Re: Concerned about grades (longish)

[Rick Tarara <rbtarara@SPRYNET.COM>]

The desire for a meaningful class ranking for admission purposes and Lisa's
desire to _really_ know how she's done and where she ranks speaks to the
grading system that my High School used (too many years ago).  We were
graded on a 0-100 point system in each class and then those classes were
averaged, both cumulative and per grading period, and everyone was ranked
within their class-year.  The averages were carried to 3 sig figs.  With
this system it was easy to rank the students and after 4 years there were
really no surprises about who ranked where.  While such a system does suffer
from the tendency to be TOO concerned about grades and of course CAN be
manipulated to get whatever average in a course one wants, it definitely
does have the advantage of making it very clear as to where one stands
within a given class or within the whole school.   I've since been concerned
that we really have no way with the A-F system of distinguishing the
outstanding students (we have no A+).  The gradations B-, B+, A- help some,
but the range for an A in most classes encompasses both the hard working but
normal intelligence student with the truly brilliant.  I know the
Politically Correct attitude from the past 25 years is NOT to differentiate
these students (or any for that matter), but that is not realistic or, as
Michael points out, useful to Colleges and Universities.

Rick Tarara

**************************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Associate Professor of Physics
Department of Chemistry & Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
219-284-4664
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

FREE Physics Instructional Software
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara

Win9.x, WinNT/2000,  Win3.x, Dos, Mac, and PowerMac
New: Student versions of the Animated Chalkboard
Windows and Mac  CD-ROMs  now available.
****************************************************

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Edmiston" <edmiston@BLUFFTON.EDU>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 4:06 PM
Subject: Re: Concerned about grades (longish)


> Like Bernard Cleyet, I have not been following this thread real closely,
but
> he said something that struck a raw nerve in me when he mentioned
admission
> rates.
>
> At Bluffton College we believe the ACT or SAT score is one of the best
> predictors of how a student will fair in college.  The HS GPA is almost
> worthless, especially for comparing a student from one school with a
student
> from another school.  However, a predictor that is based upon the GPA, but
> used to work, is the HS rank.  The "top students" at one school were often
> comparable to the top students at another school, even if their GPAs were
> not the same.  Perhaps more important, the rank often indicated
willingness
> to work and also some measure of competitiveness.  Therefore, students who
> aimed for the top in high school often aimed for the top in college as
well.
> So the ACT/SAT score along with the class rank used to be a real good
> predictor.
>
> Notice the previous paragraph was written in past tense.  Today grade
> inflation has gotten so bad in high school there are too many 4.00
students.
> This means the class rank doesn't work any more as an indicator.  Suppose
> there are 200 students in the graduating class and 25 of them graduate
with
> perfect 4.00.  That means a student with a 3.99 GPA can rank no higher
than
> 26/200 or about 87%.  That means this 3.99 GPA student didn't even
graduate
> in the top 10% of her class.