You are absolutely right: GPAs do not reflect the fact that those who take hard classes frequently have lower GPAs. I was one of them, but through no fault of my own...
I was a “B-” student in high school, and in the lower half of my class graduating. I was also taking higher math and science courses during my senior year, and was struggling with physics especially. My counselors even asked me if I could drop some of those tougher courses just to save my GPA, which had been a pretty solid 3.5 until then.
But my father, an aerospace engineer who worked on many notable missions, (including the Saturn V project) insisted that I take the more difficult courses just because “I might need them someday”. In his heart of hearts, I think he really hoped that I might become an engineer someday. He never could comprehend how even simple algebraic equations really fried my brain, and he just knew if I kept at it, I’d be able to finally understand and build a rocket to take us to Mars...
So I stayed the course, finished in the bottom half of my class, and watched as the “easy A” kids who took nothing but journalism and basketweaving got lauded for their high GPAs. Meanwhile, I was that girl keeping her head down in the back trying to figure out the trajectory on some distant object, and making Cs while doing so.
Still, it didn’t affect me too much regarding college - I got a near perfect score on my ACT and got a top score on the PSAT, and went to college to become an elementary school teacher. Still, it always made me a little upset at my father, because I felt humilitated by my GPA - I just HAD to take those difficult courses I felt I would never use in my chosen profession...
That is, until I started homeschooling my son - and wouldn’t you know it, he’s in fourth grade and he’s studying to be an engineer? Physics. Chemistry. The whole nine yards! And now I’m thanking God that I took those courses that blew my GPA to bits, because now I’m able to teach physics and higher math to a boy who swears that HE will be the one; the one to build the rocket to take us to Mars - and beyond.
I wish I could tell my father “thank you”. He never got to meet my son, but I know he believed in his heart of hearts that the world needs a good engineer - and a good teacher to teach them...
Your son is taking physics in 4th grade? Has he had calculus already too? (You can’t do the electricity and magnetism or derive Newton’s equations of motions without differentials or integrals, after all.)
I’m glad you did, and tell that boy of yours to keep working, as he’s got a better chance at it than I did. My HS algebra teacher told me that the reason I needed algebra was to graduate from high school. Being a smart-***ed kid, I said “oh, yeah!” and flunked the first year. He gave me a “D” the second year. I finally passed College Algebra as a 47 year-old adult, working on an engineering degree, but crashed and burned on Trigonometry. Now I’m a special ed teacher, in an elementary school.
Tell him good luck, and God Bless, and he carries my dreams with him!