High school classes taken before 9th grade

My S took several high school classes during middle school so they now show up on his high school transcript (his school runs 6-12th grade). Do the top tier schools take middle school grades into account? I believe my sons school averages those classes into his GPA. Thank you for any insight!

No, I don’t think so. It shows the kids have prerequisite for admissions. But should included in GPA calculation.
You don’t expect the college include students’ AP course or dual program credit in their college’s transcript GPA, right?

My son’s school includes middle school courses in the HS gpa (and these are not courses he is using for prerequisites–Algebra, Geom, Spanish 1, 2, 3-- because he is taking 4 years of math in HS and 3 years of Spanish in HS. All of these courses are unweighted, so they can “bring down” the wgpa, but colleges look at rigor of course load so taking those classes probably helped with rigor in HS. California schools look at 10th and 11th grade courses. Some schools probably recompute gpa without these middle school courses.

The middle school classes he took (Algebra, geometry, Alegebra II, and a few computer classes) are on his transcripts . He received A’s except for Geometry in which he got a B+. First three years of high school are all A’s with progressively more A+s. This past junior year he got all A+s. He is trying for the top their schools so I wasn’t sure if they would just ignore middle school or what.

A middle school B+ is not going to be something preventing him from getting accepted into even the best college.

You are probably right! Just never know with these crazy admissions :-j I hoping the upward trend is a positive.

Our HS averages HS classes taken in middle school into the GPA and includes the classes on the transcript. This is made clear to students and parents of students taking these classes. I doubt that there is one standard way of looking at these classes that every single top tier college uses but I’m sure it is recognized everywhere that these were advanced (for the age) classes taken when the student was young.

One B+ in a geometry class taken in middle school will not be the reason he doesn’t get into any particular college – especially with the many high grades in more advanced levels of math.

Ours are on the transcript but not averaged into the GPA

My courses were listed on the transcript, but the grades were not, and therefore, not part of the GPA calculation. There is no consistent method to how a HS does it.

That said, my feelings is that even when the grades are on the transcript and factored into a GPA, colleges will put little to no weight on them. They are evaluating the application of a ~ 17 year-old kid, who in most cases, has grown exponentially (physically/emotionally, etc) from his/her 12 year-old self.

I would not spend any time worrying about it.

Ours are on the transcript and averaged into the GPA. My daughter has several B+ from 8th grade. I have spoken with admissions officers from two different colleges and both assured me that they don’t look at 8th grade. I have no idea whether this is true at other places. In any case, it is what it is.

The thing is that there is no point in worrying about it because it can’t be changed. And if a hypothetical college put that much emphasis on middle school grades, why would you want your son or daughter to pay money to go there? I think it would make me respect the college much less if they said “well, this student had a 3.9+ for high school but only got a B (or 2) back in middle school. No school for them!”

I mean, is that something any of us really want for our kids? Don’t we want them to take risks and even stumble early in their education, when they have the support and can learn more from those mistakes? If a college wants perfect robots, wouldn’t that be a miserable place to send them for 4 years?

@mom2twogirls

I think all of high school should be a place where kids can take risks and stumble and learn how to recover from mistakes and failure. Its one of the many reasons I’m glad there are so many different kinds of colleges!