>> and they struggled with high school algebra, got B’s and C’s, and one actually dropped out of high school last year while my son is still a straight A student.
I keep hearing this when the school wants to put kids on the advanced track. All it does is give them more work and risk lowering their GPA, which is far more important for admissions. One district allegedly give a 0.5 bump just for taking the bait to make up for that. It's all a game.
That’s definitely not just an allegedly thing, my private high school gave a GPA bonus of 0.5 for honors classes and 1.0 for AP classes to avoid this issue. And I’m certain it wasn’t something unusual or hidden, many other schools must have done it also.
Goodhart’s law and all that - if unadjusted GPA were the sole number to target, it would make way more sense to take the easiest classes possible and never challenge yourself.
I keep hearing this when the school wants to put kids on the advanced track. All it does is give them more work and risk lowering their GPA, which is far more important for admissions. One district allegedly give a 0.5 bump just for taking the bait to make up for that. It's all a game.