Does/do your kid(s) school(s) use a 7 or 10-point grade scale?

This is only for schools that use one of the other - not alternate systems. If you don't have kids, if you know what your school district uses, you can vote.

The 10-point scale goes like this:

90-100 A
80-89 B
70-79 C
60-69 D
below 60 F


The 7 point system goes like this:

93-100 A
85-92 B
77-84 C
70-76 D
under 70 F

(some schools have revisions - West Chester School District uses the 7-point but has a 55-69 level of E where students can repeat work in summer school.)

After you take the poll, which system do you prefer? It seems like many students do fine with the 7 point scale, so that may be best - but we should use it more uniformly, or there will be accusations of students using the 7-point scale being at an unfair advantage when it comes to getting into college.

100-90 A
89-80 B
79-75 C
74-70 D
under 70 F

Good compromise.

I prefer the 10 point scale.

They weren't caught up on grades, though. On report cards, they'd just give the number and they'd let you convert it. However, when it came to the honor roll and GPA, they did use cutoffs.

94-100 A
90-93 B+
84-89 B
80-83 C+
74-79 C
70-73 D+
64-69 D
0-63 F

"or there will be accusations of students using the 7-point scale being at an unfair advantage when it comes to getting into college"

The 10 point scale is the one with the advantage for getting into college.

On my daughter's 7 point scale, her middle school GPA is around 3.85. Had she been on a 10 point scale, and earned the exact same percentage grades, her GPA would be a 4.0. If you are a college, (all other things being equal) you would prefer someone with a 4.0, rather than a 3.85.

On a related topic, how do your schools deal with AP classes?

I expect my daughter to take them and get As, but I am annoyed that weighting these as 5.0 As (4.0 Bs, 3.0 Cs, and 2.0 Ds) almost automatically puts AP students at the top of the class, since their GPA virtually always exceeds 4.0. Students who are equally academically talented at languages, for example, which are not typically high school AP classes are limited to a 4.0 GPA (unless they are capable of and choose to compete in the different but not necessarily more academically valuable English/Physics/Chemistry/Calculus AP track).

Weighting these AP classes as 5.0 As discourages students who are competing for scholarships and admissions to college from taking a broad range of classes (fine arts, languages, computer science, etc.) because if they drop out of the AP track they also typically drop out of the top 10% of the class. (In 9th grade, my daughter already has no lunch period two days a week because the HS scheduled accelerated biology (precursor to the AP science track) conflict with taking art and choir. If you take art, choir, and accelerated biology in the 9th grade you only get lunch 3 days a week - because you have lab the other two and would have to drop out of choir or art to have lunch a different period.

As to weighting AP classes, they could use the 10 point scale for AP classes, and the 7 point scale for non-AP classes and accomplish the same purported goal (not discouraging kids from taking the AP classes for fear of damaging to their GPA.)