High School GPA - when are you informed of your child's GPA

Parents Forum
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<p>This is my 1st thread so please be gentle with me! I tried searching for something about this but couldn't find anything. If I missed it, please point me in the right direction.</p>

<p>I'm sitting on a committee in my school district that is looking at re-doing report cards for middle and high school students. As a parent rep, I would like to see the GPA on report cards - each quarter or at least mid-term and at the end of each year. </p>

<p>Currently unless you specifically ask your child's guidance counselor for the information, you are not notified about what your child's GPA is until after junior year. Report cards simply show the quarter grade, midterm exam grade, and final exam grades. They also don't indicate how things are weighted (ie. many classes 1st & 2nd quarters are each worth 15% of grade and midterm 10% of grade, 3rd and 4th quarters are worth 20% and final exam 20% but other classes weight differently).</p>

<p>This year's senior class never officially got notified about their GPA until the first week of August - well into the college search process. </p>

<p>As DS2 is a senior and I learned this through DS1, I kept a spreadsheet of his grades through high school so I had what I thought was his GPA. It ends up they changed how they calculated grades (rounding up/down vs using exact grade) after his sophomore year but parents weren't generally notified about this. So, my estimated GPA was off by .35 (lower, unfortunately).</p>

<p>My thoughts are that showing the GPA (cumulative and/or current year-to-date) on every report card would help parents target colleges more effectively during the college search. Also, it would help students get more feedback and show the effects of a bad or good quarter to GPA.</p>

<p>The school reps on the committee don't seem to like this idea as until the grades are final, it wouldn't be an official GPA. They also say the system they use for reporting doesn't do this easily. I say, just note that it's an unofficial cumulative GPA but give the parents/students the information.</p>

<p>Do other high schools' report cards show their GPAs? Is this an unreasonable request? </p>

<p>Believe me, I'm not an all about the GPA parent or good grades. We told our kids we wanted B or above but never pressured them to get straight A's. I just really think this would be helpful to all parents and students for the reasons stated above. Thanks for your input.</p>

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<p>I always have to email my kids’ GC and ask for GPA and class rank when it’s application time. The information is not on the report card. Ever.</p>

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<p>Our kids don’t get their GPAs until September of senior year. I think it’s ridiculous. By some mistake they had them printed on their final reports cards the end of freshman year. At the end of sophomore year it wasn’t so I called and they gave me the song and dance about September of senior year. I pushed until they looked it up and told me what it was. I’m not asking for class ranking, I’m asking for my child’s GPA. I don’t see the problem.</p>

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<p>We get a full transcript in the fall and again in the spring. The transcript has all classes taken each year with the grade. It also has the decile and gpa.</p>

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<p>GPAs at our school were not computed until end of sophomore year. They were easily available to any student who asked. I’m not sure I see the necessity of having these on the report card. All it would do is delay the issue of report cards while the GPA including those grades was computed. Report cards are issued here four times a year. What would be the point of recomputing GPA that many times? Parents GET report cards in high school. Targeting schools prior to the sophomore year could just be based on grades you see. So much can change with upper level courses, and the like after that.</p>

<p>Why do you feel these should be on the report card? Can’t you request a current transcript from your high school that would have this? Everyone should do that annually to make sure the transcript is accurate.</p>

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<p>It’s not on their report cards but we can see it in naviance.</p>

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<p>We have password-coded access to a computer system that informs us of our children’s grades, GPA, class rank, and absences. Our school does not officially compute GPAs and class rank until after the first semester of the sophomore year. I think the reason for this is because until that point so many students have the same grades in the same courses. The school ends up with lots of students tied for the top five spots after only one or two semesters, so GPA and class rank are not very relevant at that time. It is not until students start to differentiate themselves academically through honors and AP courses that parents can get a clearer idea of whether their children are in the top 1%/10%/30%/etc.</p>

<p>After that point, our school computes GPA at the end of each semester. (Our courses are semester-long, not year-long.) I believe that’s sufficient. It gives a child who has a rough first half of a course time to pull that grade up before the end of the semester without seeing that low grade reflected in his/her GPA and getting too discouraged.</p>

<p>Fortunately, that is early enough in the process that students have plenty of time to think about college.</p>

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<p>Our school district ( and most around here) has contracted with Zangle for at least 6 years now. Zangle is an on-line data base which allows students and parents to access a variety of information at any time: attendance, tardies, credits completed including a check-off list of those needed to graduate, current individual class scores on assignments and tests, transcripts, and GPA calculated in several ways. I thought that most school districts used similar devices now, but maybe that is not the case. It is a wonderful tool for parents and would have been so useful when my oldest was in high school in order to check his progress, as he was our challenge. Fortunately our youngest is much more on the ball and I don’t need to check his assignments. </p>

<p>Our school also printed out an official transcript for each senior at the beginning of the year for them to use in college apps. This was automatic and waiting in the office for them. This made it easier on the office so they didn’t have to handle individual requests. Students at any level can request an official transcript at any time also</p>

