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Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: Professor Julius Kelp ()
Date: March 27, 2012 06:49AM

An open letter to college admissions committees
Friday, Mar. 23, 2012
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20120323/OPINION/703239696/1076/something-for-everyone-at-historic-savage-mill/An-open-letter-to-college-admissions-committees&template=fairfaxTimes

As a physics teacher who recently resigned from Loudoun County Public Schools, one of the wealthiest and fastest-growing public school districts in America, I urge you to altogether stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions.

Our schools are failing. Rarely does real learning happen in modern classrooms, and when it does, it is often merely a byproduct of each student’s pursuit of an independent and potentially conflicting goal: high grades. While I can only speak to grading practices at my school, I suspect that these concerns are endemic throughout high schools nationwide.

First, high school grades themselves are very poor indicators of a student’s competence. As a graduate of MIT and Georgetown Law, I have experience in earning high grades and gaining admission to competitive universities. My grades were in part due to “grade engineering”: the process of maximizing grades with minimal effort and without regard to learning or understanding material. In other words, I received high grades partially by exploiting the weak correlation between grades and mastery.

At one time, I suppose, grades might have been an objective and reasonably accurate measure of competence in a given subject. Not anymore. Today, they primarily measure how well a student can game the system. It is quite easy for savvy high school students to pass a course, and in some cases even to receive an A or B, without actually knowing or understanding any of the course content. Here’s how:

They choose easy teachers. Many teachers at my school believe that all students are capable of getting A’s; not surprisingly, very few of their students receive lower than a B. Are these amazing teachers who push their students to succeed or spineless grade inflators who don’t want to deal with angry parents? Because a student’s grade depends largely on his teacher’s philosophy of grading, students can avoid the annoyance of actually having to earn high grades by rationally choosing teachers who want to give them.

They harass teachers about grades. Students and their parents often cooperate to make a teacher’s life a living hell. They pester the teacher weekly with requests for progress reports. They call the teacher during her lunch break to request extra credit or test retake opportunities. They write demanding and condescending emails. They schedule early-morning parent-teacher conferences to negotiate higher grades. They complain to the principal. They meet with guidance. They flex their muscles and put the teacher in her place. During my last week as a public school teacher, a colleague actually cried after receiving a nasty parent email. Given enough harassment, many teachers will either succumb to inflating grades or quit.

They cheat. At my school, the likelihood of getting caught is low. Students can easily copy other students’ homework or plagiarize from the Internet. They can even cheat during tests, as many teachers give the same test version to every student. Even if a student is caught, there is essentially no consequence for first-time offenders so perceptive students readily make use of this free hall pass. Does cheating actually occur? In an anonymous survey of my 130 physics students, all but three admitted to copying homework or test answers from other students.

They get into special ed. Not all of special ed is a sham but some of it is. I am not an expert in special education and I absolutely agree that specific learning disabilities exist that can be addressed with research-based interventions and procedures. However, instead of a shield, special ed (and its even shadier cousin, the child study) is often used by parents as a sword to gain competitive advantages over other students, particularly the small-group testing accommodation, in which students are taken to a different room by a special ed teacher who may “coach” the students. In my experience, this coaching tends to involve providing hints and interactive feedback that would be considered cheating if provided by fellow students, thus allowing students who are otherwise clueless in my class to ace my tests. Sadly, many students have learned to exploit their special ed status as a crutch and excuse for nonperformance, resulting in higher grades in the short term at the expense of accountability and achievement in the long term.

They earn “completion” points by turning in all homework, projects and assignments. Completion is the new competence. Modern grading practices encourage children to turn in lots of shoddy work products because completion points, which now account in many classrooms for the majority of the grade, reward quantity over quality. By copying off other students and the Internet and even scribbling worthless nonsense to give the semblance of assignment completion, a student can receive the vast majority of credit on these assignments with minimal effort. Even if they bomb the tests — reflecting a total lack of understanding in the subject — they’ll still be able to pull off a B or C.

