Grading scale in Texas

90-100 = 4.0
80-89 = 3.0
70-79 = 2.0
60-69 = 1.0 failing

This is if your on the 4.0 scale. Many districts do different things.

HaHa! Welcome to Texas...You need a BA in accounting and a staff of six lawyers to figure out all the loopholes and extra credits..and by the time you get it figured out the TEA has re-rigged everything again...

thats unless its an AP or Honors course which would add 1 point to each.

lol, you can have a great GPA and not even come close to cracking the top 10% because AP classes are weighted different. dont you just love it!

I recently learned how my son's high school assigns a letter grade to a numerical grade. He gets a numerical grade on report cards. This does not take into account any weighting for Honors or AP classes.

90-100 = A
80-89 = B
75-79 = C
70-74 = D
Below 70 = F

I was surprised that there is only a 5 point span for a C.

My son just dropped out of the top 10%, with a 99.99% average.

KD ~ I've had several students graduate from KHS as Texas Scholars with 4.5 or better GPA's and not be in the top 10%.

Something's just not right with that.

you have to respect the student athletes who maintain their grades as well as all the sports, practices, private lessons, etc. My son is currently in the top 8%. It seems the kids above him do nothing but study.

Another problem we have is loss of students. My son's class lost 60 students between Christmas and now. School expects his class size to drop even more by the time he gradutes. So what really sucks is he works hard, raised his GPA last semester by a few tenths of a point only to lose ground in the class ranking.

Do other schools experience this reduction in class size? School officials say we live in a mobile area. Seems like most are mobile out of the district.

screwball, that is exactly why GPA is over rated. yeah maybe some of the elite schools take GPA consideration but for the average student going to an average college, GPA doesnt matter. that would be my case. the problem is some schools and some scholarship oportunities rely to heavily on GPA.

i can understand using GPA as a reference. Its the whole class rank thing and confuses me. All class demographics are not the same. Why punish some kids because they happen to live in a district with a large population of kids who would rather study than anything else.

I have even heard of parents moving to certain school districts just so the kid can graduate in the top ten.

quote:

Why punish some kids because they happen to live in a district with a large population of kids who would rather study than anything else.

That's a bizarre quote to me. Studies are first, everything comes in second behind that. At least in our house. As an example, at Texas Tech you can get a $20,000 Scholarship for being in the top 10% and getting a 31 on your ACT. Now if you can earn that and swing a bat, now you're talking! The rankings are hard to keep up with, the AP classes are weighted (as they should be), but you get to keep what you learn a lot longer than you get to keep anything else.

The problem comes in when schools name classes AP but don't truly prepare kids for the AP test.

ok stan, maybe the quote sounds strange but please explain how with all the various student demographics and various student populations that the 10% rule is fair. why can a kid transfer to a school that may not be as challenging and make the top 10%?

screwball: I agree that the 10% isn't fair (even though I fall comfortably in it). Having said that, usually, and I stress usually, a kid that goes from a harder school to an easier school doesn't automatically fall in the top 10%. The school previously attended might have caused his/her gpa to "fall" (more meaning, kept it from being as high as it would be if he/she would've attended the easier school to begin with) due to the difficulty.

My problem with the top 10% rule...

Let's say I go to Collikar High School and am on the path to graduate #1 in my class. I get to apply to the University of Texas and I am accepted due to my class rank.

TBirdDad goes to Jesuit High School (just an example)takes more challenging courses, makes better grades, but doesn't land in the top 10% due to the number of brilliant minds at the school to begin with. He doesn't get the opportunity to attend UT, even though he's been more challenged and is academically exceptional.

Where's the logic?

If your kid happens to be in a high school that also has an IB (International Baccalaurate, sp?) program,like mine... well you just totally forget about that top 10% thing even with good grades in AP classes. However, I have two in college who received good academic scholarships, but weren't in the top 10%. Just depends on how picky you are about the college you want to go to.

Screwball - We are in the same situation. Son actually moved up a couple of spots in the ranking - but about 50 kids have dropped out of his class since May. As a result he has slipped down to the next quartile. Kids at the top of the class don't drop out. It's the ones on the bottom who most likely will not graduate or have just lost interest.

quote:

Originally posted by collikar:
but doesn't land in the top 10% due to the number of brilliant minds at the school to begin with. He doesn't get the opportunity to attend UT, even though he's been more challenged and is academically exceptional.

Where's the logic?

my point exactly

quote:

Originally posted by Redhead:
Screwball - We are in the same situation. Son actually moved up a couple of spots in the ranking - but about 50 kids have dropped out of his class since May. As a result he has slipped down to the next quartile. Kids at the top of the class don't drop out. It's the ones on the bottom who most likely will not graduate or have just lost interest.

what school if i may ask?