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<p>It has always been on the bottom of the report card, at two different high schools. One weights for honors and AP and the other doesn’t. There is also a GPA calculator on the school website where kids can punch in projected future grades to see how bringing up their grades (or the reverse) will affect their GPA by senior year.</p>

<p>One of the schools does not rank, and only has one valedictorian and one salutatorian. The one that weights grades does rank and has 20 or so of each.</p>

<p>Especially if the school has one of the more elaborate weighting schemes, it seems strange not to have the GPA on the report card.</p>

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<p>We receive a transcript with GPA and rank twice a year, separate from the report cards, beginning in spring of Freshman year. With my first child, I was actually surprised and a bit alarmed that they released rank so early in their high school career, but it was been a useful tool with my second to help motivate him. Note that we live in a state where class rank determines auto admit for the top state schools so it is very much a focus here.</p>

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<p>It’s not on report cards here - but is updated on the students online account after each semester starting Freshman year.</p>

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<p>Both the high school and 7/8th grade school show the cumulative at the end of each year.</p>

<p>The high school semester report cards also have a cumulative GPA on it. The rank even shows which is silly for freshman but I don’t know if counselors know how to take it off if the report generates from Power School. </p>

<p>Also, on the day they picked up their junior schedules, they got their complete transcript so they could check it over for errors. It was helpful to see what information is shared. S14 has been carefully watching his class rank which is listed on report cards.</p>

<p>If a school makes big changes with grading scale, I think it should be grandfathered in. The class of 2014 was the first class to go to - and + count in the grading scale. It didn’t change for the upper classmen but nexy year the whole high school will now be on that scale.</p>

<p>I would say beginning of junior year is the time to know unless you are appling for competitive programs during the previous summers. Then you would need to ask the gc for the information.</p>

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<p>Editing to add…our high school students and parents can also see the GPA once it’s been computed using their online student portal. No need to have it printed on the report card.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the feedback. I truly appreciate it. </p>

<p>I do think it would be helpful to have this information. It seems silly to me to have every family request annual copies of the transcripts when the information could be given out on a regular basis via report card or an automatic annual transcript. </p>

<p>I have also asked that they at least input the information to Naviance at the end of each year instead of only at the start of senior year. I agree that the end of sophomore year is when you really start the college process but since we have the tools, why not use it starting right from the end of freshman year? </p>

<p>Our school doesn’t rank (and I’m glad about that) and we don’t weight grades either.</p>

<p>Thanks again for your time and input.</p>

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<p>Seattle mom, can’t you see grades on the Source?
That was also a place to check if assignments had been turned in or to get another copy of a syllabus.
[url=&lt;a href=“http://www.salmonbayschool.org/middleschool/source]The”&gt;http://www.salmonbayschool.org/middleschool/source]The</a> Source Explained | Salmon Bay School<a href=“similar%20to%20zangle”>/url</a></p>

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<p>Here the quarter GPA is listed on each quarter report card, the cumulative is on the last one each year. It surprises me some kids wouldn’t know their GPA. I know how it is calculated, and I have checked it and informed the school when it was wrong one time (they messed up the weighting of some new classes). Now that our information is online, I can see the report cards for the current year and the transcript up to the end of last year. We no longer receive a printed report card! No ranks are provided, students have to go to guidance to request their rank.</p>

<p>If they don’t weight grades I would think it would be easy to calculate. Here I add up the points and divide by the # of credits, with an A in college prep classes as 4 points, in honors class as 4.5, and in AP is 5 points. I know some schools are more complicated, but the formula shouldn’t be a secret from the parents and kids!</p>

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<p>Neither of my kids schools weighted grades & only one school ranked.
However many kids were accepted into all their schools, including my own, even if they weren’t in the top ten%. Colleges use other info in addition to numbers.</p>

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<p>D graduated from HS 1-1/2 years ago. At that time, GPA was not on report cards. D was the type (a perfectionist) to always calculate it herself.</p>

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<p>We don’t recieve report cards anymore - everything is online in powerschool but GPA and class rank are reported at the end of the year (June) starting with the freshman year. While many students will not be thinking about college until the end of the Junior year there are some (myself included) who started to look during my sophmore year, so please push to get it included at the end of the freshman year.</p>

<p>Also, I think reporting both weighted and unweighted is nice. Our school only reports weighted. Of course, there is almost no weighting in our school - 0.01 for Honors and 0.1 for AP classes.</p>

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<p>In older child’s HS, I just requested an unofficial transcript to see her GPA and class rank. I also made sure to check the transcript for errors while I was at it. I never found any,but it’s not unheard of.</p>

<p>My younger child’s school does not rank, but the GPA shows up on an account that I can access on line (similar to what others have mentioned).</p>

<p>Neither school ever had GPA on report cards.</p>