(A – F) + AP: Now Solve for GPA 

Undeniably, the grades we receive during our time at school are considered imperative for a successful future. We constantly glance through the “Grades” tab in Canvas, check the average GPAs to get into colleges, anxiously study for exams that will decide whether we get an A or a B, and scramble to turn in assignments by their due dates. This scrambling often leads students’ mental health wavering as they handle their workload to keep their grades up. But how important are our grades, really? Is it worth it to stress out so much about them? Why do we even care so much about them? These pressures come from all around us – teachers, parents, even ourselves and our expectations, at times.

Here at South, we are constantly bombarded with pressure to aim toward college – posters in the halls listing the number of acceptances to various schools; the sophomore, junior, and senior projects where we use websites like Naviance to explore our college options; and being taught study skills that will supposedly benefit us past high school. All of these sources point out that higher GPA is synonymous with higher odds of getting into college. Why is that the mindset here at South? It could be because we’re only a few blocks away from University of Oregon, so we may think that we have no excuse to not attend college when it’s so close to our homes; or it could be our general location of a relatively urban and populated city. Such a mindset isn’t shared throughout all schools.

“I’ve worked at different high schools throughout Oregon,” AP Government teacher Jacob Clarks said. “When I worked at Central Linn, grades weren’t that big of a deal. It was a high school of 250 kids, [and] you would have 20-30 that were going to college from graduating classes. To the rest [of the students], it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Clark explained in a follow-up email that the reason for less pressure around grades was related to the fact that most students came from a farming community and planned to work on or take over the family farm. 

“There was the belief that college wasn’t an important thing, because many felt they already had their future figured out,” Clark said.

Such students, whose end goal isn’t getting into college, may aim to keep their GPA up so that their parents won’t get mad at them. Why are parents so interested in their kid’s grades? There are likely a wide range of reasons – perhaps they want their kids to achieve similar things to themselves, or want evidence that they are “smart,” assuming grades actually reflect that. Students, as well, tend to adopt this perfectionistic view and to be hard on themselves because of it.

“I’ve had students say to me that ‘a B means bad’. I’ve never seen that in any other school other than here,” Clark said.

The grading system listed on StudentVue goes as follows – C is average, B is above average, and A is superior. This tends to differ from the reality now more than ever thanks to a phenomenon called “grade inflation.” Grade inflation occurs when students are achieving higher grades for the same level of effort. Basically, work that was once considered a C, or “average,” would now be given an A or a B. There are countless pieces of evidence from across the United States that confirm, with certainty, that this is happening in high schools everywhere. What’s unknown is the consequences, if there are any at all.

“I think grade inflation is pernicious. Meaning it’s really, really bad,” Clark said. “I look at grade inflation through the lens of the real world. Everyone is not LeBron James. Everyone is not the greatest player in their sport or on their team.”

There are numerous downsides to grade inflation. Students are less likely to receive honest feedback on their work, may not learn as much as intended, and the bar that colleges hold students to may change entirely. However, it could hold the power to adjust our flawed grading system.

“I have a fundamental problem with the idea that in order to get the highest grade, you have to exceed and be superior,” IHS Social Studies teacher Sheela Hadjivassiliou said. “It frames everything in a competitive way. In order to get an A, you have to be better than somebody else.”

IHS teacher, Julia von Holt, added another perspective. 

“If students work really hard and complete all of the requirements of an assignment, that equals an A,” Von Holt said. “That qualifies as a system of grade inflation, because historically, completing the requirements of an assignment would be a C [the average expectation].”

When used in the intended way, the letter grade system force teachers to choose which efforts are “superior” and deserving of an A. Even if they are inflated, how much weight do our grades carry? Some say that the letters on our report cards aren’t as imperative to our success as we may think.

“This idea that there’s one criteria for success, and that is a 4.0, is false,” Von Holt said. “In reality, success is how you define it.”

Fulfillment, defined as a feeling of happiness and satisfaction, is a state that many of us wish to achieve in our futures. College is often seen as the ideal path to that, but there are always other ways to get there. And success comes in many different forms.

“You could have a large family that you care for. You might be successful if you are pursuing a creative job that may not pay very much, but you feel fulfilled,” Von Holt said.

For many, college is the ideal path for achieving what they want to, which is sufficient reason for one to put so much effort into their grades. Even then, failing a class or two is far from the end of the world.

“Grades are important if you want to go to a certain school right after high school,” Hadjivassiliou said. “They don’t define who you are. They don’t limit your choices forever. I failed out of high school, and now I have a PhD. There’s many things we can criticize about our education system, but at least we can always go back and do things later, do things differently. There’s many different paths that one can follow.”

All of these teachers assured students that stress over grades was temporary and, while we should continue to put forward our best efforts, we aren’t defined by our performance on our assignments.

“Your lives center around your academic performance right now, but it won’t always be that way,” Von Holt said.

“You are better than a letter that’s on a piece of paper,” Clark said. “You are worth more than a letter on a piece of paper. I really urge students and parents to try and detach themselves from the letter grade.”

In a school such as South, it can be hard to determine our own paths while we’re being urged in the specific direction of getting into college with the highest GPA possible. Remember: Grades won’t define our entire futures, achieving a high grade isn’t worth losing sleep over, and that there are far more pieces to our lives than what we do during our time at high school.

By Ayla Cem

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