Grade Distribution
By ANNIE WERNERFELT ‘20
When I was a freshman, classmates and teachers loved to give the reminder “Cs are average!” Although I didn’t believe this average to be fully true, I thought that Milton’s students’ average was probably around a B. With this idea in mind, most students will think their grades are either average or above, and therefore they may not strive to improve their grades. Now, as a junior suffering from the well-known college-induced-stress, I want to look into grade inflation and its implications. According to the small group of teachers I’ve had who shared their students’ averages, Milton’s average is likely a B+. The grade distribution chart that juniors were given on college weekend further confirms this estimate; in their junior year, the Class of 2019 earned 216 As, 201 A-s, 193 B+s, and 134 Bs, among others. The numeric average of the grade distribution chart comes out to 90.06, so the average grade earned in the class of 2019’s junior year was a high B+ or low A-. This result is a considerable difference from the C-average rumor which circulates.
Grade inflation is a two-sided issue. On one hand, having high grades on your transcript will impress colleges. However, college admissions officers have access to the aforementioned grade distribution chart, so they can see how your grades compare to those of other Milton students. So, is grade inflation a problem we need to solve?
According to Ms. Bonenfant, the academic dean, Milton isn’t very concerned with averages. Instead, departments try to focus on helping new teachers set appropriate expectations for students and making sure that there aren’t discrepancies among teachers’ expectations for a course; achieving these goals would ensure that the grading system is fair to all students. Milton has “a pretty strong mentoring program. Every new teacher has a mentor and so there are always opportunities for new teachers to talk with people in their department and just to make sure that they’re calibrating in a way that makes sense.” Ms. Bonenfant says that she doesn’t get worked up when kids have high grades. “If kids are meeting standards that teachers set, then that means they’re learning, and for me, that’s a good thing. So, I wouldn’t mind if anybody got As, and if that happened, I don’t think that that would mean that we should make things harder so that there were fewer As. I think, as teachers, we should have some understanding of what we expect in our class and where the bar is and if students understand where that is and they meet the bar that’s good.”
Those of us who have talked about teachers with upperclassmen know that some teachers have a reputation for having more challenging classes than others. When asked how Milton manages these discrepancies, Ms. Bonenfant says that “Department chairs have access to all of the grades that the teachers in their department enter into our system, so it really is department chair responsibility to pay attention to those things and to make sure that the department chairs have conversations with teachers if they see something about which they have a question.” Department chairs can show teachers the exam and semester grades for each course so that the teachers can think about where their grades fall in that range.
In general, Milton students place an overwhelming emphasis on grades. The reality of the college admissions process is that college counselors do compare your grades to those of other Milton students; if that weren’t the case, Milton probably would not give grades at all. So, even though the average grade may have increased in years past, college admissions officers look at more than just your individual grades. In addition to seeing the holistic view of Milton Academy’s grading system, admissions officers also look at a holistic view of you. So, while you can rest assured that your department heads are vying for equality in your grade-earning potential, you should have access to the facts on grade distribution and also keep in mind that your potential goes far beyond your grades. As Ms. Bonenfant put it, “one grade is one grade. It’s not an indicator of who you are as a student; it’s an indicator of what you happened to do on what piece of work on one day. The question for me is: what are you learning from that experience and how are you moving forward?”