I am not anti top 10% - my oldest benefitted from it. Just because a student does not fall in the top 10% does not mean they can not attend Texas A&M or that school in Austin. I read a couple of weeks ago that about 45% of TAMU's freshman class came from the top 10% category. That leaves 55% up for grabs. Even if the 10% rule were not in effect, most of those students would be admitted based on their high school achievements. It just allows those at the top to apply early and not have to wait for the official notification. Oh - and the 10% rule does not guarantee your choice of major. Some majors(Mays Business School and I believe the Engineering School at TAMU) have to be applied for also. When my daughter was a freshman, about 90% of the freshman business majors were in the top 3% of their graduating classes. Screwball - we are at Georgetown.

According to the April 12, 2006 Dallas Morning News....

"Applicants in the top 10 percent of their classes made up 75 percent of of all Texas students receiving acceptance letters from UT-Austin this spring." (this spring refers to 2006)


According to a DMN article dated March 31, 2005 ....

"Officials at the University of Texas' main campus in Austin say 80 percent of the freshman entering this fall will have entered under the 10 percent law. In a few years, that number will be almost 100 percent, said UT President Larry Faulkner."

If you are not in the top 10% it is extremely difficult to get into the University of Texas. The only other ways to be admitted are to have extremely high SAT scores or enter via an athletic scholarship. Another option is to attend one of the other UT schools (Arlington, Dallas, El Paso, etc) for one year and maintain the required hours and GPA then transfer to Austin under the CAP program (Coordinated Admission Program) for your sophomore year.

As dtiger and Collikar mentioned, if you go to a private or public college prep school (for example, Jesuit and Highland Park HS) where the majority of the students are high achieving you can have very good grades and an excellent education and still not be in the top 25% much less the top 10%. I understand the need for the rule but it does seem to benefit some students/schools more than others.

The figures quoted in the articles for A&M are more in the range referred to by Redhead....A&M does not appear to be as greatly impacted by the 10% rule as UT.

Dtiger - That is impressive that you are comfortably in the top 10% at Jesuit......It is my understanding that Jesuit does not "rank" their students nor do they report their rankings to colleges. Is that true? Does that hurt the students in the top 10% or is there a way for you to report your standing independent of the school? I am just curious how that works.

You can fix all of this by homeschooling. Its not for everyone, but it works. Child #1 attends an Ivy League college & child #2 has been offered the presidential scholarship at 3 different liberal arts colleges in the east.

dbg_fan - I am truly impressed by the students and parents that can make homeschooling work so well! That is a huge commitment for the parent and in most instances the student shows great maturity by being teachable. I could probably do it through 8th grade then I would be lost...especially in science!

Congrats to child #1 and #2!

collikar-


thanks for shining some light on the rigrorous (sp)courses at jesuit.

I picked up a copy of son's transcript today. He moved up a couple notches and with the mid year transfers and Juniors graduating early they are only down about 30 students from the junior year.

quote:

Originally posted by jesuitbaseball:
collikar-

thanks for shining some light on the rigrorous (sp)courses at jesuit.

Thanks for shedding some light on the rigorous courses at Jesuit.

You're welcome.

Cheapseats- Jesuit does not make the top 10% list made known, but there are ways of finding out someone's ranking-I've done so because on all the questionaires I've filled out, they ask for class rank. Jesuit is unique in that they won't send it to any colleges UNLESS it can help i.e. Texas/Texas A&M (mainly just Texas schools). At a college "conference" the junior class attended last week, it was said that they basically don't send it to out of state schools. If they didn't send any rank to the Texas schools, that could hinder the process of being accepted. In general though, the top 10% at Jesuit isn't by let's say for example we have 300 kids, top 10% would be 30. Well, what if one person leaves, does the number go down to 299? No, in the eyes of the school, each student still attending Jesuit is still competing against the student that left, the student that left just isn't competing against them. If I haven't confused anyone too much. Also, it's very easy for a student to know what general percentile they are in because at the meeting, they told us that above a 94 is top 10%. That number does fluctuate, but not much.

Disclaimer, all this talk about school might bring out the worst, I MEAN best speling . Had to collikar. I'm sure there are some other mispellings in there.

if students that leave are still counted in the equation then my son would be in the top 5%. not the way its done in public schools. question then becomes how do the texas colleges fairly compare the two types of rankings?

Dtiger - Thanks for the explanation....that makes sense.