By Hogan Webb
Online Life Editor
The Manhattan Beach Unified School District Board of Trustees approved the recommendation to weight grades for Costa Advanced Placement courses at its May 20 Board meeting.
The topic of weighted grades was first discussed at the Feb. 4 MBUSD board meeting where a group of parents and students expressed its concern that students were at a disadvantage in receiving scholarship rewards due to Costa’s previous unweighted grade policy.
“There were some people who felt weighting grades would put Costa students on a level playing field for college admissions; however, that is not the truth,” Costa Principal Dr. Ben Dale said. “The truth really is that the new 5.0 weighted grade scale system will only benefit those students who are applying for college scholarships.”
The policy will go into effect beginning the 2015-16 school year. Once it is in effect, students will receive weighted credit for all applicable courses taken at Costa. With the new policy, Advanced Placement courses will be weighted on a 5.0 grade point scale.
“I worry that students will take classes just to raise their GPA, rather than having a specific interest in the course,” Math department Chair Linda Gesualdi said.
After creating a committee to investigate the pros and cons of weighted grades, Costa counselors found that eight of the top 77 schools that Costa students applied to do not weight GPAs on their own. However, those schools do take weighted GPAs into account for merit scholarships. They presented their findings at the board meeting.
“Our role was to gather information to figure out what would be the best option for Costa students,” College and Career Counselor Judy Park said. “I like this system the most because it is a better recognition of our students.”
According to Dale, in order to lower the level of competitiveness with the introduction of weighted grades, Costa will discontinue valedictorian and salutatorian awards. To replace the valedictorian and salutatorian awards, there will be a new Latin honors system. This system is commonly utilized by universities.
Starting at the 2016 graduation, seniors will be honored according to their weighted GPA. Students with a 4.0 and above GPA will have Summa Cum Laude status, a 3.8 to 3.99 GPA will have Magna Cum Laude status and a 3.5 to 3.79 GPA will have Cum Laude status.
“I hope the new awards will make it so it’s not a race to see who can take the most APs,” Dale said. “I don’t know if this decision will be good or bad for the students; only time will tell.”
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