Course Rigor Matters

I returned a couple of weeks ago from the IECA National Conference. I attended some great break-out sessions. One session was with admissions officers from the University of Rochester, University of Delaware, and Ohio Wesleyan. They were discussing how they make admissions decisions when they do not have a test score, i.e., in the land of test optional. One of the questions was how do you possibly discern a 4.0 from student A from a 4.0 from student B. Well, first of all, let’s discuss how many students now have a 4.0 or close to it. The answer is often surprising for parents, but the answer is a LOT. Grade inflation in this country is real. Here is an article from Education Week in which they state the pandemic simply accelerated the pace at which high school grades are being inflated. Grade inflation is also not limited to high school. Here is an article from The Brown Daily Herald that talks about grade inflation at Brown University and other Ivy League colleges. Brown’s Senior Lecturer in Political Science Nina Tannenwald says it best, “The rapid increase over the last two years surely reflects leniency on grading during COVID,” she wrote in an email to The Herald.“ But it exacerbates a trend that has been underway for a while.” The reality is grade inflation is very real at all stages of education and the pandemic has only made it worse. I have digressed. The real question I was trying to answer was how do you possibly discern one student’s 4.0 GPA from another? The answer is course rigor. A 4.0 transcript with 14 APs is clearly different than the 4.0 transcript with no APs. Other things are more nuanced. To get an idea of what classes you could be taking in high school for selective college admissions listen to this podcast I just recorded with Amy Seeley and Mike Bergin from Tests and the Rest.