A significant challenge to success in our public education system is allowing for students to become outstanding student athletes. Many schools, including mine, base class rank on a 5.0 GPA scale and require extracurricular courses to be graded on a 4.0 scale. Thus, students are often choosing between academics and extracurricular activities, regardless of their capability to succeed in both.
Previously attending a private junior high, I came into public high school determined to proudly represent my school as a top-ranked student and a varsity basketball player. That year, I took the maximum number of honors classes, made straight A’s, and spent hours in the gym, with the freshman team and individually, improving my basketball skills. Despite my dedication and diligence, at the end of the year, I was ranked only 75th in my class, well below my goal of valedictorian; what brought my GPA down were the sports. The shock of discovering my class rank urged me to alter my high school plan: I would sacrifice sports for a year to boost my GPA. Although I eventually earned my class rank of 2nd, losing a year of school basketball put me at an overwhelming disadvantage, and I was never given another chance to prove myself on the court. If sports did not drop my GPA, I would have had the opportunity to achieve my high school dreams.
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To resolve this conflict, sports and other extracurricular courses should be graded on a “Pass or Fail” system, where one’s GPA is not affected as long as attendance and appropriate behavior are maintained, rather than on a GPA