Somebody help me here, because I think I'm becoming "old."
Have the children of today become so stupid, so spoiled, that we are now giving them so much extra credit that you can now get a GPA ABOVE 4.0????
I'm mean, grade inflation is bad enough.
Getting doctorates in child pscyhology is bad enough.
Dating boys majoring in "nutrition" is bad enough.
But good lord, have the sensitivities of the wittle wittle childwen become so fragile they now need a full additional point on their GPA scores?
You understand why I say I the baby boomers are crap, but Gen X is crap-squared, and Gen Y is crap-cubed.
This country fully deserves where it's going. Fully.
It's weighted GPA Cappy. So if you have advanced/honors courses you will get more points than a person who breezes through on all easy classes. On a scale of 1 to 5 a guy who gets all A's in easy classes will have a 4.0, but a guy with all advanced classes(and all A's) will get a 5.0.
ReplyDeleteThank you being a voice of reason
DeleteSince you have no idea how programs for advanced students work it seems logical you'd believe anything you see written!
DeleteThis started in my geeneration, Gen X. My high school was a Magnet/special school with what are called AP (advanced placement) and IB (International Bacalauriate) classes. If I recall right, forgive me it's been 20 years now, some of these courses counted more than 4 points on your GPA and would even count as college credits.
ReplyDeleteA doctorate's degree is possessive
ReplyDeleteMcDonalds has two capital letters
Yale has a capital Y
Woman is singular
Dorkiness (if it is a word) includes the letter "i"
Unknown words missing
What you're saying uses a contraction, not possessive
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Be thankful you have a 3.5GPA
PS Cap, 'twas great to meet up with you Monday.
Cheers
Differ
If it is the same thing I'm familiar with, it is caused by AP courses which give college credit. Getting an A in them gives you a higher than 4.0 for that class, which can increase your overall GPA above 4.0. If so, this has been going on for a long time.
ReplyDeleteThis comment may have also mistaken 4.5 for the max and he really has a 4.0.
Although I'd point out there really is nothing magical about the number 4.0. The commentor seems to be using the number as shorthand for "perfect" anyway.
I graduated from HS in 1991, and 4+ grades existed: honors & AP classes had an extra 1 point added. To go above 4, obviously you need to be getting some A's even in the honors/AP classes.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what it's like in other scools, but back in my day, those honors/AP classes were night and day above the normal classes.
You know, I'm really wondering how these kids are going to survive when the hammer of reality hits.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the boyfriend is Australian? That would make his GPA around 2.6. :)
ReplyDelete"Getting doctorates in child psychology is bad enough."
ReplyDeleteNot if you want to become a psychology professor/researcher or a licensed child psychologist.
As differ pointed out, this is NOT a person who has had to write much. Anyone who has done some serious academic research has had to take the brutal punishment of learning how to write according to the relevant style guide. Publish a couple of times, and it becomes an anally-retained part of you...
ReplyDeleteThus we also have a distinctive reason to assume that anyone who writes as though their comment was a cell phone text is an ignoramus.
Actually given the dual benefit of greater learning potential ( my recollections of the difficulty mirror "anonymous" above )and lack of wasted money/time in college freshman bullshit I'd say the 5 point scale is actually merited.
ReplyDeleteMy HS (class of 87) did this but the weighted version only applied to class rank and maybe honor roll. Your official GPA was from 0 to 4, colleges saw your classes and final grades, and it was up to them whether you got college credit for anything.
ReplyDeleteMy only AP class was English, good class, my college gave me credit for it but refused to let me skip the required core curriculum English class, which was too bad since it turned out to be a pretty worthless class and also ate a slot that could have been used for something useful.
Gen Y is crap^4.5
ReplyDeleteNutrition is actually a difficult, science oriented subject. Most nutrition programs fulfill medical school requirements.
ReplyDeleteCaptain, there are two, maybe three ways to get a 4.5 GPA.
ReplyDeleteThe third way is your theory that HS is now inflating a full point.
The other two are the ones officially established systems. Some schools goes on a 5.0 system. This is part of why SAT and transcripts are common asked because not all school follow a 4.0 system and have to be recalculated.
And the last one is the AP which rewards higher GPA because it is more and harder material.
Due to the two above, this outrage is misguided. However, I will say the girl grammar is terrible. Anybody I know who was that type of academic elite did not write like that. Especially to make a comment of dissension.
I was in university back in the late 1990s/early 2000s ...
ReplyDeleteFrom what I remember, there are some schools that calculate GPA on a 5 point scale and I would expect this student to come from one of those. If this is the case, I would expect a 4.5 GPA to be similar to a 3.6 on a 4 point scale.
Of course it is possible that this person comes from a school that has A+ grades and an A+ GPA is graded as a 4.5. The only schools I know like that are not worth mentioning though.
Try Law School's ABA forced curve. A 1L walking into a LS class knows that only 1-3 people will get get "A"s. The 1L also knows that 1-3 must fail. In addition under the ABA mandatory grade scale an A=4.0 and an A-=3.75.
ReplyDeleteIn most LS classes the students were in the top half of their undergrad schools. The stress is incredible.
Am I reading this shit right? Does she really believe that if she doesn't go to college she won't get married?
ReplyDeleteWhen I went to college, I talked to the admissions advisor who said they had to recalculate everyone's GPA based strictly on the core classes and letter grades because it was so common for schools to put in fluff classes and inflated grades into the GPA it was almost impossible to directly compare the stated GPA numbers.
ReplyDeleteSort of like how the SAT is on an 1800 point basis now from 1600.
ReplyDeleteInjects some self esteem boosting cognitive dissonance into the system. It's not as easy to compare scores from now and then. You just know they wouldn't make it a 1400 point basis, right?
As has been pointed out the new system was brought about by the change to Advanced Placement level HS classes. Many of these classes give college credits and are MUCH more difficult than the pablum that makes up the majority of classes now taught at that level. It has the added benefit of allowing smart kids to get college level credit for the basic such as English etc. while in HS so that when they do go on to college they have classes already done. My youngest went straight from HS to UNR in Reno as a sophomore because she took all the AP classes. She will have her MPH (Public Health) and her PhD in Geriatric Psychology by the time she's 23. She already has a job lined up waiting and will make as much n her 20's as I do after decades in health care....and I make good $$.
ReplyDeleteThe system may be badly bent but it isn't totally broken yet.
It is not fair for someone to do double the work and get the same grade. If I were to take an AP class and get a B because of the homework, it would keep me from being a valedictorian. Someone else could take all regular classes, breeze through them and become a valedictorian.
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