I take 7 classes which are the core curriculum of our school but we also have subjects once a week that are shown in our report card (stated above). Do colleges include that while calculating for your cumulative GPA? Because in my case, my school literally gives everyone A’s on all those classes so would that give my GPA an extra boost?
Short answer - it depends on the college, although I think that every college knows that the rigor associated with ceramics is much less than calculus… Additionally, not all colleges recalculate your GPA; many take what is listed on the transcript.
They do look at those grades, but how much they care about those grades depends on the college.
Almost uniformily they ignore PE, Health, Driver’s Ed, and vocational courses like word processing. As to music and art, many do not consider it but some do, including the UCs which actually require a year of art/music as a core course to qualify for admission.
What about business courses like accounting, starting your own business, or marketing?
Also, what about religion courses? Many of them are history/social studies based…
Thanks!
The five traditonal college prep course areas are math, lab science, English, foreign language, and social studies. Most colleges will strip out everything else to detemine real grades and real GPA to be considered, although some consider art/music. As a result, high school busineess/vocational courses are usually stripped out. A religious course needs to fall into one of those five college prep categories to be considered by a secular college. A course on the history of religions would ikely qualify as a social studies course unless it it limits itself to a single religion. A comparative religious literature course may qualify as an English course as long as it does not limit itself to the workings of authors in a single religion. At the other end of the scale, a course in Bible History is not likely to be considered even though arguably it is a history course.
@drusba when you say most colleges strip out extra courses do you have a reference? I thought Most colleges would use the HS GPA as listed and only highly competitive colleges would go through the effort of recalculating GPA.
Not to highjack but what about the opposite, an A student as a Freshman gets a B+ in Music? My younger D is having that problem.
Visual and performing arts are considered academic courses at CA and SD publics, and probably others.
And a single B+ will not hurt a student.