When students are judged for college admissions on an indicator that may or may not bear any resemblance to their actual level of mastery, an entirely rational response is to focus on the indicator itself. Why go through the arduous process of actually learning physics if you can pull off a B merely by copying homework, getting last-minute extra credit points, and having your parents harass your teacher for a retake when you bombed the test you didn’t prepare for? These grade-increasing strategies are now the rule in public education, not the exception. Sadly, the hardworking students who have integrity, an old-fashioned American work ethic, and a desire to actually learn are at a competitive disadvantage to their less-honest counterparts.

Consequently, the drive for high grades is blinding students and parents alike to the real purpose of education: learning. In parent-teacher conferences, “How can my child bring up her grade?” has replaced “How can my child better learn the material?” The system’s response to angry grade-obsessed parents and disgruntled students has been to fudge the indicator instead of improving the system in other words, to inflate grades in spite of worsening performance. I was routinely pressured by parents, students and even administrators to inflate grades in the form of curving scores, providing extra credit and retest opportunities, and more heavily weighting homework and projects that are easy to copy from friends. It is instructive to note that two-thirds of our students are on the honor roll. (That’s right.) When a majority of students routinely receive As and B’s in all their classes, the distinctions intended by a traditional A-F grading scale become hazy and meaningless.

Finally, grades are far too personal to be effective. When an A student receives a C in algebra, for example, she is fooled into believing that she is no good at math when, in reality, a C is (or should be) an indicator of perfectly acceptable performance in which there is room for improvement. As a result, her self-esteem and confidence take serious beatings and she gives up, even though real excellence is molded from a long cycle of falling and then getting back up again. Teachers are thus given the option of assigning honest grades that reflect true mastery — and of dealing with angry, discouraged students who have not been held accountable for their own education — or of deluding C and D students into believing they’re A and B students. The latter option will result in a generation full of misled “straight-A” students possessing few actual skills and a subpar work ethic who don’t understand why America is no longer economically competitive in the global marketplace.

The solution I propose is comprehensive exams at the end of each course, much like Advanced Placement exams, that thoroughly and objectively distinguish students on merit alone. The emphasis in each classroom would then shift from fighting the teacher for high grades to cooperating with the teacher to learn the material necessary to perform on the exam. Unlike Virginia’s Standard of Learning tests, which are essentially worthless baseline tests of rote memorization that do not distinguish the most competent students, AP exams test a broad array of knowledge and understanding. There is no such thing as “teaching to the AP test,” because fundamental understanding and application of knowledge cannot be mastered by memorizing the answers to past exam questions.

The focus on grades is killing American education. In my book, “Full Ride to College,” I specifically teach students how to engineer their grades and exploit the weak correlation between grades and mastery, thus giving students a competitive advantage without the inconvenience of working hard and learning. While I consider this strategy to be a mockery of American education, it is also effective. Until such time as college admission committees stop soliciting and using archaic, meaningless high school grade information in their admissions decisions, I plan to continue teaching grade engineering, because it is the rational and efficient response to a grading regime in which students are rewarded for cheating, harassing teachers, and choosing classes based on the ease of grading instead of the quality of teaching.

Andrew F. Knight, former physics teacher, Potomac Falls High School

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: snookered ()
Date: March 27, 2012 06:52AM

Damn all that reading to get to the end to see he is selling a book

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: justsayin ()
Date: March 27, 2012 07:12AM

