the whole anti-class rank petition thing bothers me... i under stand the viewpoint, but i definately don't agree with it
Anonymous
11:45:50 PM
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the whole anti-class rank petition thing bothers me... i under stand the viewpoint, but i definately don't agree with it
Anonymous
11:45:50 PM
Published by
sithgirl
Tags: Enloe legends, GPA, popular post, school
32 comments:
Why is it bothering you and why do you not agree?
im confused. whats going on?
I love the petition! Fight, guys! School has become so much more about competition and less about actually learning. Kill the competition!
Background info for the nonEnloe-ites, or those who don't quite understand why there's a picture of Enloe next to the definition of "competition in Webster's dictionary:
Enloe HS is one of the highest ranked public schools in the nation. It is not a cream-of-the-crop-only charter school. Class rank is determined by weightings of classes (AP=6.0A, Honors=5.0A, normal=4.0A), as well as grades.
This means that if you have straight A's, they might not be as good as someone else's straight A's, or even not as good as someone's A/B avg.
Colleges look at class rank as a determiner of status. At Enloe, in each class, you must go down literally hundreds of places before you get out of the "good" students (higher than B averages).
This means that someone with a rank of 50 or above could pretty much be validictorian at most other schools, period.
This also means that a person ranked 250 or 300 is still a very, very good student, but will not be seen as such by an examining college, b/c of the rank.
The protest against the rank is fueled by a desire to allow competitiveness to remain at Enloe, but to allow every student who deserves recognition for their hard word (an A is an A sort of thing) to receive credit due to them (all students x gpa or above receive suma cum laude, y gpa to x gpa = magna cum laude, etc).
Maybe that made sense, maybe not, somebody correct me where wrong, give input or alternate opinions.
See the problem with the petition is that class rank is just one of the things that colleges take into account (in fact no one really knows what decides for colleges besides a vague notion, those guys are cultish really), so if you do indeed have straight a's with a few honors classes, they'll realize that you are a good student, but the class rank with so many good students just really highlights the high ranking people because when the colleges look at it they see "1st in his class at enloe, jesus christ we want this guy."
Personally I think if you don't like the competitiveness of enloe, don't go. I realize it's one of the best school's in the state, so go if you want a good education, but if getting first is the only thing that matters to you then go to athens or southeast.
Maybe I'm biased cause I'm top ten, but seriously, all the people with high ranks have worked hard for those ranks and I know this petition won't actually do anything but the notion that rank could be ripped away from the kids is really disgusting.
As to school becoming too much about competition: some kids want to compete and some want to learn, or god forbid some want to do both, the great thing is that you can get both at enloe.
So yeah, hooray for class rank, let's start a petition against something wortthwhile eh?
my 2 cents
lookgin at class rank is stupid. if youre in top 10% in most schools that gets you automatically in. hello. if half of us went to a diff school we would be top 10%. the jnr class has 495 while most other classes have about 600. that sucks even omre for us bc all the stupid people have dropped out. none of hte smart people move away bc its enloe. so were screwed even more. wher eis this petition thing? i want to sign!!
one of my friends was barely top 25% at enloe and she transfered to sanderson and shes top 5% there. this isnt bogus. this is a true story. enloe sucks.
Yeah, but you see, the problem is that only one kid can be "1st in his class at Enloe, holy crap we want this guy" when about thirty kids deserve it. And if you're the kind of person who wants to learn and achieve and succeed, the solution "go to athens or southeast" doesn't really work. A kid ought to be able to go to Enloe, get the great education that Enloe offers, and have something to show for it at the end when the colleges are looking, not work his butt off and end up with what looks like a really crappy class rank. And the ranks of the high-ranking Enloe students will not be "ripped away;" yes, we know that you worked really frickin hard and colleges will recognize that work through your courses, your grades, your GPA, and the "suma cum laude" that you will obviously recieve. It's not as if by removing class rank, we're removing everything that you've ever worked for.
And another thing: a class rank at Enloe doesn't really say anything about how well you did in comparison to other students. Why have a number that tells the world you got a GPA that was marginally higher or lower than a hundred other people's GPAs that were within .002 of yours? If there's only that much difference between Number 153 and Number 221, then it only makes sense that they should both be given the credit they deserve, and that Number 221 isn't made to look like he or she gave less effort that Number 153 gave. Because if Numbers 153 and 221 go to Enloe, in all probability they gave the same effort and Number 221 just got stuck with some crappy coach in freshman year who gave him or her a bad grade for only being able to do fifteen push ups.
The way I see it, a suma/magna cum laude rating says "I worked extremely hard in high school, and my efforts have won me high honors," whereas a class rank says only "I beat x number of other kids out for this." Of the two rating systems, the class rank seems unnecessarily vindictive.
So I say Enloe should move to a system that can better credit the hardworking students who deserve credit.
I would like to say that school is not all about academics. Sure, I might be in the top 10% if I didn't have a social life, but that's horrible. A school that demands students to basically sell their souls is entirely unreasonable.
