of students that navigate their way through school by picking easy teachers and getting good grades; then there are other students who take hard teachers, learn a lot, and get lower grades. Should the importance be taken off GPA and focused on some other aspect of the learning process?
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Old 06-30-2010, 02:12 AM
 
Location: Chicago
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With the rampant grade inflation going on these days, I think rank by major or discipline is a more accurate indicator than GPA. A 3.6 GPA looks kind of impressive without additional context. It looks less impressive if the department median is 3.65.
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Old 06-30-2010, 02:33 AM
 
Location: TX
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In short, that would be a big, fat, "no" if you ask me.
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Old 06-30-2010, 09:11 AM
 
Location: Northern Virginia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DanLerJoh View Post
What do you think? There are a lot of students that navigate their way through school by picking easy teachers and getting good grades; then there are other students who take hard teachers, learn a lot, and get lower grades. Should the importance be taken off GPA and focused on some other aspect of the learning process?
GPA at my high school was a game. Students would get their parents to sign them out of classes like health, because it wasn't an honors course--so it wasn't weighted.

They had to stop designating anyone a valedictorian, because 20% of my graduating class had a 4.0 or better.

Junior high students are now taking as many classes at the community college as possible, so that by the time they get to high school every single one of their classes is G/T or AP. There are kids graduating with 5.0's and 60 credits at the community college.

And this is just an average public high school.

YES, please put the focus elsewhere...but I'm not sure how to measure it any other way for college apps.
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Old 06-30-2010, 07:13 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliTerp07 View Post
GPA at my high school was a game. Students would get their parents to sign them out of classes like health, because it wasn't an honors course--so it wasn't weighted.

They had to stop designating anyone a valedictorian, because 20% of my graduating class had a 4.0 or better.

YES, please put the focus elsewhere...but I'm not sure how to measure it any other way for college apps.
The above happened at my kids' high school as well, which is another average public high school.
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Old 07-01-2010, 03:32 PM
 
31,672 posts, read 40,881,756 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DanLerJoh View Post
What do you think? There are a lot of students that navigate their way through school by picking easy teachers and getting good grades; then there are other students who take hard teachers, learn a lot, and get lower grades. Should the importance be taken off GPA and focused on some other aspect of the learning process?

These are also reasons why the SAT remain so important. Reputation of the school and district help validate GPA also.
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Old 07-01-2010, 03:33 PM
 
31,672 posts, read 40,881,756 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliTerp07 View Post
GPA at my high school was a game. Students would get their parents to sign them out of classes like health, because it wasn't an honors course--so it wasn't weighted.

They had to stop designating anyone a valedictorian, because 20% of my graduating class had a 4.0 or better.

Junior high students are now taking as many classes at the community college as possible, so that by the time they get to high school every single one of their classes is G/T or AP. There are kids graduating with 5.0's and 60 credits at the community college.

And this is just an average public high school.

YES, please put the focus elsewhere...but I'm not sure how to measure it any other way for college apps.
If it is for college admissions isn't that good that students are taking accelerated courses and getting recognized for their smarts and efforts? Perhaps if the school wasn't average but was excellent and had a rigorous gifted course of study students wouldn't go elsewhere for the challenge.
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Old 07-01-2010, 04:37 PM
 
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
26,678 posts, read 41,512,884 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DanLerJoh View Post
What do you think? There are a lot of students that navigate their way through school by picking easy teachers and getting good grades; then there are other students who take hard teachers, learn a lot, and get lower grades. Should the importance be taken off GPA and focused on some other aspect of the learning process?
No. In HS you could very easily move into the DC public school system and achieve a 4.0 without much effort. A student's chance to suceed in college is better weighed by quality of the school. Many who do good in inner-city public schools like Chicago and DC end up taking remedial courses in college while B/C students at a lot of suburban school districts probably don't need them.
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Old 07-01-2010, 07:47 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
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The GPA, in combination with an assessment of courses taken and SAT/ACT scores, can give you a good idea of a student's ability.

Re: the rigor of the high school, with all the high schools in this country, I would say that's hard to evaluate. I do recall reading an article some time ago where Texas state college officials said their policy of automatic admission to the top 10% had some correlation with college grades.
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Old 07-01-2010, 09:41 PM
 
Location: Raleigh, NC
10,728 posts, read 22,719,836 times
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In a generally way, it is a measure of "success", since success in an academic setting is usually defined by mastering the courses. But I say "in a general way" because of course, I don't think anyone believes that someone with a 3.941 GPA is "more successful" than one with a 3.940 GPA. There is only so much granularity you can use in that setting. I do think that ranges, such as "top 10%", "top 20%", etc are fairly useful, though even then, you need a big enough sample size for that to matter. In a school with only 45 students in the class, you can be 10th in the class and not be in the top 20%!

SAT scores, etc measure intelligence, better than grades do, in fact, but the question was whether GPAs measure success. You can be very smart and not try hard in school, and I would not call that really "succeeding", although it may be if it's high school and your goal is to get in XX college, and you do, then whatever GPA/SAT combination it takes to get in would be "success".

So I guess it really comes down to what the goal is. If you want to be Valedictorian and "only" place #3 in your class, you would not call that success, probably, though almost anyone else would. If you want to get into a medium-ranked college and get a 2.9 GPA and get in that college, then that would technically be the "success" that matters.

The thread title doesn't specify whether high school or college is meant, of course. Again, if your goal in college is to get into a certain Law School, and you do, then all the mattered was that you did, whether it took a 3.9 or a 3.2. Perhaps the real question is whether making below a certain GPA is a limitation for future endeavors?
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