fair grades facts
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8/9/2019 Fair Grades Facts
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Fair Grades for Isle of Wight Students
It does hurt your students We base our scholarships on GPABridgewater College Admissions Officer
In 2008 a group of Fairfax County parents formed an organization they called FAIRGRADE and convinced the School Board to
study the effects on their students of what they believed to be an onerous grading system. They thoughttheir children were at a
disadvantage regarding college admissions, merit-based scholarships, NCAA eligibility & scholarships, college honors
programs and even insurance companies good student driver discounts.
A Fairfax grading scale review committee conducted exhaustive research into the matter and in December 2008 issued an
extensive 120-page report. As a result, in the fall of 2009 Fairfax County Public Schools implemented a 10-point grading system.
Numerous other school districts, including Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake followed suit.
Fairfax found that GPAs are one of the four most important factors considered in college admissions, yet 55% of colleges
responding to their survey dont recalculate GPAs to form a common basis for student comparisons. One FAIRGRADE
member quoted a Chicago Superintendent as saying, We made the assumption that colleges look at the grading scale. Well,
they dont.
In a match-up of GPAs between an Isle of Wight student and one from Fairfax County
with identical numeric grades
the Fairfax student gets the nod for college admissions and scholarships.
IoW(7-point scale) Class / Score
Fairfax(10-point scale)
Letter
Grade
Number
Grade
Extra
Credit
Final
Grade
Letter
Grade
Number
Grade
Extra
Credit
Final
Grade
A 4.0 0.5 4.5 Honors History / 96% A 4.0 0.5 4.5
B 3.0 0.5 3.5 Honors English / 93% A 4.0 0.5 4.5
B 3.0 3.0 Latin III / 93% A 4.0 4.0
B 3.0 3.0 Algebra II / 91% A- 3.7 3.7
B 3.0 1.0 4.0 AP Biology / 92% A- 3.7 1.0 4.7
GPA: 3.6 GPA: 4.28
Dr John Vickers (Research in Higher Education, Vol 41, No 2, 2000) found that
even small disparities in GPA may determine acceptance or rejection to a college.
In a 2006 Isle of Wight Grading Scale Review report, the committee wrote that, according to East Carolina University, thestudent with a B for a grade of 93 would be at a distinct disadvantage compared to the student with an A for a 94 when
converted to quality points in the 4.0 system. In other words, an A is a 4.0 and a B is a 3.0, regardless of the grading scales.
In the Isle of Wight study, when asked about the effect of our grading scale, Bridgewater College said, It does hurt your
students as far as our scholarship system works. We base our scholarships on GPA Virginia Tech said that, studentsmust have a 3.5 GPA for scholarship consideration. A FAIRGRADE mother said her son lost $4,000 in scholarship money
from Indiana University because the larger scholarship required a GPA of 3.75 or higher. His GPA was 3.70, and there was no
adjustment to account for his schools tougher grading system. Isle of Wight schools provide a copy of their grading scale to
explain or justify lower GPAs, but it is all too often ignored or simply doesnt matter because of unyielding minimums.
We need to apply the research conducted by Fairfax County Public Schools to our situation in Isle of Wight and
look more closely at what our own 2006 study reported. Our students are competing on an increasingly national
stage for limited college seats and valuable scholarships. As more and more school districts convert to 10-pointsystems, our students are left farther and farther behind. The time has come to update an onerous grading system
that deprives our children of college and scholarship opportunities.
Visit our facebookpage at Fair Grades for Isle of Wight Students.
Sign our online petition athttp://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fairgrades4iow/
Email your questions or concerns [email protected]
July 29, 2010
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fairgrades4iow/http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fairgrades4iow/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fairgrades4iow/