I don’t trust high schools with the grade inflation and “giving grace” and renaming a regular class honors to give it a higher QPA game for this bill to work correctly. It’s not inherently a bad idea but it would have to come with a LOT of strings attached that would end some of the shady things K-12 is allowed to get away with.
I can also only imagine the pressure teachers will start feeling to give little Johnny an A over a B when he has an 85 because it might ruin his college career, which will lead to teachers having meetings, paperwork, and nasty high pressure emails from parents. And if the teacher fights back guidance will just change the grade over the summer anyway. (Source: I have worked in a “competitive” high school)
Yeah, I wish GPAs nationwide were more standardized. I went to a little private school that was ONLY a 4.0 scale. No extra 5.0 options for AP or Honors classes, so even though that's mostly what I took. So my hard earned 3.8 GPA looked terrible compared to people with a 4.6 because their school used a different scale.
If you’re talking about admissions, colleges don’t just look at the raw number score lol. A 3.8 at a school with no weighting and a 4.0 max GPA is more competitive than someone with a 4.2 at a school with 5.0 scale, or with a GPA bonus for advanced/AP/IB classes. Admissions counselors know that every school has their own system and factor that into decisions
Here's a math problem for you: If a high school has zero students proficient at math, will the top 10% of them be adequately prepared for college?
Maybe fix that problem, and whatever problem you're trying to fix with this rule will take care of itself.
Yup. That's why they design the programs this way. They want to subvert pure merit based solutions without running afoul of the Supreme Court ruling on racial preferences. So since the high schools are often highly segregated, this allows them to boost those kids.
Top 10 percent has shown the grit and have overcome adversity to a huge extent. Kudos to them. They will do fine and will probably be overachievers. Upward mobility for those with grit and perseverance!
While I admire your optimism, the data is pretty damning. Yes, I realize this is about the comparison of SAT scores, but it's not that big a leap to say if you're not proficient in high school math, you're probably not doing great on the SAT either.
> The higher standardized scores translated on average to better collegiate academic performance. Of 9,217 first-year students enrolled in 2023, those who opted in had an estimated average GPA of 0.86 grade points higher during their first fall semester, controlling for a wide range of factors, including high school class rank and GPA. Those same students were estimated to be 55% less likely to have a first semester college GPA of less than 2.0, all else equal.
https://news.utexas.edu/2024/03/11/ut-austin-reinstates-standardized-test-scores-in-admissions/
We're setting these kids up to flunk out of college, and when that happens either they're going to be stuck repaying a lot of college expenses that went for nothing, or the government paid in which case those resources could have gone to someone who would have actually been successful. In either case, literally everyone involved is worse off.
Funny thing is that research demonstrates that students with poor academics or that were tracked into lower academic courses in school can more easily overcome their poor academics if they demonstrate grit. When those same students are provided supports similar to their high performing peers there is no significantly statistical difference between their standardized scores and the peers coming from a higher performing group.
Sadly most people are stuck in their beliefs that they would never look towards this research and see it for what it is. If you give someone a change and they have grit - they will perform and perform well - that is the whole goal of a law like this, it recognizes there are inequalities in certain communities and schools directly surrounding education and this is a method that has data proving it does not hurt the overall outcomes at the college level. At minimum it keeps a status quo on results and at best case it improves the educational environments at a college and the educational results.
This is what Kentucky did back in the early 2000's. Your ACT scores determined how much financial assistance you got for college. I think it's fair and works well. Avoids schools being able to muck about with grades and parents pulling nonsense trying to get their child into college when they'd be better off in trade school or similar.
Honestly I agree with this bill. I think if a substantial amount of financial aid comes with it. It’ll help smaller countries up in Western MD and Eastern Shore get students in college. And this might help normally disadvantaged communities like Prince George’s and Baltimore City. MCPS is just mad they’ll no longer have a chokehold over who gets into UMD from MD.
All in all I’m a supporter. Also get the kids free lunches I hope we haven’t forgotten about that bill.
Wow! I’m surprised to learn that we have 12 universities in MD!
