Cassie Davis, a former student at Highland High School in Nunn, Colarado, worked herself strenuously in order to achieve academic excellence. She took every AP and Honors class she could, and in her senior year, while the others students began to relax as the result of their college applications being finished, she hit the books and continued to take classes at the University of Northern Colorado. However, she was punished for her diligence, as her school’s grading system discounted her college credits, and she lost her valedictorian status to a kid who had not taken difficult college courses. She found that she had been cheated, punished for choosing to challenge herself and learn more. Though this story is just one example, it is a true story (Manzo) that accurately demonstrates what can happen …show more content…
They claim that this system enforces economic inequality, and is inherently destructive to less wealthy citizens. To answer this claim, it is necessary to understand the college admission process. Students’s grades, class ranks, and number of activities are not entered into a computer that determines which students are accepted by how high their numbers are, but instead are viewed by real humans. They evaluate students not just quantitatively, but qualitatively, looking at their backgrounds and determining whether a students has tried to challenge him/herself by taking the most difficult classes that are available to him/her. If a student comes from a poorer school which does not offer AP courses, an admissions officer can still determine whether a student tried hard to challenge him/herself with the resources that were available, and students that try hard will appear to be a strong candidates regardless of how many AP courses their schools