My daughter transferred to a new high school junior year. She had a weighted GPA for freshman and sophomore years, and her junior year (new school) is unweighted.
How can we best honor both systems when she applies to colleges? Right now it seems ideal to show my daughter’s first two years as weighted, and her last two years unweighted. Wouldn’t this keep her on par with her peer group at these two different schools?
You should show the GPA the schools ask for.
If it’s weighted, you’ll show weighted. If it’s unweighted, you’ll show unweighted.
Most schools will adjust for their needs - including removing classes they aren’t interested in. Others, will take the GPAs as they appear.
For the common app, don’t colleges want the self-reported GPA to match the GPA on the transcript? How did her current HS deal with the grades from her previous school & report her current cumulative GPA? I think that is what you would use.
My friend’s daughter had the opposite problem - original school was unweighted, new school wait weighted. Unfortunately it really mucked up her weighted GPA. You have to report the transcript that will be provided if you enroll - ie the transcript your daughter is currently attending. However they report the grades must match the self reported common app. All of her previous courses were listed on the transcript for the current school and translated into their weighting system.
As others have indicated, the current high school staff pull in the previous school’s grades and the transcript is submitted. It will usually note those courses were from someplace else. Or have a code indicating transfer credit. Look over the current transcript and if there is something missing discuss that with the current high school staff.
Each college creates their own conversion and weighting, so make sure any honors classes or AP are indicated from the previous school. Colleges understand high school kids transfer. It will be ok. Some state admissions or auto merit could be impacted, so some self-advocacy may be needed.
There is also space on the common app to communicate any differences in systems.
Some/Many HSs don’t combine transcripts for students who transferred in. The HS GC can upload both schools’ unofficial transcripts into common app for the colleges that want those, but this is becoming less common as many schools have students self-report courses and grades.
Some colleges will ask for courses and grades be input by the student into common app rather than getting an unofficial transcript from the GC(s)…the student should have both transcripts on hand to do this. Enter every course and grade, and what type of grading system. Schools will then calculate GPA as they want it.
Some colleges ask students to complete the SRAR, similar to above, the student self reports courses and grades from the transcripts as above. Again, schools calculate the GPA how they do it.
Still other colleges use their own system where the student enters their courses and grades. Every year I have students who manually enter their courses and grades 3+ times into varying systems.
The common app GPA field is optional, no need to fill that in. Colleges will use the transcripts or student self-reported grades to calculate GPA as they want.
If you have to have a GPA for a scholarship app or something like that, calculate an unweighted GPA for all courses using a simple 4 point scale where any type of A = 4 points and so on.
The HS GC will send the final transcripts (often includes the one from the previous HS but not always) to the college where the student matriculates. Sometimes the previous HS GC has to send the official transcript from that school.
Hi @Mwfan1921, I have not seen this in our area of the country.
Even smallish to medium size public and private high schools use scheduling software, pupil info systems to tabulate gpas and identify courses still needed to graduate, etc…most have to enter prior high school courses and grades in for transfer students for those systems to work.
Over the years, we have seen a few where the previous high school did not do their part for a student transferring a third time (or more) during high school, but those have all been families new to the country and the previous US school did not take the time to crosswalk their previous courses.
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