A= 4.0, A= 4.5, A=5.0

Alison Moody’s 4.5 grade-point average suffered because of her dancing.

Four years on the dance team meant two class periods each year dedicated to practice. That’s two grades of a mere 4.0, pulling down an average that otherwise would have been closer to 5.0.

“It’s a little unfair,” said Moody, 17, a Tustin High School graduate who heads to UCLA in the fall. “Those who don’t do sports or other activities really benefit from the GPA system.”

It’s stories like this--students who see an A average, a 4.0, as a liability to avoid--that have a handful of educators working to curb one form of grade inflation.

“It’s been called a curricular arms race, “ University of California spokesman Terry Lightfoot said of the rush for bumped-up grade-point averages. “Manipulation of this grading system has caused us some concern.”

This week, the UC regents will discuss cutting back on grades that go above 4.0. And Moody’s former school district, Tustin Unified, recently pulled the reins on super-high scores.

Typically, schools reward an A earned in an Advanced Placement or honors class with a 5.0 grade, in recognition of the tougher work involved. A grade of B gets a 4.0 and so forth.

Such “weighted” grades have pumped more students into such courses to the point where, at some top-ranked schools such as Sunny Hills High in Fullerton, a 4.0 grade-point average is apt to be regarded as the mark of a merely competent student.

“The reality is, colleges expect students to be great in the classroom, and they are supposed to be the student body president, do volunteer work and be leaders,” said Cynthia Martini, guidance counselor at Sunny Hills. The universities “are the ones driven by the numbers.”

Still, Tustin’s school board decided to eliminate the extra point given to a batch of advanced courses and reduced the number of classes labeled “honors.” The goal is to prod students toward a fuller high school experience, according to Frank Southern, the district’s director of secondary education.

“Some students are just taking weighted courses to raise their grade-point average and class rank,” he said. “They feel compelled to take the courses rather than important extracurricular opportunities.”

At this point, Tustin’s move makes the district a little like a lone minnow swimming against a tidal wave of grade inflation. State education officials know of no other districts that have taken similar steps.

But the state’s educational whale--the nine-campus University of California--might begin a swim in the same direction. UC’s Board of Regents is reexamining its policy, dating back more than a decade, that grants an extra point to courses it has defined as “honors.”

Ironically, it was UC’s decision to grant the extra points that set off much of the demand for advanced classes in California. The policy was meant to encourage high school students to take challenging classes rather than easy ones in which they could get good grades without working as hard.

“It worked,” said Jeanne Ludwig, senior policy analyst with the California Postsecondary Education Commission. “And it kind of surpassed everyone’s imagination.”

UC is reconsidering, however, as part of its exploration of ways to maintain an ethnically diverse student population now that affirmative action has been abolished in admissions. Some see the extra point system as giving an advantage to more affluent students whose schools offer more Advanced Placement courses.

But UC officials insist that, beyond the admissions controversy, there may be academic reasons to reconsider those 5.0 grades.

An ongoing UC study has found that students with weighted grade-point averages often don’t keep up the high grades when they reach college. Students who came to UC with a weighted 4.0 average, for instance, were pulling 3.0 averages as college freshmen.

In contrast, students who took regular courses in high school generally earned college grades similar to their high school GPA, said Keith Widaman, chairman of the UC faculty committee that conducted the study.

“If students were doing equally well once they got to the university, then the extra point for honors and AP courses would be fully justified,” he said. “But students are not getting grades as high as you would expect from these weighted GPAs.”

Widaman, a professor of psychology at UC Riverside, also complained that some students enroll in AP courses to “get the benefits of an extra grade point,” then never take the AP exam to demonstrate that they actually “learned something extra.”

Though the UC regents will discuss the issue Thursday, Widaman’s committee is not expected to issue its final report until December. At the moment, the panel is leaning toward recommending that honors and AP courses get only half a point of extra credit--for a possible 4.5, rather than a 5.0.

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Such a change could affect a lot of students. The number taking AP exams has more than doubled in the past decade. Some take up to 15 AP tests by the time they graduate from high school.

The trend has contributed to a steady rise in grade-point averages in California. One study found that the average high school GPA has risen from 2.60 in 1986 to 2.78 in 1996, an increase that analysts say is not fueled by improvement of mid-range students, but pulled from the top by students aiming toward that 5.0.

Another concern is that the emphasis on high-level courses leaves inner-city or smaller schools at a disadvantage. At Manual Arts High in Los Angeles, only 14 AP courses are weighted, for instance. At Fullerton’s Sunny Hills, in contrast, 35 AP and honors courses are available with an extra grade point.

“It gives an unfair advantage to those schools already better off,” said Perry Zirkel, a professor of education at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa.

With different schools grading students on different scales, college admissions officers sometimes have a tough time figuring out student performance. Many colleges rely on their own formulas to compute student GPAs. And some selective campuses, such as Stanford and Harvard, say they pay more attention to the letter grades.

“The GPA is a guideline,” said Robert M. Kinnally, Stanford’s dean of admissions. “But we give more credence to the transcript and how students performed in the classes they selected.”

Tustin Unified’s decision to cut back on 5.0-graded classes was made after a 20-member committee of educators, students and parents reviewed the various courses and surveyed students’ reasons for taking them.

The committee found that some courses were not of college-prep caliber and did not deserve the extra point. What’s more, students were selecting courses based on how they could boost their standing rather than enrich their education.

Under the new policy, all AP and some honors courses will remain on the 5-point grading scale.

Six honors prerequisite courses, including geometry and biology, were reduced to the 4-point scale but will keep their “honors” title. Seven more courses, covering areas of fine arts, will lose their “honors” label and their status on the 5-point scale.

The changes have stirred mixed sentiment among students. Some, upset by the reduction in 5.0 courses, say they simply won’t take classes that now lack the extra point.

Others, like senior-to-be Daniel Choi, say the decision makes sense, even if participation in the band the past three years may have hurt his grade-point average--still a whopping 4.57.

“Colleges take your grades and reconfigure it to their way anyway,” he said.

“I’m getting a lot out of band, even though it lowers my GPA.”

Times correspondent John Pope contributed to this story.