300 point improvement since I started the course.

Yes it is true my grading has gone up that much since I started ICS and I am still only on month2.

I have found a shortcut. I am now playing on ICC as well as playchess.com.
I only recently started playing on ICC but am showing a rating about 300 higher than I was on playchess.
Others have told me that ICC is much more erratic and tends to overgrade success and overpunish poor play.

There is a point to this. That being that probably grading is not that important until at least month 9. Until we have properly learned to play chess, then effect of a bad game or weak opponent might just distort things too much and give us the wrong impression. Whilst a 300 increase could be highly motivational an unfortunate 300 downside might just make us pack it in.

At this stage I have decided that I will stop worrying about grading and focus on changing my game.
It will probably mean a couple of hundred reduction in grading whilst I change but I reckon there will be long term benefits.

I really think we should be careful about how we use grading until we have completed most of the course.

I would especially be careful of comparing different ratings from different venues, as that verges on meaningless. However, if you increase 300 points within a venue, then you have improved. Granted that probably doesn't translate to 300 FIDE or whatever improvement, but it is improvement nonetheless. (There are some people that think only over the board tournament ratings should be used as a measure, but that is silly).