<p>My son's school is discouraging PSEO by not giving them the 1.25 that is previously did.
They also will not give a class rank if you attended PSEO. How do we present his transcript to colleges and scholarship competitions? Do many colleges give their own weight to AP or PSEO courses when considering admissions or merit based aid? Thanks</p>
<p>Can you explain what a PSEO class is?</p>
<p>PSEO means Post Secondary Education Option. This is where a HS student takes college courses, usually at a community college, but often at a regular 4 yr. college. </p>
<p>Transcripts are mailed directly from the HS, so if the colleges don’t put weight on PSEO and the transcripts don’t either, you are competing with a lower GPA.</p>
<p>Our high school has never weighted AP classes or local college classes. It is clear from the transcripts that the GPA is unweighted. Check your high school profile and see how iit discusses classes, class composition, etc. Admissions officers can pretty easily look at an unweighted GPA and look at the classes taken and discern if the student has taken the high school’s rigorous classes. Some college recalculate GPAs and others don’t. My kids when having to “self report” their GPA were clear that it was an unweighted GPA. There are several threads discussing how various schools weight or don’t weight alone with individual impressions of what that means to colleges/unis.</p>
<p>How did your kids deal with the GPA requirements for automatic meit aid? For example, my son is looking at a college that will reward a 3.5 with $15,000 for all 4 years. That makes this a big deal. Thanks</p>
<p>If it is one college/uni that you are specifically interested in, I would just call and ask them how they handle the various GPAs that they receive from schools. Most colleges that draw from a large region have to deal with this…some schools use a 4.0 unweighted scale, others use a 5 pt scale, some weight APs a certain amount, others another amount and many derivations between. I worried about that several years ago, but not so much anymore. Somehow all these colleges/unis seem to sort it out.</p>
<p>Thanks. I have a email into the admissions. It is scary, though. I assume that alot of kids miss out when sorted through HS transcript only.</p>
<p>Our answer: if the undergraduate college applied to, after seeing the applicant’s actual college transcripts as a PSEO student, doesn’t recognize that the applicant was challenging himself with courses harder than usual high school courses, enroll somewhere else. To effectuate this strategy, of course, one must apply widely.</p>
<p>Our high school did not weigh APs or college classes. My S audited a number of college classes for which he was given grades by the instructor, but these were converted into Pass/Fail by the school. Nonetheless, the colleges did take into account the fact that he had taken many college classes, some fairly advanced. He was not ranked because he graduated early. I should note, however, that he did not apply for merit aid, so I don’t know how that would work.</p>
<p>Ds generally had an opportunity on his apps. One asked: “Is there any other relevant information you think we should know? (300 word limit)” He used that space to explain some transcript oddities. Maybe your son will have an opportunity like that.</p>
<p>My sons HS did not rank or weigh AP/college classes. At my sons request, his HS removed all his college classes from his HS transcript (to show that no college class was used to meet HS graduation requirements). S obtained sealed copies of his college transcript and asked the HS to send them out with the HS transcripts.</p>
<p>DreamMom:</p>
<p>Why did your son not want to use college classes for hs requirements? because he wanted to use those credits for college?</p>
<p>My S <em>needed</em> college classes because he’d taken two APs in 8th grade, one in math, one in science. Also, he did not want to use credits for Advanced Standing. Although the grades were converted to P/F, each of his college instructors sent a letter to his GC stating his grade. I don’t know what happened to those letters–whether they became part of his college application dossier or not. He did have a transcript for those college classes which he was able to take for credit.</p>
<p>Marite - </p>
<p>Many selective colleges do not allow double dipping if a college class is used for HS credit, the class cannot receive college credit. My S did not need his college classes for HS graduation. He wanted to maximize his chances for transfer credits at these colleges. </p>
<p>My son ran out of math classes in middle school and started calculus at State U in 9th grade. We did not want him to graduate HS early (wanted him to develop social skills with same age peers). He is now a freshman in a college which only allowed AP credits for 2 classes. However, he was able to use his transfer credits to fulfill the math requirements on top of that. This gave him greater flexibility in choosing classes. He plans to stay in college for 4 full years. For him, having those extra credits was a good thing.</p>
