Mountain Brook schools release class rank and GPA study findings
Mountain Brook City Schools released its findings on its recent study on class rank and GPA calculations on Tuesday, July 28.
A committee was put together during the 2014-2015 school year to evaluate the school system's process and answer the following questions:
- What is the purpose and influence of class rank on our students’ college admission application and scholarship competitiveness?
- Does the method used by Mountain Brook Schools to determine our students’ GPA benefit our students? Does it maintain the academic integrity of the school system?
The committee was made up of 20 members from various backgrounds in the Mountain Brook City Schools system including administrators, teachers, parents, board members and students.
After evaluating research on each question, the committee recommended removing class rank as part of the transcript and adopting a grade distribution as an alternate form of class comparison.
Through its research, the committee found that only 26 percent of the nation's high schools continue to use class rank as a student comparison on transcripts. Interviews were conducted with admissions officers at Vanderbilt, Wake Forest and Washington and Lee Universities.
The committee asked the admissions officers to review transcripts of students without class rankings. Two of the three transcripts reviewed would have been admitted. However, when the committee revealed class rank of the students, several admissions officers noted that the rank would "have negatively influenced their decision to review the student as a candidate for admission."
Admissions officers did emphasize the importance of a comparison system, however. The committee found that alternate comparison systems, such as providing a student's decile. Under this system, students in the top 10 percent would be in the first decile. Students in the 11-20 percent would be in the second decile, and so on.
Another option would be for the school system to provide a grade distribution showing colleges how many students have GPAs within certain levels.
The committee also recommended no change at this time for the way that Mountain Brook City Schools calculated GPA.
Currently, the school system uses a 100-point weighted and unweighted GPA as well as a four point GPA on its transcripts.
Under this system, grades are calculated as follows:
- 90-100 = A
- 80-89 = B
- 70-79 = C
- 65-69 = D Below
- 65 = F
This system proved to be the most beneficial to Mountain Brook City School students, according to the report. Currently, some electives are weighted, but others are not. Though a change in weighted courses was considered, the committee felt weighting courses that are currently unweighted might take emphasis off of academics.
"If we recalculated GPAs to include all courses plus weights, it could potentially benefit students with GPAs between a 3.3 and 3.5. If a student has over a 4.0 GPA, adding elective courses would lower the student’s GPA. For every student that could have an improved GPA, more students could have a lower GPA if we calculated all courses plus weights for Advanced and AP courses," according to the report.
The committee determined that reporting both a weighted and unweighted GPA "communicates a complete picture of the student and what he or she may add to a college community."