Administration may be forced to reverse GPA changes for Class of 2020

Grade point average changes for the Class of 2020 may not be instituted after the administration recently learned that the Aeries grade reporting program requires a school to use a uniform GPA system.

Hoping to establish a more uniform grading system and reduce student stress, the administration announced at the beginning of the 2016-17 school year that freshman class would be using a 4-point GPA scale which includes only As, Bs, Cs, and Ds, instead of the 13-point system (which includes pluses and minuses in letter grades) currently used by the rest of the school.

The administration is currently communicating with the school district to resolve these issues and declined to comment until it received a definitive answer about whether it can implement its original GPA plan.

Many freshmen, however, have already heard about the possible reversal. Freshman George Bian said he felt relieved — excited, even, he recalled — when he first learned that the Class of 2020 would have a different GPA system from the rest of the school.  

As a two-sport athlete who is also freshman class president, Bian hoped that the new weighting system would give him more time to focus on his extracurricular activities by relieving academic pressure.

“[The original GPA system] meant I could be more involved with school activities and the community,” Bian said.

Having learned of the possible reversal, however, Bian said he feels more hesitant to try new sports because the old grading system is not as lenient as the new one.

Like Bian, freshman Christine Lee structured many of her extracurricular activities around a more lenient GPA system.

“[Before], I didn’t have to worry about finals too much,” Lee said, “but now I have to study a lot harder for my classes until finals are over.”