Posted on 05/21/2014 1:57:13 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
Traditionally a 4.0 is considered a perfect grade point average, but Dhara Patel, a high school senior at Plant City High School in Hillsborough County, Fla., has earned an off-the-charts 10.03 GPA.
This is good news considering the new link between GPAs and salary. A recent study by researchers at the University of Miami states that a one-point increase in high school GPA raises annual earnings in adulthood by around 12 percent for men and 14 percent for women.
The study also shows that even a one-point increase in GPA doubles the likelihood of students completing college—from 21 percent to 42 percent—for both men and women.
“Conventional wisdom is that academic performance in high school is important for college admission, but this is the first study to clearly demonstrate the link between high school GPA and labor market earnings many years later,” says Michael T. French, professor of health economics at the University of Miami and corresponding author of the study.
To contribute to her astronomical GPA, Patel took 17 Advanced Placement classes. AP classes, which are on par with college courses, are often weighted, meaning that students who take them receive extra points. That helps those students accumulate a GPA way off the traditional 4.0 chart. While we are unsure if this is the highest GPA ever, we certainly can't find any other press about it. Ravi Medikonda, then a senior at King High School in Hillsborough County, Fla., earned a 9.3079 GPA in 2012.
Aside from the AP classes, Patel also spent nights, weekends, and summers studying at Hillsborough Community College. To add to her accolades, she’s earned her associate’s degree before even graduating from high school.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
That pretty much explains your problem there....
Getting a 10.0 for extra academic work doesn’t demonstrate a higher IQ or more innate talent than someone who ALREADY ACHIEVED PERFECTION with a 4.0.
To use your athlete metaphor... why would a pitcher who pitched a perfect game then run laps around the field? It’s make-work and demonstrates nothing.
A 10.0 simply masks deficiencies in other areas of life. Because that student obviously didn’t play the trombone or become an Eagle Scout.
There’s nothing laudable about it. It’s creepy.
But school grades aren't supposed to be for being a well-rounded person. That's not what they're measuring.
Grades are supposed to measure academic performance.
I'm perfectly willing to agree that this person's GPA performance is kind of weird.
But I assume you will agree that if 50,000 students achieve a 4.0, there still should be some possible way to rank them within that level.
Students who choose to sacrifice socialization and partying to achieve higher academic performance should not be penalized by extra points given to others who choose not to spend the time and effort on academics.
I applaud this young lady’s brains and hard work, and hope she does very well in life.
1) This is not her fault, but the GPA system has been rendered meaningless by rampant grade inflation and this sort of farce.
2) Why did she waste her time in high school and community college, when she could have started at a major university, at least by her junior year? Certainly high school was cheaper, but as a brilliant, female, ethnic minority, she would seem a good candidate for major scholarships. She certainly wasn’t spending her time on “socialization”.
“But I assume you will agree that if 50,000 students achieve a 4.0, there still should be some possible way to rank them within that level.”
Agreed, all things being academically equal, you have to find another way to rank them. That’s where other things besides grades should come into play. Wow, this kid can draw, too. Or play the trumpet. Or shoot baskets. Well-rounded kids are more qualified for college success — and life happiness — than someone who takes yet another advanced math class, when they’ve already passed calculus.
A cheerleader who also passed calculus shouldn’t be penalized for being seventeen and enjoying life.
A GPA simply is not and cannot be the only measure of potential college success. They’re kids — not robots.
And again, Sunday-to-Sunday grind — and 10.0 GPAs — is not the American system. I don’t remember voting to change it to the Chinese system. I don’t want it here.
Which is why I homeschooled my kids and sent them to the community college to earn up to thirty credist for half price!
There is no such thing as "academically equal."
If two students score exactly equal over a high school career, that indicates inadequacy of the rating system, not exactly equal performance.
Grades are not intended to rank a person's worth or value. They're supposed to be rankings of academic performance. Nothing more but nothing less.
10.03? Two and a-half times a perfect 4.0. At some point, far, far short of 10.03, these grading systems became more than a little bit ridiculous, and almost meaninless.
Nothing wrong with 4.0 being the highest possible, then those with a need to evaluate a transcript can review courses taken and extracurriculars.
I’d venture a guess that all these ways to earn additional grade points were devised to bump those up who can’t, or won’t, perform acceptably within the old 4.0 is perfect system of grading.
I am in complete agreement that GPA should reflect only academic performance. When I say “academically equal,” I mean a 4.0 for taking the same classes. Say, AP History, AP English, Calculus, Chemistry, and Physics.
So, two students — straight A’s in all those classes. How do you choose between them? Look at something else. One student plays softball. The other student — probably foreign-born or the child of foreign-born parents — takes a couple of college classes and gets A’s. Now that student’s average is something ridiculous, higher than a 4.0. Better than perfect.
Those extra college classes simply should not factor into high school GPAs or college admissions, because they penalize the other student for expressing her talent in a different area — sports is a form of talent, too —after she did everything right academically.
