Ms. Jill Walker, Dean of Academic Affairs
It is now more difficult for students to earn a spot on Dean’s List, High Honor Roll and Honor Roll. For the 2016-2017 school year, Northwood School has revised the standards for students to be placed on the honor rolls. The minimum grades allowed to qualify for a certain honor roll have been raised. For the last four years, the minimum grade to be on any honor roll was a B-. Any grade lower than a B- made a student ineligible for any academic honor. Now, for the 2016-2017 school year, the lowest possible grade is a B+ for the Dean’s List, and for the High Honor Roll and Honor Roll, it is a B and B- respectively. The grade point average (GPA) requirements remain the same. Although, they differ from 9-10 grade and 11-12 grade, because older students have more of an opportunity to take more AP and Honors courses, which can weight the GPA (+1.0 and +0.5 respectively).
| Dean’s List | High Honor Roll | Honor Roll |
| Grades 11 & 12: Minimum GPA of 4.00
Grades 9 & 10: Minimum GPA of 3.70 No grade lower than B+ |
Grades 11 & 12: Minimum GPA of 3.70
Grades 9 & 10: Minimum GPA of 3.30 No grade lower than B |
Grades 11 & 12: Minimum GPA of 3.30
Grades 9 & 10: Minimum GPA of 3.00 No grade lower than B- |
| Note: All GPAs are weighted | ||
To get on the Effort Honor Roll, one must have at least three “excellent” efforts with no effort grade below a “good.”
School officials say these changes came about after it was discovered that more students made the Dean’s List last school year than Honor Roll or High Honor Roll: in the first quarter of 2015-16, 18% of students were on the Dean’s List, 12% were on the High Honor Roll, and 14% were on the Honor Roll. Faculty leaders believe that Dean’s list should be the most difficult honor to attain. Our Dean of Academic Affairs, Ms. Jill Walker, says that the Dean’s List should be “more selective” and “exclusive.” Ms. Walker believes that when “We look at the Honor Roll, and we want it to look like a pyramid, not an inverted pyramid.” The group of students on the list of honor rolls should be bottom heavy. Ms. Walker says that she and her team has researched the standards of other prestigious schools, and have used that as guidelines for what we would like our system to be. Due the changes, Ms. Walker stated that our honor rolls are now “back in balance.”
First quarter Honor Rolls will be released in early November. The Mirror will publish the lists.
