Class Rank/GPA vs Standardized Test Scores

[jeradjones]

Jun 5, 2010 16:24:36 GMT -5 shinigami345 said:

I'm going to be a Jr. I'm confident in my math and science skills its the reading and English that are going to kill me. The usage/mechanics part especially, it's just such bull shirt. If you want to talk about left brained let's start there. English has this set rules you follow them, yet you break them almost constantly. I think English should be streamlined, but that's a different thread in the debate section.

English section sucks period. Reading isn't so hard because I've been practicing more, but no matter what I do with English I always average a 26.

[shinigami345]

Reading is easy. Use your finger and run it under the words fast. I hear your brain reads the words as fast as you move your finger (as long as you don't like skip past 50 words). Just a little tip for the people that didn't know/want to try it out and get back to me on it.

[Cortney]

@chels - Sorry, I mixed up left and right brained for a minute there. My bad. XD

[chelseeyuh]

Jun 5, 2010 14:56:11 GMT -5 Ryan said:

I'm sorry, math is extremely right brained, if you're in the right type math - granted, HS math is not right brained at all (unless you're in calculus, that uses plenty of right brain)

Well, we're talking about standardized tests/SAT/ACT, so, yeah... we're talking high school level. But I'm even in AP Calculus and I don't think that's right-brained.. Sure, you need to look at the problem in various ways in order to figure out your course of action, but once you know your course of action, you use a predetermined set of steps to solve it.

[jeradjones]

Jun 5, 2010 22:11:11 GMT -5 @chelseeyuh said:

Jun 5, 2010 14:56:11 GMT -5 Ryan said:

I'm sorry, math is extremely right brained, if you're in the right type math - granted, HS math is not right brained at all (unless you're in calculus, that uses plenty of right brain)

Well, we're talking about standardized tests/SAT/ACT, so, yeah... we're talking high school level. But I'm even in AP Calculus and I don't think that's right-brained.. Sure, you need to look at the problem in various ways in order to figure out your course of action, but once you know your course of action, you use a predetermined set of steps to solve it.

Sure, in basic Calculus, but then you get near the end of Calculus the problems start to get more abstract. Math eventually gets to the point when plugging numbers into a formula just won't cut it. You have to use your brain to analyze data. For a very basic example, the average amount of time an American plays video games is seven hours. This may seem quite off, and it is. You tend to have people who spend very little time on video games or none at all, while you have a select few who spend tens of hours every week playing. This ends up averaging to seven, and is a very basic example of an abstract problem.

[FranticProdigy]

None of them should be.

Class Rank - You may be in a school that has people who are far above average, and you go along at average.

GPA - Theres no such thing as a "well rounded" education.

Standardized Test - Tests are not an accurate way to measure intelligence.

[swan]

It depends on how you define intelligence. If you simply define it as a person's body of knowledge then standardized tests can measure that effectively. But if you begin to add other factors in, like the ability to adapt to problems and come up with new solutions, then intelligence becomes increasingly harder to measure. Creativity in particular is virtually impossible to measure effectively.

I think grading is necessary but it might be more effective to give students feedback on how they could improve instead of giving them a percentage based grade. And I would go as far as to not allow the students to see their marks until the semester is over, and their final grade would be a combination of a percentage mark and a "positives and negatives" analysis of the student's performance in the class.

[j]

Standardized tests should count for more when applying for colleges. They aren't perfect, but they measure how well you retain your overall knowledge of what was taught. Honestly, SAT/ACT aren't that hard. You basically learn all the math that you need to know by seventh grade (I took the SAT when I was in 7th and the math part was no problem.)

I have to disagree with saying that people who have 4.0 GPAs cheat or use their parents. I maintained a 4.0GPA from 7th grade and up (elementary schools didn't use ADCDF scale). Honestly I was one of the students who didn't have to try to get good grades and to this day I haven't studied once and am still getting a 4.0 in college. In all of my classes in high school no one really cheated. I was in the advanced and AP classes, so cheating wasn't necessary when everyone already knew the answers for themselves. The one time I was in a non advanced (though it technically was) class, was for Creative Writing, and there were some students who tried to cheat in there/didn't even respect the teacher enough to do their work. So in the normal classes I can see where cheating would inflate the GPA.

On a side note: How can you not like English?! Amazing fun times there.

[jeradjones]

What specifically did you take A.P. classes in?

I'm having a lot of trouble believing you all can maintain 4.0 GPA's unless you take a lot of easy classes. I study my butt off for some classes and only pass with a B.

Also what are you majoring in?

[j]

List of AP classes: AP Euro, AP American History, AP French, AP Politics, AP Literature and Composition, and AP Art. Then I also took any advanced class I was able to: ex: Adv physics, chemistry, american english, english 9&10, calc, biology, etc.
And my major is Architecture.

[jeradjones]

I still have trouble believing you can easily maintain a 4.0 GPA. There was this kid in my chemistry class who graduated with an A. They got their grade unfairly. I studied my butt off for the final and ended up with an A on it making my final grade a B+. This person who got an A on the test obtained the answers from the teacher's assistant. The answers were passed around to this kid's friends. Five people received 100% on their final unfairly. There was also another person who ended up with a D- on their final and brought their parents in to complain. The teacher let this person retake the final and they ended up with an A. This is why I have a lot of trouble believing half the people who maintain a 4.0 GPA do it "fairly".

