Dear TOPS teacher,

We are current TOPS parents, writing this letter to petition viable ways to improve our kids’ GPA before they are turned down by their favorite schools and programs due to an unfair situation they will be facing in the upcoming university admission process.

Above all, our kids have benefited a lot from TOPS program and still believe in it, thanks to all their teachers especially you. We truly appreciate your tremendous efforts as a teacher. With a grateful heart, we hope to bring up our concerns that have been bothering us recently.

On one hand, there has been an obvious increase of GPA among the other high schools ever since 2014. As a result, the cutoff marks for many universities have risen up to an incredible level in recent two years. For example, as we were told in the May30 TOPS Parents meeting, “About 44% of the applicants with a GPA of 95% were rejected by University of Waterloo’s Engineering program.” The admission average for some other popular programs also suggests a GPA higher than 95%.

On the other hand, currently our TOPS kids are getting lower marks for their much more challenging curriculum, and according to the university admission system, there is no way for university admission offices to tell that our kids are from TOPS program and that they are studying university-level courses. Obviously our kids will be put in a disadvantageous position in the upcoming university admission process, if no actions are taken.

“It’s unfair but there is nothing school can do about it so far. It really depends on each teacher if he or she would increase TOPS students’ marks or not.” we were told by school.

Dear teacher: most of our kids were selected to TOPS program with a very competitive GPA, and a heart for math, science and engineering. Getting into their dream schools and programs may not be the decisive factor but could be a dominating influence in their life. In fact, our kids have been working harder, sleeping and socializing less ever since they got into TOPS. However, their marks have not been reflecting their efforts. Given that marks shouldn’t count as important comparing to what they have benefited from this program, we do see less confidence and motivation on them caused by discouragement from lower marks, an issue that we believe is serious enough to be brought up and worked on.

Here we parents strongly petition that we work together to help our kids improve their GPA to reduce the possible regrets that may cause by an unfair competition.

We thank you in advance for your valuable time and your kind understanding on this matter.

Sincerely,

Much Concerned TOPS Parents