The 10.0 student in the article is not academically more ready for college or demonstrably smarter than the 4.0 high school kid not taking college classes. She’s just running more laps. Who cares? The mere 4.0 student has played the game on the field to perfection, and does other things as well. I would argue she’s more talented than the 10.0 weirdo grinder.
I would also argue Americans gain nothing when we move the goalpost marking what constitutes perfect academic performance to accommodate foreign cultures, who are happy to sacrifice their kids’ childhoods if they can beat out your kid for that slot at UCLA.
The academic curriculum that made possible these silly 10.0 GPAs started in China and has only recently been imported to America. With devastating results for American kids.
Why would you doubt that she has friends? Bright, hard-working kids have friends. Usually they are other bright, hard-working kids. It's a misconception that people who do very well academically are boring nerds. I've known some brilliant people who are also attractive, charming, and fun.
You’re not serious, are you? Sports, art, and music are fun, but they are not the primary reason kids are going to school. I dispute that those “classes”’should earn any academic credit at all. They are fun, rather than academic disciplines. It’s profoundly wrong to equate a sport with physics or chemistry, mathematics or history.
My brother (much older than me) was Valedictorian at WSU and co-founded and sold a defense consulting company for tens of million$. I did no such thing.
Why?
To knock off the TIME and EXPENSE of the first two years of college.
Some states allow half-price tuition for high school students to take college courses at a community college. This makes sense because the public schools are already getting taxpayer funding for those students.
It depends on what the child/teenager/young adult wants to do - and when she wants to do it. My daughter planned her AP and honors classes while in middle school because she was bored with classes and wanted to sleep late rather than keep riding the bus. Got to high school with a bunch of HS credits and pre-req's completed, did the usual band (percussion and Beta Club, math club, etc and stayed with Girl Scouts - but not all the way there) the first 1-1/2 years.
Signed up for college classes via the school district and went full-time to the local technical college for a BS in Physics INSTEAD of taking more AP classes her junior and senior year. (Her college class credits gave her HS credits in English, math, writing, sciences, etc. ) Graduated at age 18 from Southern Polytechnical University in Marietta GA three weeks before her 18th birthday with a 4-year BS in Math and a second BS in Physics.
And got her high school diploma mailed to her the same day.
Earned her MS in library science with mostly on-line classes from the University of Alabama, then got hired at a local university in the library science department teaching library courses and computer science classes before age 20.
Is a taxpayer. Conservative. And we didn't pay anything more than the standard school taxes each year. She earned the rest on her own merits.
It’s nice when one’s child is a success! There are a lot of different routes for different people.
The GPAs going up to 10, though ... that’s kind of nuts. It seems to me that if a school wants to weight more difficult classes, they could simply double the grade, so that an A for an AP class could count 4.0 twice, rather than 8.0.
Cool! Did he at least give you a job?
Yeah, but in these days of grade inglation you’re not really in the top ten percent of your class unless your GPA is at least a zillion or so.
GunsareOK: I didn’t see any references in the full article to any such sentiments on her part.
From article: "It’s not just books and good grades for Patel. She is a member of seven high school clubs, holds leadership roles in half of them, and sits on the executive board of student government."
Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the power power power hunger of a femynist Liberal'un...
Forty plus years ago we could complete high school where we actually learned how to do tasks which would lead to immediate employment.
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Yep. In the ‘50s, I had metal shop, electrical shop and wood shop in Jr. High. In Sr. High there were two different programs that gave credits to students that left school before the last two classes and went to work part-time at local businesses.
One of the programs was called Industrial Education, where students worked in various trades like plumbing, auto mechanics, electrical, auto body shops, etc. The other program was for people working in retail shops/stores as stockers, cashiers, floor sales, etc., but I can’t recall what that program was called.
The store/shop owners or managers kept records on each student regarding being on time, skills, dealing with customers, etc., and reported all that back to the school.
In the late ‘50s, a large percentage of graduates were getting married within a year after school and working for a living. In my area (Dallas) only about 15-20% went to college.
I knew I wasn’t college material, so joined the USNR (Weekend Warrior) at the beginning of my Sr. year when 17 and went on active duty about 4 months after graduation in ‘60. ...Best thing I could have done! Straighted me out! Earned AAS ‘72, BBA ‘74 and MBA ‘83 (age 41), all while working full time, married and raising kids.
Sorry for the long post. Just wanted to make the point that college is not for everyone right out of high school AND to signify my agreement with Grams A.
I truly understand where you're coming from. Many, many decades ago when I was in the school system, I truly LOVED the idea that the Ancient Romans saw mathematical brilliance as embodied in a woman -- Minerva. SHE was a formidable woman: intelligent and cunning-- Goddess of mathematics and battle strategy. You would pray to Mars to start a war, but to Minerva to help you end it.
There is no model of Minerva-like behavior today. There is no brilliance to aspire to. Everything is either revolting sexual gyrations on stage or abortions or free birth control, with there is nothing else. The concept of a woman owning mathematics is now as foreign as the concept of the Republicans freeing the slaves. It's sad. Losing Minerva is the real war on women.
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