Professor Julius Kelp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> An open letter to college admissions committees
> Friday, Mar. 23, 2012
> http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/article/20120323/OPINI
> ON/703239696/1076/something-for-everyone-at-histor
> ic-savage-mill/An-open-letter-to-college-admission
> s-committees&template=fairfaxTimes
>
> As a physics teacher who recently resigned from
> Loudoun County Public Schools, one of the
> wealthiest and fastest-growing public school
> districts in America, I urge you to altogether
> stop considering high school grades in your
> admissions process and decisions.
>
> Our schools are failing. Rarely does real learning
> happen in modern classrooms, and when it does, it
> is often merely a byproduct of each student’s
> pursuit of an independent and potentially
> conflicting goal: high grades. While I can only
> speak to grading practices at my school, I suspect
> that these concerns are endemic throughout high
> schools nationwide.
>
> First, high school grades themselves are very poor
> indicators of a student’s competence. As a
> graduate of MIT and Georgetown Law, I have
> experience in earning high grades and gaining
> admission to competitive universities. My grades
> were in part due to “grade engineering”: the
> process of maximizing grades with minimal effort
> and without regard to learning or understanding
> material. In other words, I received high grades
> partially by exploiting the weak correlation
> between grades and mastery.
>
> At one time, I suppose, grades might have been an
> objective and reasonably accurate measure of
> competence in a given subject. Not anymore. Today,
> they primarily measure how well a student can game
> the system. It is quite easy for savvy high school
> students to pass a course, and in some cases even
> to receive an A or B, without actually knowing or
> understanding any of the course content. Here’s
> how:
>
> They choose easy teachers. Many teachers at my
> school believe that all students are capable of
> getting A’s; not surprisingly, very few of their
> students receive lower than a B. Are these amazing
> teachers who push their students to succeed or
> spineless grade inflators who don’t want to deal
> with angry parents? Because a student’s grade
> depends largely on his teacher’s philosophy of
> grading, students can avoid the annoyance of
> actually having to earn high grades by rationally
> choosing teachers who want to give them.
>
> They harass teachers about grades. Students and
> their parents often cooperate to make a
> teacher’s life a living hell. They pester the
> teacher weekly with requests for progress reports.
> They call the teacher during her lunch break to
> request extra credit or test retake opportunities.
> They write demanding and condescending emails.
> They schedule early-morning parent-teacher
> conferences to negotiate higher grades. They
> complain to the principal. They meet with
> guidance. They flex their muscles and put the
> teacher in her place. During my last week as a
> public school teacher, a colleague actually cried
> after receiving a nasty parent email. Given enough
> harassment, many teachers will either succumb to
> inflating grades or quit.
>
> They cheat. At my school, the likelihood of
> getting caught is low. Students can easily copy
> other students’ homework or plagiarize from the
> Internet. They can even cheat during tests, as
> many teachers give the same test version to every
> student. Even if a student is caught, there is
> essentially no consequence for first-time
> offenders so perceptive students readily make use
> of this free hall pass. Does cheating actually
> occur? In an anonymous survey of my 130 physics
> students, all but three admitted to copying
> homework or test answers from other students.
>
> They get into special ed. Not all of special ed is
> a sham but some of it is. I am not an expert in
> special education and I absolutely agree that
> specific learning disabilities exist that can be
> addressed with research-based interventions and
> procedures. However, instead of a shield, special
> ed (and its even shadier cousin, the child study)
> is often used by parents as a sword to gain
> competitive advantages over other students,
> particularly the small-group testing
> accommodation, in which students are taken to a
> different room by a special ed teacher who may
> “coach” the students. In my experience, this
> coaching tends to involve providing hints and
> interactive feedback that would be considered
> cheating if provided by fellow students, thus
> allowing students who are otherwise clueless in my
> class to ace my tests. Sadly, many students have
> learned to exploit their special ed status as a
> crutch and excuse for nonperformance, resulting in
> higher grades in the short term at the expense of
> accountability and achievement in the long term.
>
> They earn “completion” points by turning in
> all homework, projects and assignments. Completion
> is the new competence. Modern grading practices
