GPAs between different high schools

I had a job looking at college scholarship applications and I was
surprised that even though the applicants had GPAs over 3.0, many of
the essays had terrible grammar and spelling. Some were even written
by hand.

Most of these kids were from middle or working class backgrounds, so
do you think the high GPAs were because the grading was too easy?

Do GPAs from different schools tend to mean different things in
difficulty?

In article <1170107080.567791.200150.RemoveThis@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>,
Richard Fangnail <richardfangnail.RemoveThis@excite.com> wrote:
>I had a job looking at college scholarship applications and I was
>surprised that even though the applicants had GPAs over 3.0, many of
>the essays had terrible grammar and spelling. Some were even written
>by hand.

>Most of these kids were from middle or working class backgrounds, so
>do you think the high GPAs were because the grading was too easy?

>Do GPAs from different schools tend to mean different things in
>difficulty?

Even GPAs from the same school have this atrocious property.

Grades do not come near to assessing knowledge and ability;
it can well happen that someone who gets an A in a class
just got it by memorizing small sections and turning in
the work on them, while the one who understands, but whose
use of the trivia is not in accordance with the teachers,
will get a C.

Grammar and spelling are not emphasized. And what is wrong
with them written by hand?

But children are being asked to write essays on things which
they do not know the first thing about; they have learned to
write fiction. I have seen some scholarship applications,
but mainly applications for graduate admission and support,
and the essays show no understanding of the subject, which
happens to be quite reasonable; understanding of the subject
is little taught below the graduate level.



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are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin.RemoveThis@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558