It’s nine o’clock on a Monday night. Senior Clare Lohrmann has just gotten home from a seven hour school day with seven AP classes and makes her way from school to her competitive rhythmic gymnastics practice. By the time Lohrmann showers and eats it is 9:30 p.m. and time to start seven AP classes worth of homework.
Not only can Lohrmann handle all of these courses, she excels in them. What Lohrmann does is not unique to her. Every class has an “elite” group, the top two percent, based on their weighted GPAs.
Lohrmann is ranked fourth in the senior class of 491 students. Coming into DGN, each student is ranked based on his or her grades in terms of GPA. Each student is evaluated based on two scales: weighted and unweighted. Weighted grades, which count Honors/AP classes as one GPA “point” higher, determine a student’s final class rank. Yet, class rank isn’t all there is to it.
Unfortunately, maintaining the status as a top two percent-er becomes more of a way of life rather than a nice accolade — it dictates what classes these students take, how many periods of the day they have free, and what their free time looks like.
“I did not really have time to take any periods off, aside from my seven Advanced Placement courses I also had to meet the required gym credit,” Lohrmann said.
These students do whatever it takes to keep their GPA as high as they possibly can. Students audit classes and take classes online for graduation requirements simply to make sure their school transcript does not have a 300-level course bringing down their GPA.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I want to acknowledge the hard work and countless hours spent studying for tests and going above and beyond with projects and assignments. The students deserve all of the glory earned by working this hard and performing exceptionally well in school.
Zac Christensen, who is ranked third in his class, is fulfilling his Consumer Ed requirement through an online program and also taking his Fine Arts credit via an online photography class.
With the constant battle for .01% of a GPA point, a non-AP or Honors course is almost completely out of the question.
In order to choose classes, Samantha Young, who is ranked second in the senior class, limits her class choices to what is AP or Honors, and not what is interesting to her.
“It completely restricted classes,” said Young. “I remember going through the list of courses with my counselors and eliminating all that weren’t honors and all I’ve already taken to figure out my schedule.”
“I wanted to take Acting so badly, also Foods and Forensics,” Young said.
These students take the most challenging courses available just to keep their GPA higher than the next student. Using class rank to tell students their abilities is nearly impossible because the difference between 1st and 2nd may barely be .02 of a GPA point.
However, class rank is important because it shows colleges what students take AP and honors courses, compared to those who take 300-level courses. Since the class rank reported out is weighted, but some colleges ask for unweighted GPA, it is important to report how well a student did academically against their classmates.
In order to differentiate these students and make sure the honors students get fair representation DGN can adopt a quartile ranking system. The top students would still be on top but instead of ranking those students who have worked tirelessly all four years would not be told they were second or third. They would simply be told they were in the 5%.
Taylor Christensen | Opinion Editor
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