I love Enloe. I love most of the teachers, I love my friends, and I feel that I've been given great opportunities. However, I feel that for as much as I care about Enloe and as much as I try, my grades continue to stay respectable, but not excellent. And I deserve credit for what I do. I'm ranked in the mid 100s (weighted) with a 4.2 GPA.
Come on, guys.
look, honestly, all of you are complaining about the competitiveness of enloe, but like pchis says, just don't go, everyone know's enloe's super competitive and they go anyways. Sure it's easy now to say "arggg i wish i went to my base school, i'd be number 1 there soooo easily" but u didn't make that choice, you wanted to go to enloe, just deal
and about just having recognition of unweighted.... are you telling me that someone taking all honors and academic classes easily getting all A's deserves more recognition than someone who may even be higher weighted, but pushed themselves through AP classes getting some B's?
and what's wrong with competition? in my opinion it helps drive and motivate students. My own course load would probably different had there not been class rank. the competitiveness of enloe makes it so great, that your clashing right on with other great minds at enloe and the drive it creates (for me atleast) really lets me learn more than i would have otherwise
Yes, but the thing is that you should be taking those harder classes anyways. The motivation should be learning and pushing yourself to do the best you can. You shouldn't need other people and class rank to motivate yourself to do better work.
For the people who suggested not going to Enloe, that's pretty harsh. None of the other schools in the county compare to Enloe in terms of education. Assuming you go there, you should definitely know that. Even with the other magnet schools, there's a huge difference between how much I'm learning at Enloe versus how much I'd be learning at Broughton, Southeast, or Garner (which I don't even count as a proper magnet school anyways). Just because someone may actually want to learn something doesn't mean they should be punished for it.
And by the way folks, it's summa cum laude.
Whoa, this has spawned a ton of debate.
...
And coming up next on The Obvious Show...
you know, anyone with a decent class rank is against this petition.... everyone with a good class rank is satisfied and is happy that they have something to show for it, they have a source of pride that they can boast about....
but those people complaining of their low rank obviously haven't worked as hard and just want to abolish class rank as a means of hiding it
i think it is ridiculous to say that class rank isn't representative of hard work
Except it's not ridiculous. Hell, I'm in the top 10 percent and I haven't worked for it at all. I just take a lot of AP classes. Despite having that good class rank, I'm still for the petition.
To the person a post or two above me (rank=effort) above me, you clearly must be top 10, damn elitist.
The people with high ranks are satisfied with the system, chiefly because if it were to suddenly disappear, their lives would have sucked like hell for naught.
I work my ass off here, I have to be up till 2, 3am a few nights a week for these classes (almost all AP), and you know what? I get mostly A's, but does my rank reflect that success? No.
My rank is 3 fucking digits. I came here to learn, not to live through hell just to get a shoulder up on My-Parents-Pushed-Me-This-Far I-Gotta-Succeed-Or-Else. I don't want to hide anythign; if anything, I want credit for my 4.x, dammit.
Basically what I'm saying is this:
If you live your HS life such that your only source of pride is a number on a transcript saying you played the numbers game just perfectly, you're gonna have some serious issues to work out with a therapist in a few years.
in reference to the post two above mine about the person who doestn work and has high gpa, this is a prime example of what really this debate can be about. people can work their butts off and still get bad grades adn get punished while others sit back get good grades and have high gpas. its all about the teachers. honestly. im incalc, but compare for instance for precal at enloe...pate vs lyttle. i mean cmon.
um... just so everyone knows, schools don't look soley at class rank, it's a combination of a lot of other things, and most colleges realize that at better schools (such as enloe) a lower class rank doens't mean a worse off student.....
loads of people with high class ranks at other schools end up at places you wouldn't expect
That's true, but there are colleges who don't keep up with different high schools, and those who may have heard of Enloe, but that's about the extent of it.
The point about other schools' grads is good. The higher ranked (200-300 and better) at Enloe tend to shoot for ivy schools and higher calibre campuses, although both enloe and other schools have sizeable portions who end up at good state schools, or just odd places you'd never have considered.
To the poster four above me : "damn elitist" person.
You're my hero.
Not all people with a decent class rank are against the petition. I'm in the top thirty at last count, and I'm very much for the petition.
To the "damn elitist" person:
Just to throw this comment in there, if effort doesn't equal GPA, and you have to stay up till 3 to get good only mostly a's (which obviously don't really cut it at enloe), whereas I'm a part of a sport that basically takes up my life, I build habitat houses about 2 weeks a month, and I still have time to get one b and the rest a's, as well as be top ten.
If that's not because of effort...am I just better than you? Or am I just lucky?
Doesn't our society reward people who are "better" than others? Isn't that part of what capitalism is about?
As to the people being .022 points off, while this is probably a hyperbole for the amount of places they are off, isn't taht how sports work? It doesn't matter how much better someone is, they're better. The olympics are often won by hundredths if not thousandths of a second.
