School ranking system doesn't make the grade

High schools across the nation traditionally have ranked students in their class according to their academic grade point average. Some local high schools, however, are moving away from the practice of student rankings.

At a recent Las Virgenes Unified School District meeting, board members wrangled with the issue and discussed dropping the time honored practice.

Why?

Apparently in schools where there is a preponderance of high achieving students, even a grade point average of 4.0 or above may not be enough to earn a top billing upon graduation.

To determine a student's GPA, numerical scores that correlate to the grade earned are calculated for each grade in each class. In standard and college preparatory classes, grades are calculated between 1 and 4, with 1 representing a D grade, 2 equaling a C, 3 for a B and the top score of 4 for an A grade.

Honors and advanced placement classes, however, are given extra weight because the class content is more rigorous, and students are rewarded with a boost in their GPA. A grade of B in an honors class translates into a 3.5 GPA, while a B in an advanced placement class translates into an A-a full point extra is given for AP classes.

Joe Nardo, Las Virgenes assistant superintendent of education, said there is a trend in local schools to eliminate class ranking altogether or just use deciles, meaning that a student could be ranked in the top 1, 5, 10 (and so on) percent of the class.

With college admission more competitive than ever, every fraction of a point could count in favor-or work against-a student, experts say.

According to Agoura High School counselor Andrea Pelicane, students who transfer from out of state can skew the system. There are also issues in how homeschooled children and special education students are graded and how their grading criteria can affect meaningful ranking.

To confuse matters even further, students have learned how to manipulate the system to their advantage.

"There are ways of getting around the system," Pelicane said. Some students might earn a B in a class, but rather than dilute their GPA they ask the teacher for an "incomplete" until the ranking has been completed and college transcripts mailed. Others might enroll in a class as a strategic move to raise their ranking, Agoura High School's Assistant Principal Jeanette Ober said.

"College admissions have become incredibly competitive," said Susi Weismann, Calabasas High School's college and career counselor.

"It's quite out of control," she said, explaining that many students put down "double deposits" at two colleges, a practice that is frowned upon by many such institutions.

With so many students at local schools earning top grades, many administrators no longer believe that the system benefits students.

"It doesn't reflect who they are in the context of school," Weismann said. "The current class ranking of students does not give a true indication of the rigor of the classes a student has completed," Nardo said in a report.

Small liberal colleges may even use ranking to eliminate students, Weismann said. "They have to whittle down the applicant pool."

By succumbing to the request for student ranking on college applications, Weismann said, the district is serving students as well as it can.

Many high achieving school districts have dropped student ranking, including Oak Park, South Pasadena and Arcadia high schools. Some others, like Beverly Hills and San Marino high schools, rank students according to deciles rather than grades.

Ober said ranking is only important in selecting a valedictorian and salutatorian, and that ranking will remain the same.

The speakers all agreed that the elimination of class ranking would not affect acceptance into college and would eliminate the stress and anxiety that many students experience in vying for top ranking.

Ober said the ranking changes "every five minutes."

School Board President Cindy Iser said school profiles are mailed with each college application. She said letters of recommendation from teachers play a greater role in entry to top colleges.

Iser called class ranking just a "snapshot in time." She gave the example of a Calabasas High School student whose 3.8 GPA wasn't high enough to be ranked in the top 25 percent of his class.

Class ranking "has outdated its usefulness," school board member Pat Schulz said.

The board will vote on the issue at its next meeting. If the class ranking system is eliminated, the new process will not take effect until the 2007-08 school year, officials said.