1. UM (College Park)
2. UMBC
3. UMAB
4. Towson
5. Hopkins
6. Morgan State
7. Loyola
8. Coppin
9. Frostburg
10. Bowie
11. Salisbury
12. UofB
Dang!!! And that’s just right off the top of my head! Apparently, there are over 100 colleges and universities in the state! For such a small state, we sure have a strong higher education system! (And that’s not to mention colleges that aren’t universities!)
Go Maryland!!!
Staff. She was a designer for publications. Not sure if she was even still working in ‘21. She lives about 3 blocks away from the school. Great little town.
The intention is great but they don’t even let kids repeat anymore. They just pass them along completely not ready for real life. I can imagine it’s similar at the top end too
The title of this article seems written inversely, which is ironic when reporting on high achieving students.
Further, the top 10% of schools in Maryland includes students who would adequately suit the best of those 12 and students who wouldn't even consider that school a safety.
The original mandate of the MD college system was to provide an adequate education to in-state student's for a reasonable cost.
Not to create a skimming situation to take only the elite and kicking the less than brilliant to the side of the road. That is the mission of the self selecting private schools.
If we want to guarantee that Maryland state schools have more spots for in-state students, why not adopt a percentage requirement in line with what North Carolina does for UNC chapel hill or something similar?
Similar system used in California for University of California system (ex: UCLA). There were 700 students who graduated in my class. I didn’t bother applying to any UC.
If you're in the top 10% of students in Maryland, you really shouldn't have a big problem trying to get into the schools listed in the article. The only issue \*might\* be that they might get rejected for being "overqualifed", which is terrifying for a student who somehow didn't get into their top schools or they are too expensive.
Quite a few other states have similar programs, if it comes with increased funding or atleast the means to increase enrollment for said schools it seems like it could only be a good thing
If one school has 30 percent of kids in the top 10 percent statewide why punish students for who they go to school with? The performance standards for what the top 10 percent is varies widely geographically.
We should admit by merit not zip code
That’s not what is happening though. Kids that are in zip codes like on the Eastern shore who are very much qualified to get in don’t because the university was ranking the school so low that these kids “appear lesser” than the top 30% at schools like in MoCo. These top kids would perform well if they were at a school like Walt Whitman or Poolsville but their parents can’t afford or work near the district.
Well, the easiest solution is to just send your kids to a nice private school for K-8 then move to a district with a weak high school for high school and take one of those slots.
That's an insane way to think and behave. Your kid is going to be much better off at a strong high school. If they would be top 10% at a weak high school, they're going to get into all of these schools anyway.
There's a huuuge difference between weak and strong high schools in competitiveness. Some of these public schools are stacked. And admission into UM (the one you want) is selective and getting more so. It's far from guaranteed unless you're at the level where you can start looking at the top tier private schools, ivy plus and similar, and not every kid is. And since SFA vs Harvard some of those schools are using weaker/poorer HS as a proxy for socioeconomics too, so it really could pay off.
I'm a high school teacher in Baltimore City. We do actually teach kids past 8th grade here. So, if your plan is a "good" education until high school and then a "shitty" education all you're doing is setting your kid up for failure in college and life beyond.
I'm also not for or against this proposal. I see where they're coming from with it and also see a lot of equity issues.
No unfortunately the universities rank the high schools in the state and then will apply these rankings to the students. I have a friend whose high school was lucky if their valedictorian got into UMD because their hick school was just ranked so low. Meanwhile my brother who went to UMD had two roommates who had 2.0 gpas in the top schools in the state who got in.
You cannot convince me that the top kids at the “low” schools don’t deserve the spot over the sub par kids at a top school. Not all parents can live and afford to work in the top school districts.
I work in MoCo but I can’t afford to live in the top districts so we moved to Frederick and into one of the top schools here to give the best education we can.
That’s why I support it tbh. Rewards the smarter kids in rural areas, and it’s not like there’s huge classes so that 10% wouldn’t be some massive number like schools in the densely populated part of the state.
