<p>my high school which was a public school did not penalize A’s in college level classes. It really is the battle for rank at the start of freshman year. I wish i caught on sooner but just liked going to school and was not freaking out about college. Freshman year i had the basics, i got switched to honors in english but the rest were level 1, P.E and study hall. At the end of the year i was ranked in the top 10 in my class next to those who had all a’s in honors/AP. I had perfect scores. Then later when taking more honors and Ap’s my rank dropped in the twenties and that’s where i stayed. I think if you excel at the unweighted level it does not give you a big boos to your rank but it definitely helps if your honors classes are b averages</p>
<p>I took advanced science and math courses in Junior High, which calculated into my GPA but were unweighted because I took them in Junior High. This, my four semesters of Theatre, and six semesters of required unweighted courses took my GPA down, even though every academic class was Honors/AP when possible. If I made an A in every course on my transcript, I wouldn’t even rank in the top 15 of the 650 students in my class, whereas someone who didn’t take courses as challenging would end up Valedictorian. Supposedly the district is going to start calculating AP higher than Honors classes, but it’s too late for me. :(</p>
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<p>If that school averages points, it surely did penalize for the reasons given in #99 and my earlier postings in this thread. By “not penalize” you must mean that only one particular form of penalty, such as awarding fewer points for an off-site college class, wasn’t imposed. But the bigger culprit here is the averaging itself, not the details of how the averaging is performed.</p>
<p>@sisrune I am not quite sure what you mean. The weight of the college level class is definitely lower than a weighted class of honors/ap (though AP weighed more) Off site college courses were only allowed in a students senior year and played no affect on the school gpa(in fact it lowered your gpa since it was a counted as a one credit)</p>
<p>No and I find it COMPLETELY unfair!! People like me who challenge themselves and work hard in AP/Honors classes but get low A’s have lower class ranks than people getting straight A’s and A+'s in regular classes. Same with National Honor Society. They don’t look at rigor of courses so I didn’t get accepted while people who underachieve get in 
. Oh well at least the year is almost over.</p>
<p>yes.</p>
<p>in my school, i would have had a 5.0 weighted but i am taking an elective so i have a 4.8333</p>
<p>i have 4.0 unweighted</p>
<p>Ultimately, yes, it does hurt your GPA if you are a top student. However, our school requires one year of health, two years of gym, and a year and a half of “vocational” credit. When I entered high school, this had just been made a requirement, and they explained it to us as “anything that was not a core requirement.”</p>
<p>The catch is that the vocational credit system is not ubiquitous, and as such, certain students end up at a disadvantage in terms of GPA. For example, we were never told that Accounting, which is a vocational credit, gives the same amount of credit to a transcript as an AP course - even though it isn’t even Honors Level! </p>
<p>At the same time, other electives don’t count as the necesary credit. For example, my freshman year I took a half year of journalism and a half-year of astronomy, two classes I loved; sophomore year, I took a half-year of creative writing. Both years my guidence counselor conveniently forgot to tell me that these electives somehow don’t count as “vocational” - even though all other forms of music, theatre, business, accounting, art, photography, and even computer electives do. For some reason, English electives don’t count towards vocational or English credits, which I still don’t understand. </p>
<p>When it came time to choose my schedule junior year, my GC told me I had to take a vocational credit, or I could not be allowed to graduate with my class. I was angry and I felt like I had been cheated - all of my friends had taken baking, the easy class; one boy who hoped to be valedictorian figured out the accounting trick and took that. I had to take a year of studio art so I could graduate. Of course, I loved the class; I’m not sorry I took it at all and I made some wonderful friends there. But because I HAD to take that class, I couldn’t take AP Bio, the class I’d really wanted to take. Instead they stuck me and one other junior in a freshman Honors Bio class (note: in our school, advanced math students take Honors Physics freshman year and are expected to take AP Bio junior year, skipping Honors Bio) - which was easy, but full of frustrating busy work and an incompetent teacher.</p>
<p>To conclude this long and rambling post, I think our school’s system works so that you can take an elective without being punished, but it isn’t specific enough - I know a lot of students who were caught in my situation. I don’t think I’d be valedictorian without taking the classes I wanted to take, and I don’t regret taking any of them - it was great to explore possible disciplines for college. But I’m annoyed at the incompetence of my GC, and I know I’m not the only one who was frustrated.</p>
<p>There is one girl this year who has taken the most APs (one more than me), and received an A+ in all of them (which is truly impressive). She also has a perfect SAT score, an acceptance to Yale, and an impressive array of extracurriculars. However, she was beaten out for position of valedictorian by the boy who took one less AP than her - but took accounting and got an A+ in gym where she got an A (because for some reason, some gym teachers refuse to give out anything higher than an A, while others don’t). If it weren’t for the system we have (the girl was effectively at a disadvantage because of gym and the elective), I have no doubt that she would be valedictorian and I would be salutorian. I’m not sorry about my position - I think I’ve done really well - but I do feel bad for the girl, who is a really hard worker and, in my opinion, honestly deserved the recognition. Oh well.</p>
<p>Yes, my school does this. In other words, although I wanted to “fill up” my schedule senior year, my GPA was brought down b/c I only had electives to “fill them up” with.</p>
<p>My kid’s schoold does penalize Students With A’s in Non-Weighted Classesize. My 10th grade d got straight A for 7 courses. Due to the Marching band is not honor course, her rank drop from 1 to 7. She wants to continuing taking marching band…, not sure should we just not taking the marching band credit (which will not show on the transcript, pass and fail is not an option) or just keep the credit and forget about the class rank, so the college can see from her transcript that she does have the passion for music? Her dream schoo is Yale. Please help. Any feedback is appreicated.</p>
<p>Everybody - keep in mind that schools don’t just see “RANK: X” . They see a lot more information. They also know that different schools rank differently. They also know that some students will game the system. Admissions folks don’t live in a vacuum - they are living, breathing human who can figure out that a small set of numbers rarely tells the whole story.