And as to kids being "punished" with class rank, that's absolute bullshit. Your grades speak for themselves, the fact that you achieved a 211 class rank with all a's with honors and AP classes just shows that your school was ridiculously competetive. Enloe highlights all of its students because it's such a good school, and because you go to enloe, if you go to the same college as the top tens of a different school, you will most likely have had a better education and therefore be better prepared for college and the world.
Did this come off as arrogant? That's what I was going for.
the person above me is now my new hero.... and i'm the person who was called the damn elitist
Oh well said. Except that captilism rarely rewards the deserving, only those that know the system. How many politicians and CEO's and other American successes are coasting off the misfortune of others? As to 'grades speaking for themselves', if that's true, why are there better colleges?
The reason we all want the education and grades to get into a good college is because that's where the best professors are. Some teachers are better than others, and the better the teacher the more you're likely to learn. If education was nearly as important to you as claim it is then you should realize that.
You can't simply rely on Enloe's reputation to make a college's admissions board see any other number than a 100 or 200. Class rank relies on the idea that all students are receiving the same education. The further away from Enloe you go geographically, the less that name means. So colleges assume that you and the other applicant had teachers of the same calibur. Unfortunatly, as teachers are paid extremely poorly for the amount of work they are required to do to teach well, the standerd for teachers is being lowered so that schools have somebody to put in front of their students.
Also, if you haven't noticed, sports are nothing like life. The guy next to you may start ten yards ahead. Life doesn't reward the best and the brightest. The uplifting stories we hear about are the lucky few that managed to get out from under whatever overwhelmingly bad position they came from. How many little guys did the metaphorical Goliath crush before some lucky David hit him in the forehead? How many Mozarts never got to put their ideas on paper because they were overshadowed or blocked by something else? Colleges don't interview you and your resume can only say so much.
If you're in the top ten percent, great. You've worked hard to be there or have gotten there by some natural merit. Nobody is trying to diminish your achievement. What everyone else wants is to be compared to the normal people (the point of class rank assuming you have a balanced spread of students), not the Albert Einstiens and Napoleans, because there can only be so many of those. If you really want to be true to the 'spirit of capitalism' and advance the best people to places where they can excel and become useful to society, then you get rid of class rank instead of encouraging people to go somewhere else to avoid the competition, because, like it or not, the system doesn't give a damn if you loved you education. It is interested in where you are at the time of your application, be it to a job or to a college. So why not aknowledge the students who are .022 away from you but 2.2 away from everybody else?
well, class rank also shows that you've taken advantage of the oppurtunities at hand. Being at such a great school like enloe, and having a lower class rank just shows that you may not have taken advantage of what you could've, or did not suceed as well in taking advantage of the courses at enloe
and it just seems to me that everyone for the petition just wants to get rid of class rank, because they want it to be recognized that at worse school's, it'd be higher.... so they want to get rid of class rank at enloe because they want to add emphasis to the point that they would have a high class rank somewhere else.... well the world isn't perfect, you can't expect a school like enloe to be the same as others, just... better. the competitiveness is just a price you have to pay for getting a better education
Yeah person with a long post, you can't pull the "world is unfair" or "advantaged vs. disadvantaged" card because that applies across society in almost every single situation possible, so that's a different issue from the one at hand.
the thing about class rank is that it helps colleges get to know how we did in highschool. Colleges don't see weighted gpa, but class rank is what conveys it. It tells colleges that in comparison to other students, we took advantage of what enloe had to offer. this whole summa cum lade crap is just stupid, colleges see our unweighted gpa, so all that is just showing the same thing in 2 different ways.
what if this one guy, was super smart, took loads of AP classes, and ended up getting one or 2 B's, but still had the rest A's and was in the top 5
and this other guy slacked off, took all honors classes, got all A's easily.
the first guy is obviously better, but on paper, colleges would see that he had like a 3.8, 3.9 something gpa and was suma cum lade
the other guy, the slacker, on paper would have a 4.0 gpa, and be summa whatever
now who's better, who looks better?
Wait. But then the student who took the easier classes still has a higher rank and looks better.
no, when you factor in AP credits, the first guy would look better, i'm saying that if we have nothing like class rank and schools just look at unweighted gpa, the slacker looks better
class rank=gpa
gpa=grades
grades=time it takes to get work done
time it takes to get work done=difficulty of work
difficulty of work=teachers
classw rank=teachers
could you all just shut the fuck up and forget about it? we're all going to die anyway, there's no point arguing about the numbers that people pin on us along the way.
emo enough for you?
Yep, screw the numbers, fight the system!
If it doesn't matter to us what the "watchers" think of us, we'll push our educations more where we want/need them to go.
Ender's Game / Shadow :-)
<3 Orson Scott Card
ow ow
that's like the god=love and love=blind, ray charles=blind so ray charles=god
or time=money
women=time*money=money^2
money=sqrt(evil)
money^2=evil
women=evil.
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