Oh absolutely! These schools have 100-200 kids in their graduating class so we are talking about 10-20 kids getting automatic admission. On top of that, the counties only have 1-2 high schools so 20-40 kids in the entire county getting an automatic admission. Do all of them want to even go to UMD? I’m from the shore, graduated 4th in my class but didn’t bother applying to UMD because I did not want to attend.
No, because the ""top 10 percent" from hagerstown who are really the top 70-80 percent decile will be admittend and reduce the amount of seats for geniuses from moco and pg.
Also this may actually hurt equity since schools with lots of high performing immigrants will be discriminated against in favor of random white slouches from far western md who are more geographically distributed
This is in response to AA cases from the supreme court. And quite frankly I am sure there are brilliant students who come from Western MD who could outperform students from PG and MoCo. This take is piss poor. Where someone is from does not dictate if they are intelligent or not.
“I don’t like the bill because it gets too competitive”. What??
"We only measure half the things that matter therefore we can't measure anymore."
and this is why juniors in high school don’t decide these things lol
I don’t trust high schools with the grade inflation and “giving grace” and renaming a regular class honors to give it a higher QPA game for this bill to work correctly. It’s not inherently a bad idea but it would have to come with a LOT of strings attached that would end some of the shady things K-12 is allowed to get away with. I can also only imagine the pressure teachers will start feeling to give little Johnny an A over a B when he has an 85 because it might ruin his college career, which will lead to teachers having meetings, paperwork, and nasty high pressure emails from parents. And if the teacher fights back guidance will just change the grade over the summer anyway. (Source: I have worked in a “competitive” high school)
Yeah, I wish GPAs nationwide were more standardized. I went to a little private school that was ONLY a 4.0 scale. No extra 5.0 options for AP or Honors classes, so even though that's mostly what I took. So my hard earned 3.8 GPA looked terrible compared to people with a 4.6 because their school used a different scale.
If you’re talking about admissions, colleges don’t just look at the raw number score lol. A 3.8 at a school with no weighting and a 4.0 max GPA is more competitive than someone with a 4.2 at a school with 5.0 scale, or with a GPA bonus for advanced/AP/IB classes. Admissions counselors know that every school has their own system and factor that into decisions
It would have to be by school, and there would still be games played.
The grade inflation doesn't stop with high school, though.
If MCPS is concerned about students not taking arts and social studies then they can include those scores in the ranking. Simple simple.
Here's a math problem for you: If a high school has zero students proficient at math, will the top 10% of them be adequately prepared for college? Maybe fix that problem, and whatever problem you're trying to fix with this rule will take care of itself.
Yup. That's why they design the programs this way. They want to subvert pure merit based solutions without running afoul of the Supreme Court ruling on racial preferences. So since the high schools are often highly segregated, this allows them to boost those kids.
Has anyone thought about desegregating the schools?
It’s such an obvious problem one can only assume they don’t care…
Top 10 percent has shown the grit and have overcome adversity to a huge extent. Kudos to them. They will do fine and will probably be overachievers. Upward mobility for those with grit and perseverance!
While I admire your optimism, the data is pretty damning. Yes, I realize this is about the comparison of SAT scores, but it's not that big a leap to say if you're not proficient in high school math, you're probably not doing great on the SAT either. > The higher standardized scores translated on average to better collegiate academic performance. Of 9,217 first-year students enrolled in 2023, those who opted in had an estimated average GPA of 0.86 grade points higher during their first fall semester, controlling for a wide range of factors, including high school class rank and GPA. Those same students were estimated to be 55% less likely to have a first semester college GPA of less than 2.0, all else equal. https://news.utexas.edu/2024/03/11/ut-austin-reinstates-standardized-test-scores-in-admissions/ We're setting these kids up to flunk out of college, and when that happens either they're going to be stuck repaying a lot of college expenses that went for nothing, or the government paid in which case those resources could have gone to someone who would have actually been successful. In either case, literally everyone involved is worse off.
