<p>We're moving overseas so our daughter will be leaving independent school to enter (in 12th grade) an American school where most of the strongest students take the 2-year IB Diploma Program. I'm wondering whether we should worry about trying to negotiate her GPA with the new school since they weight grades and her old one doesn't. Otherwise, wouldn't she look weak relative to classmates with weighted grades?</p>
<p>The new school weights IB courses a full point higher. The old school, despite being competitve, frowns on APs but has loads of courses labelled Honors. My daughter has had all Honors designated courses in 11th and several in 10th plus one AP this year although she'll take two AP tests. Her unweighted GPA is 3.7 including a weakish 9th grade year but is 3.9 for 10th and 11th grades. Overall, she's at the top of the 2nd quintile (which is all the old school will say about ranking) when one considers all three years but for 10th and 11th I estimate she's in the top 10%. </p>
<p>How will the private LACs and Universities she'll be applying to look at her relative to her classmates? I'm worried if they compare her 3.7 to studetns from the new school with 4.7's she'll look terrible! However the IB Diploma courses in the new school are of 2 years duration. Do I try to get them to adjust her GPA? </p>
<p>The most selective LACs and Universities usually create their own GPA from the applicants transcript. This is so they can can compare the GPAs from schools that do and do not weight honors, AP, IB classes as worth more than regular courses. Some colleges also eliminate elective courses like PE and the arts and calculate a GPA only on core academic courses. </p>
<p>I'm not sure how much luck you would have with the new school on changing the GPA. And, depending on the school your D applies to, it might not really make a difference.</p>
<p>What would look to to colleges would be if your D could take some of the IB courses at the new high school, if there are any that are either 1 year or that she could place into on the basis of an honors course in her previous high school.</p>
<p>My D attended a different school for 9th grade that did not weigh grades. The school she attended 10 to 12th did. Her ranking was off from the start. The best we were able to do was have the counselor make a note in her report that the rank was not a true indicator of her place in her class.
My D also made a notation on her applications when she was able about the ranking.
When your D does her applications will she be sending 2 transcripts one from the old school and one from the new? If that is the case you might have the old school attach the school profile with the application.</p>
<p>based on her achievement, it sounds like your daughter will be applying to a lot of very good schools. these colleges, especially smaller schools, pay close attention to the classes, curcumstances and history behind gpa and class rank. i would definitely try to work something out with the school, but your daughter's accomplishments won't be overlooked if she's applying to the right places. you might want to have her guidance counselor write a letter to the schools, as mentioned before, and your daughter will be given an opportunity in most of her applications (in the common app, at least) to write about any extenuating crcumstances that might have affected her grades.</p>
<p>When she goes to fill out her applications, your daughter should send out two counselor rec/school report forms and two transcript requests: one to her current school and one to her old school. My daughter's class rank sank like a stone when she transferred after 10th grade before she'd even sat down in her first class at the new school, and that was the advice she got from the admissions office at the school where she wanted to go. She applied ED and was accepted. She did contact the GC from the previous school ahead of time, explained the situation, etc.--she didn't just shoot off the paperwork out of the blue. The counselor was more than happy to provide a recommendation and school profile and put her years there in context.</p>
<p>We're in a similar situation of changing schools for senior year, and coming into the new school with a much lower GPA - or no GPA at all, if they can't figure out how to transfer the grading scale. I am hoping (naively?) the various aspects of her application will explain themselves, with perhaps a letter of explanation from her included. I am also hoping the references we get from here before we leave, the GC letter from the new school, and so on, will all help make sense of her HS performance. (Echoing suggestion above.)</p>
<p>She has emailed a couple schools already about how to handle it. Some schools have been encouraging, or suggested a letter of explanation; other schools don't seem to get what we're asking. </p>
<p>We are saving the email responses to evaluate later, and the schools that seem like they are going to take a harder look at the application are the ones that will stay on her list. The ones that already seem to be saying "too much trouble" won't.</p>