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Make the 10-point grading scale standard

September 1, 2008 12:15 am

Graduating Stafford County high school students are at a disadvantage when it comes to grading compared with students who attended other Virginia high schools ["Stafford looks at grading scale," Aug. 14].

A survey recently presented to the School Board showed that 70 percent of the high schools in Virginia have a grading scale that's more favorable (easier) than Stafford's across some portion of or even the entire grading scale.

Nine Virginia high school systems (including Arlington's) already use the college 10-point scale (90 = A, 80 = B, etc.).

This doesn't mean giving up the quality points assigned to advanced (AP, IB, DE) classes in calculating the 4.0 grade-point average.

The Fairfax study found that 33 of the top 45 high schools in the U.S. use the 10-point scale.

The U.S. Department of Education's 2005 High School Transcript Study concluded that the most common scale is the 10-point scale.

Florida, Alabama, and Georgia have state-mandated 10-point high school grading scales.

There is a common misconception regarding GPA recalculations. According to the admissions offices, eight of 12 of Virginia's largest universities and colleges do not recalculate GPAs. They simply do not have the resources or all the data to recalculate GPAs from thousands of paper transcripts, each in a different format.

Furthermore, most admissions offices make some type of local or regional comparison based on the number of A's and B's on the provided transcript.

Yes, there are other admissions criteria, but it is time to level the playing field for Stafford graduates by using the standard 10-point college grading scale.

Dean D, Fetterolf

Stafford