<p>I am not a fan of high schools discouraging students from doing dual enrollment be it by not waiting the college grades, not ranking students, etc. The student is pushing themselves to take harder classes and should be rewarded for that. </p>
<p>It really depends on the college as to what GPA they consider. My hs only waited our class ranking for honors and AP and did not modify our GPA in any way, so I didn’t have to worry about this issue. AFAIK, none of the colleges I applied to specifically gave more rank to AP courses. I didn’t have the issue of lower grades in college courses, but colleges should realize that the student took harder classes than were required for graduation.</p>
<p>One thing I would remind you is that many colleges will still require a college transcript regardless if the courses are also on the hs transcript. As you probably know, not all colleges will transfer PSEO credit (I’d assume the public schools in your state, MN?, do). This was very important for me when I was picking schools because I had 2+ years of college credit already. I encourage your son to continue with PSEO regardless of the course weighting if he likes his PSEO courses.</p>
<p>Many highly selective colleges are going to use unweighted GPA—not weighted GPA—for admissions purposes anyway, so the weighting of college classes is a non-issue (except perhaps for class rank purposes). I assume the same is true for some merit scholarships. But this probably varies by college.</p>
<p>My D will have 11 college courses under Minnesota’s PSEO program by the time she begins her freshman year at her highly selective LAC in the Fall. We were very clear that we were not looking to transfer any of those credits; we’re just treating those college classes as part of her HS curriculum, and it made for a formidable HS transcript. If she were to enroll in our local public flagship (where she took the PSEO classes), all the credits would count toward her undergrad degree and she’d effectively be entering as a second-semester sophomore. It would save us a bundle of money. But we’re more interesting in her having a traditional 4-year college education, and are willing to bite the bullet on the cost.</p>
<p>DreamMom:</p>
<p>My S did graduate early, but wanted to spend all four years in college (the college classes did not count for credit, but his APs could have gotten him Advanced Standing). Although he did not use (and could not have used) his college classes for credit, he was able to place into more advanced classes and was able to take a number of graduate courses. There was no question of whether the classes had been taken to fulfill graduation requirements.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the “weigh in”. In Ohio, a state bill called “flexible credit” goes into effect August 2010 and all schools have to accept it by the end of this month. This bill
allows HS credit (and no cap on amount of credits) for internships, life knowledge (spanish course credit if you speak if fluently)testing out to show competency how ever gained.
They also must prove that they got info about this new program out to the students and parents.</p>
<p>My school is horrified, as you can image. After all the stunts to discourage kids leaving for college courses through PSEO, not this. I don’t see how they can continue to have class rank with all these opportunities to add to your credits. </p>
<p>It is sad that sending in for large scholarships competitions do not allow for all the explaination about what should be your GPA if weight was applied to college classes.
Let’s face it, some things are just view by stats to initially qualify. Thanks to all.</p>
<p>I believe there is a financial reason for HS to dislike PESO. When a HS student participates in PSEO, the college would bill the state for that student’s college tuition. The state will then take away money from the HS for the same student. The HS has to absorb the loss of funding when its students do PSEO.</p>
<p>When friend’s D graduated from HS, her class valedictorian was a PSEO student who was not around HS much in the junior and senior years. The PSEO student became the val due to weighting of the college classes. Many students in that class felt that someone who was practically gone from HS should not become the val…</p>
<p>^When S graduated from 8th grade, the teachers had to cook up an award for him because he was ineligible for the math award (he was studying BC-Calc on his own) the science award (he was taking AP-Physics at the high school), the Spanish award (he was the top student but had to miss one hour every week to go to the high school); the humanities award (he had to be in two different groups in order to accommodate his going to the high school). He did not care, but the rest of the school thought it was funny that he was not being recognized (his brother, who’d performed well at grade level, cleaned up on the 8th grade awards). Then, of course, he graduated early from high school, so he was not ranked. It did not bother him one whit.</p>