<p>The reason that even an A can bring down a GPA that's over 4.0 is because the A is counted as 4 points, not 5 like an AP class. If you average a 4.0 grade into a GPA that's above 4.0 it'll bring it down slightly. However, if your hs automatically includes the jc grades, I wouldn't worry about it too much. It won't bring the GPA down enough to worry about unless your daughter is seriously gunning for valedictorian, and I don't think that many of the private schools look that closely the hs GPA calculation (Stanford says that they recalculate it anyway, and I suspect that other colleges do also). I think that the main thing is for your daughter to find that balance between academics, music, and sleep that will make her senior year a satisfying one, and jc classes might give her more flexibility in her schedule, since they don't meet as often.</p>
<p>My daughter took multiv calc at Cal last fall (as a senior) and was thrilled to get a B- in the class, so it was nice not to have it calculated into her GPA, but I don't think it would have had much impact on her applications even if it had been included. She sent Cal's grade report as a separate attachment to her transcript.</p>