[j]

I guess my experiences differ from yours greatly. The only times that there was any trouble with cheating was, like I said, in the normal level classes. At least as far as I noticed. It also helps that I have really great memory and can recall almost anything people say if I hear it aloud. Reading is a bit more dodge-y for recall.

[low]

And of course, even among what would appear to be a very mature group of (mostly) teenagers, the overtone of a bragging contest has developed in a topic talking about grades and test scores.

My personal view is that grades and scores aren't terrible relevant to life achievement and don't measure anything that anyone would care about unless their life were disappointing otherwise, but that's an adult perspective. As a high school kid, those things will scare the SHIRT out of you and colleges might actually pay attention to them.

[egn]

Jun 8, 2010 19:25:15 GMT -5 jeradjones said:

What specifically did you take A.P. classes in?

I'm having a lot of trouble believing you all can maintain 4.0 GPA's unless you take a lot of easy classes. I study my butt off for some classes and only pass with a B.

Also what are you majoring in?

Why do you find this hard to believe. I mean that is a bit of an odd statement. All schools have a different cut off for a 4.0 GPA. I personally missed 4.0 in high school with a 3.98 because I got an A- in my Italian III class. However I although found subjects to be difficult at time and will admit with a curve in a class or two along the way I was able to maintain a 4.0 in high school. This has carried over well into college as I currently have a 3.96. Some things come easier to people than others. It is kind of like playing a sport or a musical instrument in this regards. I used to play basketball 3-4 times a week from my 8th to 11th grade and still was never becoming great at the sport. However some kids who just started playing a lot over the past 6 months blossomed while I myself always found it difficult to rush the hoop and put in lay ups. Everyone has their own strong points.

Cheating exists and people use it, but in the end the people who cheat don't get anywhere. It happens quickly as I saw in my first semester of college, students who had 4.0 gpas and made it through via cheating took a huge hit when the workload in college was difficult and cheating on exams becomes nearly impossible. However it still depends on the college, like for example my physics II textbook first semester of college the answer key went all over the internet. However since homework was a small fraction of your grade it is not that important and the professors know. There was a kid in my section who had perfect scores on every homework the first three weeks and I was like wow this kid must be crazy smart. However after exam one he was gone from the class, turns out how he was just using the answer key and his first exam grade was awful. I would say what is best for most people is too keep their nose out of other peoples' business as their GPA and how they get it is their own choice. If you focus so much on someone else you will probably only wind up hurting yourself in the end.

On topic of AP classes I took they are as followed, AP World History, US History, Comparative Government and Politics, Calculus AB, Physics C Mechanics and E+M, Statistics and AP English Literature. I received credit for most of them the exceptions being Lit which was not accepted at my school do to a policy where you can only bring in a certain amount of humanities and social science credits and I turned down my physics credit because since I was going into engineering I felt I wanted a stronger background in physics. Not that my physics class did not well prepare me, but I personally did not feel as confident in it as my grade reflected and I feel it was a wise choice. Although Physics I and II were easy as it was a retake I strengthened my knowledge on it and I felt greater confidence when going into higher level engineering classes.

(wow this post is long)...

On the topic though I personally think they both have their pros and cons. Coming from an inner city school with not the best of all reputations my GPA/rank was always challenged as my school did not have the reputation of big name prep schools and since my city was not large like NYC we did not have schools like Bronx Science etc. The purpose of standardized tests are to give a level playing field to everyone as the same goes for AP Tests. However standardized tests have a ton of their problems to begin with. The application process to college is corrupt and will remain corrupt for years to come, as much as they say they do not look into your background and judge you fairly it is a lie. As much as I respect what programs like HEOP do, the fact that schools will lower standards and accept more either poor or minority students to avoid getting in trouble is unfair.

However I do think more should be looked into. For example say a student comes from an inner city public school like myself and has a high rank and GPA, if the school does not have the reputation that is where it is good to have standardized test scores to double check on and do a bit more investigation into the students background. (A reason I feel a personal interview + resume should be an essential when applying to colleges.) However on the opposite end a student who has really high standardized test scores but low rank and GPA should also be looked into to see if his/her school is say difficult or if the person just slacked off.

However in the end applying colleges is a more stressful process then it needs to be, and tons of students with 4.0s and SAT scores that combine to 2100 will every year get rejected by Ivy's, MIT, Cal Tech, NYU, C. Mellon, Stanford, Duke etc. Just don't let it get to you if you are one of them. Don't let it linger as I met a handful of students over my freshmen year who nobody wanted to be around because they simply trashed the school they were at and let the fact that Cornell rejected them or MIT rejected them show. They would not let the school they wound up in have a chance and after failing transfer attempts became even more annoying. Don't let applying to college ruin you, enjoy the last few years of high school you can and if you end up at a middle tier school its not the end of the world. You can still be successful as long as you have a positive attitude and work towards your goal.

[cmc413 (aka Chrissy)]

In my personal experience, there have been a few cheaters in AP classes (the AP US History midterm scores were canceled because someone leaked the answers) but most of the people work hard for their grades. I don't think that colleges should rely too heavily on test scores or GPA. Each system has its flaws, so colleges should look for other things in the application process.