GPA Benchmark To Replace Class Rank At Ocean City High School

OCEAN CITY, NJ — The way the Ocean City Public School District recognizes its high school students will change for the next school year, the district announced. The class rank system at Ocean City High School will be replaced with a GPA benchmark system that recognizes academic achievement on a broader, more holistic scale. The change will take effect for the 2018-19 school year.

GPA benchmarks will be modeled according to the cum laude program, which has three levels of honors: Summa Cum Laude (with highest praise), Magna Cum Laude (with great praise), and Cum Laude (with praise).

The Board of Education approved the change last week after more than two years of discussion and research conducted by a committee comprised of top 10 students, parents, high school administrators and faculty.
After studying related research and visiting a neighboring school where class rank had been successfully eliminated, the committee determined that a new system was needed to best indicate student achievement.

“The research shows that a class ranking from number one on down is simply not the best measurement of overall student engagement, achievement and success,” Ocean City High School Principal Dr. Matt Jamison said. “In its place, we are introducing honors that recognize all high-achieving students who meet a certain GPA threshold. With this change, students will be encouraged to follow their personal aspirations without letting worries about rank drive their course selections.”

The process began after students reported higher levels of anxiety, stress and unhealthy competition related to the positioning that occurs when calculating class rank. Rather than pursuing their interests, some students instead select courses with greater “weighting” strictly because of the class rank calculation. Additionally, the differences in grade-point averages among high-achieving students are often statistically insignificant, sometimes less than a one-hundredth of a point, according to the school district.

For these reasons and more, almost 60 percent of high schools across the country do not rank their students. High schools that have eliminated class rank report no adverse effect for their students when it comes to the college admissions process or to the awarding of scholarships. Research shows the number of colleges that view class rank as an important consideration has dropped significantly, according to the district.

In fact, the percentage of college admissions officers identifying class rank to be of “considerable importance” in admissions decisions dropped from 26 percent in 2006 to 14 percent in 2015, with almost half of those surveyed reporting class rank to be of “limited” to “no importance,” according to the National Association of College Admissions Counseling.

Most colleges have adopted a more holistic approach to the admissions process. Important factors include the rigor of the academic program, GPA, SAT and ACT scores, essay or writing samples, and counselor/teacher recommendations.

“More and more schools are moving toward this holistic process for academic achievement, which not only leads to increased student confidence, encourages students to take a variety of courses, and enables them to find their passion,” Ocean City Public School District Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Taylor said. “We believe this academic recognition format is a great fit for Ocean City, where we want our students to know that they are more than a score, a rank or a number.”

Patch file photo