While many things linger in the minds of high school students, like college applications and exams, something that is always relevant is a daunting three letters: grade point average (GPA). GPAs are a system of numbers that assess a student’s aptitude and general effort in school. The averages are measured on a four-point scale based on each student’s letter grade. Acknowledging the pressure those three digits put on students, Counselor Jennifer Vick views the scale as a successful and traditional form of feedback.
“It’s the most common way to measure (grades),” Vick said. “It’s a way of measuring student success. Success in areas that need to grow, like how well are you meeting the goals and objectives of your classes. It gives good feedback, and feedback is important for everyone.”
Sharing a similar opinion, English teacher Shannon Sugamele agrees that feedback is important, but on top of that, GPAs hold students accountable for participation and their effort towards different tasks in and outside of class.
“We need to have something to ensure that students put in equitable effort,” Sugamele said. “However, I don’t necessarily believe that GPAs are always accurate in depicting that. In the last several years since the pandemic we’ve had an inflation with grading, so GPAs are higher than they used to be.”
On top of this swell of GPAs, technology has made cheating on assignments and assessments much easier. This has decreased students’ and teachers’ confidence in the accuracy of GPAs.
“Since the technology we have now makes cheating so effortless, I’ve become less sure that GPAs are actually an accurate measure of a student’s intelligence and effort,” Sugamele said.
It’s hard to pinpoint any one word to describe what GPAs represent, but students Stella Meyers ’27 and Oscar DeLuca ’27 agree that the number doesn’t matter as long as you do your best. DeLuca appreciates the system and how it reveals what he needs to work on.
“I know what it has been in the past and what I am able to do with it,” DeLuca said. “I know it is important for my future, so it’s good that I have some personal stats to compare over my last few years of school before college.”
While she agrees that feedback is important, Meyers expresses skepticism towards the GPA system, arguing that it doesn’t accurately represent her effort or intelligence as well as that of her peers. She believes that the system unfairly considers grades alone instead of taking other factors that can impact academic performance into account.
“Well, think about it,” Meyers said. “People might have sports and other things going on in their lives that colleges won’t know about from just looking at your GPA, so I don’t think they should represent someone’s intelligence because there are just way too many other factors to think about. A GPA should show a student’s dedication and persistence to the work they do.”