> encourage children to turn in lots of shoddy work
> products because completion points, which now
> account in many classrooms for the majority of the
> grade, reward quantity over quality. By copying
> off other students and the Internet and even
> scribbling worthless nonsense to give the
> semblance of assignment completion, a student can
> receive the vast majority of credit on these
> assignments with minimal effort. Even if they bomb
> the tests — reflecting a total lack of
> understanding in the subject — they’ll still
> be able to pull off a B or C.
>
> When students are judged for college admissions on
> an indicator that may or may not bear any
> resemblance to their actual level of mastery, an
> entirely rational response is to focus on the
> indicator itself. Why go through the arduous
> process of actually learning physics if you can
> pull off a B merely by copying homework, getting
> last-minute extra credit points, and having your
> parents harass your teacher for a retake when you
> bombed the test you didn’t prepare for? These
> grade-increasing strategies are now the rule in
> public education, not the exception. Sadly, the
> hardworking students who have integrity, an
> old-fashioned American work ethic, and a desire to
> actually learn are at a competitive disadvantage
> to their less-honest counterparts.
>
> Consequently, the drive for high grades is
> blinding students and parents alike to the real
> purpose of education: learning. In parent-teacher
> conferences, “How can my child bring up her
> grade?” has replaced “How can my child better
> learn the material?” The system’s response to
> angry grade-obsessed parents and disgruntled
> students has been to fudge the indicator instead
> of improving the system in other words, to inflate
> grades in spite of worsening performance. I was
> routinely pressured by parents, students and even
> administrators to inflate grades in the form of
> curving scores, providing extra credit and retest
> opportunities, and more heavily weighting homework
> and projects that are easy to copy from friends.
> It is instructive to note that two-thirds of our
> students are on the honor roll. (That’s right.)
> When a majority of students routinely receive As
> and B’s in all their classes, the distinctions
> intended by a traditional A-F grading scale become
> hazy and meaningless.
>
> Finally, grades are far too personal to be
> effective. When an A student receives a C in
> algebra, for example, she is fooled into believing
> that she is no good at math when, in reality, a C
> is (or should be) an indicator of perfectly
> acceptable performance in which there is room for
> improvement. As a result, her self-esteem and
> confidence take serious beatings and she gives up,
> even though real excellence is molded from a long
> cycle of falling and then getting back up again.
> Teachers are thus given the option of assigning
> honest grades that reflect true mastery — and of
> dealing with angry, discouraged students who have
> not been held accountable for their own education
> — or of deluding C and D students into believing
> they’re A and B students. The latter option will
> result in a generation full of misled
> “straight-A” students possessing few actual
> skills and a subpar work ethic who don’t
> understand why America is no longer economically
> competitive in the global marketplace.
>
> The solution I propose is comprehensive exams at
> the end of each course, much like Advanced
> Placement exams, that thoroughly and objectively
> distinguish students on merit alone. The emphasis
> in each classroom would then shift from fighting
> the teacher for high grades to cooperating with
> the teacher to learn the material necessary to
> perform on the exam. Unlike Virginia’s Standard
> of Learning tests, which are essentially worthless
> baseline tests of rote memorization that do not
> distinguish the most competent students, AP exams
> test a broad array of knowledge and understanding.
> There is no such thing as “teaching to the AP
> test,” because fundamental understanding and
> application of knowledge cannot be mastered by
> memorizing the answers to past exam questions.
>
> The focus on grades is killing American education.
> In my book, “Full Ride to College,” I
> specifically teach students how to engineer their
> grades and exploit the weak correlation between
> grades and mastery, thus giving students a
> competitive advantage without the inconvenience of
> working hard and learning. While I consider this
> strategy to be a mockery of American education, it
> is also effective. Until such time as college
> admission committees stop soliciting and using
> archaic, meaningless high school grade information
> in their admissions decisions, I plan to continue
> teaching grade engineering, because it is the
> rational and efficient response to a grading
> regime in which students are rewarded for
> cheating, harassing teachers, and choosing classes
> based on the ease of grading instead of the
> quality of teaching.
>
> Andrew F. Knight, former physics teacher, Potomac
> Falls High School