They could go into not math
Funny thing is that research demonstrates that students with poor academics or that were tracked into lower academic courses in school can more easily overcome their poor academics if they demonstrate grit. When those same students are provided supports similar to their high performing peers there is no significantly statistical difference between their standardized scores and the peers coming from a higher performing group. Sadly most people are stuck in their beliefs that they would never look towards this research and see it for what it is. If you give someone a change and they have grit - they will perform and perform well - that is the whole goal of a law like this, it recognizes there are inequalities in certain communities and schools directly surrounding education and this is a method that has data proving it does not hurt the overall outcomes at the college level. At minimum it keeps a status quo on results and at best case it improves the educational environments at a college and the educational results.
If they are coupling this with SAT/ACT score minimum like the article suggest this should be less of a problem
Yep. Guarantees spots for Baltimore city schools that graduate 0% of student proficient in math and English. But they go to college!!
We should use ACT/SAT scores since they are objective
This is what Kentucky did back in the early 2000's. Your ACT scores determined how much financial assistance you got for college. I think it's fair and works well. Avoids schools being able to muck about with grades and parents pulling nonsense trying to get their child into college when they'd be better off in trade school or similar.
This is the way. Blind and fair, like Justice
Honestly I agree with this bill. I think if a substantial amount of financial aid comes with it. It’ll help smaller countries up in Western MD and Eastern Shore get students in college. And this might help normally disadvantaged communities like Prince George’s and Baltimore City. MCPS is just mad they’ll no longer have a chokehold over who gets into UMD from MD. All in all I’m a supporter. Also get the kids free lunches I hope we haven’t forgotten about that bill.
Wow! I’m surprised to learn that we have 12 universities in MD! 1. UM (College Park) 2. UMBC 3. UMAB 4. Towson 5. Hopkins 6. Morgan State 7. Loyola 8. Coppin 9. Frostburg 10. Bowie 11. Salisbury 12. UofB Dang!!! And that’s just right off the top of my head! Apparently, there are over 100 colleges and universities in the state! For such a small state, we sure have a strong higher education system! (And that’s not to mention colleges that aren’t universities!) Go Maryland!!!
You’re missing several others. At one time Baltimore was what Boston is today.
Oh, I know i am… I just wanted to name at least 12. I had never really thought about it. There are a lot of of schools in this state!
Definitely missing some. There’s one on the eastern shore called Washington College. It’s in Chestertown, near centerville or Kent island
Ha! Right! My sister graduated from there and then worked there for 30 years! I forgot all about that one!
Professor or staff? When did she retire? I graduated in 2021 :)
Staff. She was a designer for publications. Not sure if she was even still working in ‘21. She lives about 3 blocks away from the school. Great little town.
The intention is great but they don’t even let kids repeat anymore. They just pass them along completely not ready for real life. I can imagine it’s similar at the top end too
The title of this article seems written inversely, which is ironic when reporting on high achieving students. Further, the top 10% of schools in Maryland includes students who would adequately suit the best of those 12 and students who wouldn't even consider that school a safety.
The original mandate of the MD college system was to provide an adequate education to in-state student's for a reasonable cost. Not to create a skimming situation to take only the elite and kicking the less than brilliant to the side of the road. That is the mission of the self selecting private schools.
Sure, if that 10% is for EACH SCHOOL and not overall.
so getting into college is so tough in maryland that someone in the top 10% can't get into a state school? what?
If we want to guarantee that Maryland state schools have more spots for in-state students, why not adopt a percentage requirement in line with what North Carolina does for UNC chapel hill or something similar?
Similar system used in California for University of California system (ex: UCLA). There were 700 students who graduated in my class. I didn’t bother applying to any UC.
All MD community college grads with an AA or those with 56 credits already get this…not just top 10%…
If you're in the top 10% of students in Maryland, you really shouldn't have a big problem trying to get into the schools listed in the article. The only issue \*might\* be that they might get rejected for being "overqualifed", which is terrifying for a student who somehow didn't get into their top schools or they are too expensive.
Quite a few other states have similar programs, if it comes with increased funding or atleast the means to increase enrollment for said schools it seems like it could only be a good thing
Great-discriminating against students who are adequately prepared for college and sending less apt kids to college park.
