Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

With apologies to all the non-HS parents out there who will have no interest in this at all.

My kids' high school is excellent for teaching the kids. We chose it because of this and haven't been disappointed. HOwever, it has a terrible reputation for being highly competitive and the kids call it "stresswood". I blame the parents and I don't say that lightly. In Texas, the top 7% of all high school seniors get automatic acceptance to UT Austin. One of the best state schools and this obviously can save parents and students thousands of dollars in tuition fees when compared to going out of state or to private colleges.

It's almost impossible for most normal averagely bright kids to get into the top 10%, never mind top 7% of our high school rank. Those kids work and work and have been accruing GPA credit since middle school. For new arrivals, it's almost guaranteeing that they will have a hard time getting into a very competitive college where the very first things the admissions people want to know is GPA and RIC. RIC the main reason why my school does not hand out GPA credit for out of district studies. There would be uproar if a new child arrived and displaced one of those kids doing nothing but study since middle school.

As of 1st October, this changes. And as a parent I am so incredibly glad. My currently 10th grade daughter will have the choice from next year ( her junior year) to not report RIC on her transcript. As an averagely bright child, she is in the top 50% of her year, at another school, she would be much higher. This helps her chances of getting into the college of her choice and helps her get more scholarships which frequently are limited to top 25% of students.

Texas law mandates that a school must report the top 10% but not after that. :thumbsup:

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

My son's high school is among many that have stopped reporting class rank. Article on the issue here.

https://professionals.collegeboard.o...lications/rank

Apparently, more and more universities care about how well a student has done in terms of grades in relevant and difficult or challenging classes (ie more like the UK) than overall gpa. There are still plenty of students at my son's school who take certain classes in order to inflate their grades (the other side of working hard), and if you are constantly fretting about your gpa it certainly discourages students from taking classes that may be of interest but where it may be difficult to excel.

This is not to say that gpa doesn't matter at all. It does, and it should, but there are certainly other factors to consider.

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

Yes, well, maybe "more and more" universities are caring less about RIC but from my very recent experience ( son graduated HS in June, his big sister 2 years before that), there are far too many that use it as an easy, low effort way to sift through the first lot of applications. GPA is also somewhat a moving target too. That is far too reliant on the particular teachers you get. Weighted GPA? same thing, nothing uniform about that amongst different school districts.

I'd also like to mention how unbearably awful it is for a child to do their best and to be constantly told by their RIC that they are bottom of the pile.

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

I don't disagree at all.

It can also be dispiriting if high-speed, multiple choice tests (think 75 questions in 60 minutes, as many of the tests are) don't happen to show your skills, abilities and talents. This is the case with my son. There is so much more going on in his head than he can demonstrate in that format, and when he's forced to move at that kind of speed in a test still less can he show what he can do. Yet these tests are key to university entrance.

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

totally agree.

SAT's coming up and the kids are all signing up for the private, expensive tutoring. I thought the whole point of the new SAT format was to level the playing field for poorer families who couldn't afford the tutoring. Yeah right.

One of my son's arguments for going to EU for university was to escape all the GPA/RIC bs stuff going on at school and then at US college.

I refuse to look at my kids' RIC and have consistently told them that they do their work, do their best and that's all I'm interested in. If they get the odd bad grade, then they know what to do and they are not afraid to tell me if they want to. I can't believe that even in High School some of my kids' friends get into trouble ( allowance,reduced, not allowed to go out) if they get a bad grade.

Our school joins the other "excellent" high school in Austin with this policy change. So, good news all round. It's not like it's crappy schools doing it.

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

also this:
Private schools seek to dump A-to-F grading

Eldest PF went on a very demanding math summer camp at Bryn Mawr. It was fabulous and fun and she went on to be a math/cs major with scholarships - so this course was not to be sniffed at.. amongst her fellow students on this math camp were some kids from a very, very expensive, exclusive school in the NE. At this school, the kids basically got automatic admission to the top universities of their choice. They were sought after by the universities. They did no exams. None. The quality of the education and the student's abilities were not questioned. Wow, can you imagine...

In France, I sent my kids for 1 hour a week of one-to-one English tuition. They were in French school and my only request of this teacher was that my kids' english would be of a standard similar to that of children of their age in the UK. Hedging my bets in case we ever returned ( or went to the USA!). This teacher did not have to prepare them for exams, she had no particular curricula to teach to. She went with the child and what they needed to learn at the speed that was suitable. It was a transformative experience and as a result my kids love English, they love reading great literature, they understand how to analyse it and put it in context. They write without fear of comparison or a bad grade. Imagine if all classes could be like that.

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

Not high school, or class ranking, but on a similar theme. Down my way, they're being tracked from kindergarten but don't officially get a permanent record till they start testing in third grade, which stays at the district level, but from the forth grade, it's a state level and part of the info for colleges. Which is bonkers.

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

I keep learning new things from this forum! I've got two high schoolers (one is a new freshman, the other a junior) and had never heard of RIC till I read this thread.

My junior is at a very high achieving STEM magnet school - they don't report RIC or GPAs. If you need a GPA to get into college they will calculate one for you at that time but otherwise not.

I'm curious to know if my freshman's high school calculates RIC now. It must be fairly complex to calculate given all the different levels of courses, plus the fact that students are allowed to get credits by taking courses at another local school and online.

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

RIC does seem to be a fairly meaningless, easily manipulated system. My son goes to a normal suburban high school (gets 7/10 on Great Schools sort of place). He's arguably more than averagely bright as he has an ACT score of 34, and made National Merit Commended (just missing Semi-Finalist, according to his counselor). Out of the 900 kids in his year, from a wide range of backgrounds, you'd expect him to be pretty high up in the rankings.

Last time it was reported, he was something like 106/900. Pretty good of course, but in the sort of average school it is, he should be an academic stand-out. He isn't, because he's not selecting courses to milk/ protect his GPA. He takes subjects he's interested in, or to challenge himself in new areas (like Speech and Debate, which doesn't come naturally to him).

I think his cumulative GPA is a touch over 4.0. Heaven knows what those other kids are rocking for theirs!

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

I think it's a good idea to not rank class. Speaking from the point of view of someone who is not academically inclined the ranking really did not help self esteem, and I am sure with the more academically inclined caused a different stress.

I didn't do well in high school at 403 out of 525.

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

RIC and GPA are very easy to manipulate especially in the small private schools in Virginia.
SAT and ACT scores are the main factor in being admitted into the top tier Virginia schools.

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

Additional complication - as a student who grew up in the US high school system who is applying to UK universities, what they ask for is all over the map but invariably includes some combination of gpa, SAT, ACT and APs. I have no idea what they ask for if you have none of those.

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

Well that's where the IB comes in dead handy.

Pass the IB diploma, perhaps with a required number of total points, perhaps with a particular score in one subject, maybe both those.

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

I am a huge fan of the IB program.

I wish more public schools had the IB diploma. Here in San Diego, we only have two at this level. (There are a couple of elementary and middle schools who offer the IB at the lower levels.)

Only one of the IB high school offers French at a level appropriate for children who enter from the public French immersion feeder school, and I understand that the Spanish-track kids face a similar situation.

Back to the original topic. I've never been a fan of RIC and am pleased to read that its use continues to decline.

Re: Class Rank reporting stopped at my kids high school!
 

Sadly, the IB is not offered around here. Not in any school I can afford to pay for anyway.