tl;dr

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: Prof. Shyster ()
Date: March 27, 2012 07:28AM

OP hawking his book. What a money-grubbing, self-serving turd!

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: good post ()
Date: March 27, 2012 07:45AM

Mr. Knight:

You are correct, sir, that education is a system that is gamed. Unfortunately, this culture of gaming has been embraced by many parts of our society---from Wall Street and Congress to the halls of our educational institutions. Yes, some Americans are winning at this game, but America as a whole is losing.

Your book has some merit, but only if so many people start gaming that the game has no meaning anymore. This seems to be happening with the NCLB law in any case.

As far as colleges go, yes, I agree that they need to really take a long, hard look at this. They are driving this grading frenzy (as is the state for not providing enough slots for students to go to college). Forty or fifty years ago, a kid could go to a decent college without having "uber" grades. If the kid couldn't meet up to college standards, he was out. That was a "chance" and "opportunity" at work. Now the kid can't even get in to get the chance without these "uber" grades. That is what is making parents and kids crazy (you know we all have to go to college now or we won't get health insurance on our jobs, etc.). Until some of those problems are solved, we are going to have this "gaming" culture---competition at its worst (cheating).

I do think tests like the SAT and ACT seek to show whether a student has learned something in high school. Those tests are gamed now as well (with the Special Education accomodations that you speak of). There was also recently a segment on 60 Minutes about cheating on those tests (fraud basically). The system is out of control and I fear that the pieces of paper that people earn at schools in the USA may not be regarded as highly as they were in the past. The internet and paper writing mills don't help. College is expensive and people are now seeing that the one thing they might get out of it is huge debt. Change will come, but we haven't hit bottom yet on this.

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: The Nutty Professor ()
Date: March 27, 2012 08:01AM

good post Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mr. Knight:
>
> You are correct, sir, that education is a system
> that is gamed. Unfortunately, this culture of
> gaming has been embraced by many parts of our
> society---from Wall Street and Congress to the
> halls of our educational institutions. Yes, some
> Americans are winning at this game, but America as
> a whole is losing.
>
> Your book has some merit, but only if so many
> people start gaming that the game has no meaning
> anymore. This seems to be happening with the NCLB
> law in any case.
>
> As far as colleges go, yes, I agree that they need
> to really take a long, hard look at this. They
> are driving this grading frenzy (as is the state
> for not providing enough slots for students to go
> to college). Forty or fifty years ago, a kid
> could go to a decent college without having "uber"
> grades. If the kid couldn't meet up to college
> standards, he was out. That was a "chance" and
> "opportunity" at work. Now the kid can't even get
> in to get the chance without these "uber" grades.
> That is what is making parents and kids crazy (you
> know we all have to go to college now or we won't
> get health insurance on our jobs, etc.). Until
> some of those problems are solved, we are going to
> have this "gaming" culture---competition at its
> worst (cheating).
>
> I do think tests like the SAT and ACT seek to show
> whether a student has learned something in high
> school. Those tests are gamed now as well (with
> the Special Education accomodations that you speak
> of). There was also recently a segment on 60
> Minutes about cheating on those tests (fraud
> basically). The system is out of control and I
> fear that the pieces of paper that people earn at
> schools in the USA may not be regarded as highly
> as they were in the past. The internet and paper
> writing mills don't help. College is expensive
> and people are now seeing that the one thing they
> might get out of it is huge debt. Change will
> come, but we haven't hit bottom yet on this.

I agree with the article too and as for the book, I found it online at Amazon for $15 bucks or $1 if you get it on Kindle.

http://www.amazon.com/Full-Ride-To-College-Scholarships/dp/0966102673/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332849622&sr=1-1

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: Interesting Topic ()
Date: March 27, 2012 10:47AM

What does this then say about you if you are just giving into the failing system and making it worse by teaching how to cheat through the system? I thought this was a wonderfully written, documented posting, with very valid points, showing honesty and exploiting the major problem with our education system, thus leading to a nation wide problem as these individuals become adults, yet I can't help but feel disgusted to read the end product of you selling a book on how to continue to cheat the system. Why not just teach criminals how to be criminals while avoiding jail? Basically everything you seem to have been taught growing up and at some point believed, is now out the window. Now it seems you're going with the, "if you can't beat them, join them," motto. Too bad for quitters like you who had it right at some point in your life.

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: The Dharma Initiative ()
Date: March 27, 2012 10:55AM

Interesting Topic Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What does this then say about you if you are just
> giving into the failing system and making it worse
> by teaching how to cheat through the system? I
> thought this was a wonderfully written, documented
> posting, with very valid points, showing honesty
> and exploiting the major problem with our
> education system, thus leading to a nation wide
> problem as these individuals become adults, yet I
> can't help but feel disgusted to read the end
> product of you selling a book on how to continue
> to cheat the system. Why not just teach criminals
> how to be criminals while avoiding jail? Basically
> everything you seem to have been taught growing up
> and at some point believed, is now out the window.
> Now it seems you're going with the, "if you can't
> beat them, join them," motto. Too bad for quitters
> like you who had it right at some point in your
> life.

True he wrote a book that delves into the subject. So what's wrong with referencing it so long as its relevant to the problem (and perhaps the solution to that said problem)?