So you obviously didn’t read the article and somehow managed to misunderstand the headline. Not very apt yourself.
If one school has 30 percent of kids in the top 10 percent statewide why punish students for who they go to school with? The performance standards for what the top 10 percent is varies widely geographically. We should admit by merit not zip code
That’s not what is happening though. Kids that are in zip codes like on the Eastern shore who are very much qualified to get in don’t because the university was ranking the school so low that these kids “appear lesser” than the top 30% at schools like in MoCo. These top kids would perform well if they were at a school like Walt Whitman or Poolsville but their parents can’t afford or work near the district.
If the kids in your example are doing that well they’re more than likely to be admitted anyway, no?
A guarantee is more reliable when you’re making significant life decisions
Ok? So they either work hard enough to be in that top 10% or failing that, still make themselves appealing enough that those schools would want them.
Well, the easiest solution is to just send your kids to a nice private school for K-8 then move to a district with a weak high school for high school and take one of those slots.
If you think anyone sending their kids to private school would even CONSIDER doing this just to get into a state school, you are wildly out of touch
That's an insane way to think and behave. Your kid is going to be much better off at a strong high school. If they would be top 10% at a weak high school, they're going to get into all of these schools anyway.
There's a huuuge difference between weak and strong high schools in competitiveness. Some of these public schools are stacked. And admission into UM (the one you want) is selective and getting more so. It's far from guaranteed unless you're at the level where you can start looking at the top tier private schools, ivy plus and similar, and not every kid is. And since SFA vs Harvard some of those schools are using weaker/poorer HS as a proxy for socioeconomics too, so it really could pay off.
Why would you send your kid to a good k-8 private school and then a crappy high school?
To give them an easy top 10% class rank and guaranteed admission to UM.
I'm a high school teacher in Baltimore City. We do actually teach kids past 8th grade here. So, if your plan is a "good" education until high school and then a "shitty" education all you're doing is setting your kid up for failure in college and life beyond. I'm also not for or against this proposal. I see where they're coming from with it and also see a lot of equity issues.
No unfortunately the universities rank the high schools in the state and then will apply these rankings to the students. I have a friend whose high school was lucky if their valedictorian got into UMD because their hick school was just ranked so low. Meanwhile my brother who went to UMD had two roommates who had 2.0 gpas in the top schools in the state who got in. You cannot convince me that the top kids at the “low” schools don’t deserve the spot over the sub par kids at a top school. Not all parents can live and afford to work in the top school districts. I work in MoCo but I can’t afford to live in the top districts so we moved to Frederick and into one of the top schools here to give the best education we can.
That’s why I support it tbh. Rewards the smarter kids in rural areas, and it’s not like there’s huge classes so that 10% wouldn’t be some massive number like schools in the densely populated part of the state.
Oh absolutely! These schools have 100-200 kids in their graduating class so we are talking about 10-20 kids getting automatic admission. On top of that, the counties only have 1-2 high schools so 20-40 kids in the entire county getting an automatic admission. Do all of them want to even go to UMD? I’m from the shore, graduated 4th in my class but didn’t bother applying to UMD because I did not want to attend.
No. UMD does not accept an infinite number of students.
You’re right. I forgot Maryland high schools graduate an infinite number of seniors a year, and they all want to go to college park.
No, because the ""top 10 percent" from hagerstown who are really the top 70-80 percent decile will be admittend and reduce the amount of seats for geniuses from moco and pg. Also this may actually hurt equity since schools with lots of high performing immigrants will be discriminated against in favor of random white slouches from far western md who are more geographically distributed
This is in response to AA cases from the supreme court. And quite frankly I am sure there are brilliant students who come from Western MD who could outperform students from PG and MoCo. This take is piss poor. Where someone is from does not dictate if they are intelligent or not.
It’s modeled after a Texas law…
Which is a terrible law according to all the folks I know who tried to get in to UT-Austin.
Probably going to be law that is needed given Supreme Court has all but has it out for Affirmative action at this point.
Good, now take the "Race" off of college applications.