COLEGIO SAN CARLOS

What must be understood first is that Colombian high schools are not educating students with a view toward those students going on to matriculate in the States. Colegio San Carlos annually sends only three or four percent of its students to U.S. schools. The area of greatest difficulty in the application process for these students is reporting grade results in such a way that these students can compete fairly with their U.S. counterparts. Which brings us to the title of this article: “Colombia: No Grade Inflation Here.”

To understand this, the first hurdle for U.S. college and university admissions officials to comprehend is our scoring scale of 10 to 100 is mandated by the Colombian National Ministry of Education. In the last year for which data on 108 graduating seniors is available, the distribution of overall averages shows that it is very difficult to score in the top level at Colegio San Carlos:

         Range of Averages                               No. of Students in the Range

                  

            100 – 89                                                                 4

            88 – 79                                                                  46

            78 – 70                                                                  56

            69 – 10                                                                    2

Therefore, I believe another area that does not get enough attention from U.S. schools is the rigor of the Colegio San Carlos curriculum. The most challenging programs are chemistry, physics, philosophy and English. Students are also required to take theology, economics (both macro and micro), and Colombian Constitutional History. These make the San Carlos curriculum the equal of any A.P. Program in the States. The difficulty, and the point of this article, is that San Carlos students need the proverbial “curve” if reporting of academic results is to be on a par with the best high schools in the States.

To generalize, U.S. schools that have been able to work tirelessly and flexibly with students from Colegio San Carlos have had the most success finding a fit for our students in their undergraduate programs. Some of the schools that have been able to apply this principle include Vanderbilt University, Hobart College, Florida Institute of Technology, and the University of Notre Dame to name a few.

In closing, the viewpoint of a faculty member from San Carlos is worth noting. Andres Rubiano teaches Algebra. His view of the 10 to 100 grading scale is that scores in the range of 70 to 78 are the norm. This range reflects the rigor of our scoring and that these scores in Algebra reflect good results. In fact, 78% of his students were in this range.

U.S. schools that have been able to fairly judge the academic records of Colegio San Carlos students have been rewarded with students who have been able to contribute to each institution’s international student community as well as to the total student community.