Waring does not use letter grades but instead written narrative evaluations, providing a deep assessment of student learning including understanding, application, and critical thinking. Courses are offered for Credit, with an Honors designation available to students in 10th grade and above. For more information on Waring’s Narrative Evaluations and the theory behind the use of that system, please see our blog post from a few weeks ago.
Many colleges and universities find it helpful to read a holistic and comprehensive assessment of admissions candidates. While other institutions less familiar with Waring’s narrative sometimes initially find them more challenging to read, Christine Trowbridge, Waring’s Director of College Counseling, works closely with admissions officers to answer any questions they might have regarding Waring’s highly rigorous curriculum or individual applicants.
What Are Narrative Evaluations?
Waring’s narrative evaluations are detailed written assessments of a student’s performance that focus on clearly defining a student’s strengths, areas for improvement, and overall progress in a class, rather than simply assigning a letter grade. These evaluations provide a story-like account of a student’s learning journey, highlighting specific examples of their work and achievements throughout the course.
Ultimately, a narrative evaluation aims to capture a student’s unique learning trajectory, celebrate their accomplishments over the semester and year, and provide actionable and personal feedback from teachers. The narratives are a part of an ongoing conversation between the teacher and a student, always asking questions about how the learning can be encouraged, how the student can go deeper, and help guide students in new directions with their work. Detailed written feedback allows students to see where improvement can be made and provides specific examples or details of their own work to illustrate this.
College Admissions and Narrative Evaluations
There is a growing trend across the country of high schools, colleges, and universities adopting narrative evaluations instead of assigning letter grades. This move allows for a personalized and comprehensive assessment of student learning.
Waring’s evaluations highlight not only academic excellence as demonstrated by assessments, projects, and homework but also other kinds of excellence: a student’s classroom leadership and presence, their willingness to accept and respond to feedback, their efforts to seek extra help when needed and/or offer the same to their peers. Narratives provide faculty members with the opportunity to describe each student as a whole person, not just a letter or a number, and that, in turn, can provide a college with crucial insights about how that student would fit into their community and classrooms.
College admissions counselors are also aware of this shift in assessment practices at many secondary schools, as explained in this 1986 Study on the topic. Waring School students graduate with four years’ detailed descriptions from faculty across the areas of study and their narrative assessment of how the students have grown, where their curiosities lie, and how they have learned from their strengths and weaknesses. Through this process, admissions committees begin to understand Waring students as unique individuals, unlike what a score or letter grade could do.
Christine Trowbridge explains that she is responsible for helping college admissions officers understand our narrative evaluations. To this end, she includes the School Profile, which not only explains Waring’s approach to assessing student work but also describes the academic and extracurricular programs—all of which help put the narrative evaluations and, ultimately, our students’ many accomplishments, in context.
Many colleges, particularly those familiar with Waring, appreciate the holistic picture the narrative evaluations provide of each applicant. For colleges that are not as familiar with Waring, Christine works closely with admissions officers to answer any questions they have about our program and students. She also provides a one-page summary of each student’s junior year evaluations in core academic courses as part of the documentation sent to each school.
Overall, Waring’s outcomes speak for themselves. If you have questions about Waring’s Narrative Evaluations, contact our Academic Dean, Director of College Counseling, Admissions Director, or Head of School to learn more.