schinagus - have your daughter do what she loves!</p>
<p>Yep, I don’t know many schools who don’t penalize. At my school, for instance, an A in an AP or IB means a 5.0 GPA for the class; an A in any other class is a 4.0. That’s why I didn’t take choir this year–to raise my rank from 7 to 1. I’m now facing the dilemma of whether to attend choir next year, since I’m unsure how many students have tied with me. It would be one of the top 3 mixed HS choirs in my state, if not the best one, so it would look good as an extracurricular…but at the same time, I’d hate to wind up as salutatorian. Or #3…or who knows what rank. =P</p>
<p>My school does something a little different. We do not count non-academic classes (art, gym, etc) in the “class rank” GPA. So if you got an F in gym you could still have a perfect class rank GPA. </p>
<p>Also if two kids had straight A’s and took the same number of AP classes (which are weighted a point higher), but Kid A took band for 4 credits (none of which are calculated), while Kid B took 4 science credits, Kid A would have a higher rank.</p>
<p>Guys, colleges understand that ranking systems vary across schools. If you need to take one easy elective to maintain straight A’s, DO IT. Seriously. Extra points if it correlates to your extracurricular interests. </p>
<p>If you are one of the smartest kids in your class (assuming you’re not one of those lazy geniuses), you will rise to the top rank-wise. Even if you’re not at the tippy-top because of a silly ranking system, you will still look impressive to colleges. Moral of the story: Unless you’re really into math, don’t take Stats as an elective. Don’t be a prestige whore.</p>
<p>I’m beginning to hate the ranking system, although I’m third. I really really realllllly think it’s pointless. It makes kids competitive, and most of the time there are so much damn cheating and whatnot going on that there is a grade inflation, and a majority of the kids don’t deserve their grades.</p>
<p>Yes, our school penalizes for regular classes, so a lot of really intelligent kids that are in debate are knocked out off top ranks, and there were several instances where one would’ve been valedictorian if he/she hadn’t been in debate. I wish it was pass-fail, but it’s not. Really the whole system isn’t fair…</p>
<p>Schinagus (and others with students who take fine arts classes), My daughter faced a similar situation with Chamber Ensemble. During her 9th grade year, she proposed that an honors track be offered within the Chamber Ensemble class; as a result, students can now take Chamber Ensemble for regular or honors credit. To earn honors credit, a student must do extra work each quarter, such as taking private lessons or composing a piece of music.</p>
<p>Well there is a graduation plan for my school with the classes required. Note that some of the classes (health/speech and others) only come in regular, some come in pre-ap and some come in ap. The pre-ap and ap give a +10 weighted points. There are people that take classes over the summer like PE that can only be taken as regular so that it doesn’t bring down their gpa which I find unfair…</p>
<p>Rankings at my school screwed me over. I have a 4.12, ranked 11th, while all the people above me have 4.13-4.2. They however, are all stat hogs and try to be #1. I’m disappointed in 11, but it’s not the end of the world.</p>
<p>When we got our new transcripts to check them before MYR were sent out, I discovered that I was 13th and that the guy ranked 12th has a lower UW GPA than I do. I was v. upset.</p>
<p>My school does this. Opting to take non-honors courses pass/fail is a good idea. I think a more reasonable compromise would be to offer courses with no honors/AP equivalent as pass/fail. This way, they don’t bring down students’ GPA. Students who are truly interested in such “regular” courses should be able to take them without having to worry about lowering their GPA.</p>
<p>Of course, classes with a weighted equivalent should be considered in GPA, so that the students who challenge themselves by taking the harder course are rewarded with a better GPA.</p>
<p>My senior D has a 4.0 unweighted and has always been either #17 or #22 out of about 350 because of this issue. </p>
<p>She has taken the maximum number of IB classes offered, and has as many weighted classes as the kids with higher weighted GPA’s.</p>
<p>But here’s the wrinkle: I didn’t realize that kids in her school don’t have to fill their schedule, so the savvy kids keep an open period and just take weighted classes. </p>
<p>Someone called this problem annoying. Burnt toast is annoying. This situation has dropped my D from the top 5% of her class, thanks to her love of learning, and in one case, willingness to enroll in a class to help out a new teacher. </p>
<p>I cannot tell you how p**sed off I am. I feel deceived and taken by (evidently) smarter kids/parents who know how to game the system.</p>