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: Bill.N. ()
Date: March 27, 2012 11:48AM

I'm guessing I am older than the OP and probably have almost as many degrees. Gaming the system isn't anything new. It was going on in my day, and it went on in my father's day. Probably back in ancient Athens it went on too. Learning how the system works and how to get ahead in the system is a useful skill to have in life. It is probably a more useful skill then some of the subjects I studied in school.

The OP does have a point about grade inflation messing up the process of evaluating students. There are safeguards already in place which COULD be used to offset this issue. The problem is though that many either do not use these safeguards, or use them improperly. Of course what this really means is that those who are most likely to bitch about high school students gaming the system are doing so themselves.

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: justsayin ()
Date: March 27, 2012 11:58AM

Grades are not the only basis for admission, it is one of several.

> The solution I propose is comprehensive exams at the end of each course,
> much like Advanced Placement exams, that thoroughly and objectively
> distinguish students on merit alone."

... which will then have grades manipulated by this system you are criticizing. The solution you really mean is standardized testing. Oh wait, we already have that, I seem to remember that little test called the SAT I had to take as a prerequisite for college applications.


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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: Bill.N. ()
Date: March 27, 2012 12:25PM

justsayin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Grades are not the only basis for admission, it is
> one of several.
>
> > The solution I propose is comprehensive exams at
> the end of each course,
> > much like Advanced Placement exams, that
> thoroughly and objectively
> > distinguish students on merit alone."
>
> ... which will then have grades manipulated by
> this system you are criticizing. The solution you
> really mean is standardized testing. Oh wait, we
> already have that, I seem to remember that little
> test called the SAT I had to take as a
> prerequisite for college applications.
>
>

which is sort of my point justsayin. SATs, SATIIs, application essays, application interviews and even post enrollment performance are all tools available to colleges to let them evaluate not just the students who apply to their school, but also the grades of the high schools where those kids come from.

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: The Adjustment Bureau ()
Date: March 27, 2012 12:49PM

What changes could be made to improve the system for college admissions?

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: Mel Arthur ()
Date: March 27, 2012 12:59PM

In future please send a closed letter. thank you very much

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: Andrew F. Knight ()
Date: March 27, 2012 01:07PM

Mel Arthur Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In future please send a closed letter. thank you
> very much

Screw You Mel Arthur!

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: Andrew F. Knight ()
Date: March 27, 2012 01:11PM

Before reading my book, a disclaimer... I note that half of all physics majors graduated in the bottom half of their class, most of that half end up as teachers.

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: Andrew F. Knight ()
Date: March 27, 2012 01:15PM

And don't forget to pick up my book, now onsale everywhere and reasonably priced in my opinion. At Amazon for $15 bucks or $1 if you get it on Kindle.

http://www.amazon.com/Full-Ride-To-College-Scholarships/dp/0966102673/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332849622&sr=1-1

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: scammer ()
Date: March 27, 2012 08:48PM

You suck as a teacher, hate your life, and write this trash. Way to get your nerdy friends give you 5 star comments.

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: Um ()
Date: March 27, 2012 09:38PM

He graduates from MIT AND Georgetown Law and winds up teaching high school ? Like I am going to take his fucking advice about anything...

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: teacher ()
Date: March 27, 2012 10:05PM

I agree 100% with the original post. Don't care about the book.

That said, even if A's don't indicate learning, wouldn't it seem that those who succeed by gaming the system are still the bright ones who colleges should be accepting? Still shows they are smarter than the ones who fail in such an easy system.

Just a thought.

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: teacher ()
Date: March 27, 2012 10:11PM

The ones who fail can still be capable. I suppose what I mean is that the ones who are unwilling to play 'the game' are probably going to wilt in the structure of college level education as well. Those people tend to succeed (if they succeed) through no affiliation with a university education.

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Re: Northern VA - An open letter to college admissions committees - stop considering high school grades in your admissions process and decisions
Posted by: learning vs. "learning" ()
Date: March 27, 2012 10:16PM

The SAT and ACT scores show retention of what is learned. A person can get good grades by cramming, memorizing, etc., but not really retain the concepts of a class and be able to figure out a problem later. This process can get someone through some colleges as well (but, albeit, to a lesser degree). What is important is to make sure that your doctor got good scores on his MCAT and retained what he learned in medical school. A person with a long term memory problem should probably not go into certain professions.

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