Achievement and Expectations.

As you all know I've started working in admissions for my internship this year.  Part of my position is doing the info sessions for families, another is working with student applications, and finally assisting in the office as needed.  Currently I'm filling in the role of assisting as needed.  We are in the process of reading and cleaning up the files from the past year, which is allowing me to get a peek at the upcoming students. 

Its got me thinking a lot about the way we measure achievement and the expectations that puts in place for our students.  I can't help but feel that we (in some ways) have a broken system.  Take for instance the student I spoke with yesterday who had a GPA in the range of 3.6 but found herself in the lower percentage of her class ranking.  HOW is that possible?

Or take a look at the student who today had a 3.9... but because of weighting that happens the "highest" GPA possible was a 5.0.  The idea that we can exceed the best is well.. quite frankly ridiculous if you stop to think about it for a second. 

I tried to look online for other viewpoints on the topic and found a few situations of colleges looking at possible grade inflation, but didn't see much in terms of high schools examining the issue.  Which is ideally where it needs to be addressed, otherwise we end up with the students who have breakdowns over their first "B" which to me is sad on so many levels. 

One article I found talked about getting rid of grades all together and offering pass or fail. As simple as that- is that the solution?

Another focused on limiting the number of times a specific grade could be given, for instance 1 A, 3 B's, 7 C's, etc.  Do we think that's the solution? (I don't know if I like this because it creates such a competitive environment)

What do you think? Other ideas? How do we talk we students who've never gotten a B and are now finding themselves "average"?