My child got GPA 4.00 for college Chem and Eng Composition at our community college. When I use the GPA for the high school transcript, should I say “weighted” or unweighted"? When they self-study for AP exams, do I assign the GPA based on the AP scores? Or just leave the GPA blank and report the scores? Thank you!
There are all sorts of answers for this pending who you ask. For myself I chose to keep things easy and just put down the grades unweighted and let admissions draw conclusions for themselves. My two homeschooled high schoolers had As in everything (at home, CC, and AP 5s) so it was an unweighted 4.0. I saw no need to try to go higher. Even if they had gotten a 4 or B in something I’d have probably done the same and just factored in a 3.0 for that grade. I like easy.
FWIW, I never went through the process of having our courses designated as AP so I couldn’t call them that. It’s an easy get around by just saying “Psychology with AP score = 5.” You can’t call it AP Psych without approval from College Board. You can list test scores. You don’t need the official designation to take the test.
For their CC classes they also provided an official transcript from the CC to the schools as well as having the courses listed on their transcript.
Not all schools give credit for these courses. We didn’t care TBH. Some folks do. The school my one lad chose that didn’t give credit for CC also had far more in depth courses than his CC had so I fully understand why they didn’t. Supposedly some CCs are just as rigorous, but since the schools have no idea which ones are and aren’t, it can be easier for them just to not give credit. If they lose some applicants over it, I doubt they care. As always, fit the application choices to what matters to the individual.
I don’t weigh my kids’ gpas. I state that on the transcript.
We dont approach education like traditional schools, so APs and DE arent focused objectives. Our kids use the freedom of homeschooling to study subjects they want at a level that fits their needs/goals. So they have unusual courses on their transcripts.
I give grades based on their work. I am their primary teacher (therefore grade assigner) for most subjects. I have graduated 5 kids and our 6th is a sr (so already applied to college). I include course descriptions and a school profile with their transcripts. Their transcripts have never been questioned and they have been selected for very competitive scholarships.
I agree with the above. We didn’t weight our kids grades and said so on the transcript and school profile.
At our high school, a college GPA of 4.0 translated to a 96 on the high school transcript.
Honors courses were weighted 1.1
AP and college courses were weighted 1.2
If she is applying to instate colleges, you might ask your local public high school for their policy.
Most likely the unweighted GPA is what matters to the college admissions office. Since every school has different policies about this.
Weighting came into play for class rank only at my kids’ school.
At our school an A from a dual enrollment class counts the same as an A in a AP class for high school GPA. Numerically an A is listed as a 97 I think.
Anything self studied is not listed on the high school transcript, gets a credit, grade or is part of he gpa here because only classes get those. AP scores are not listed on the high school transcript either. It is a student’s responsibility to have the scores sent directly to the colleges they wish to share them with.
What happens with a ps transcript is not the same as with a homeschool transcript. Courses that are self-studied at home definitely go on the transcript.
In terms of weight, most U’s reweigh GPAs according to their own formula. What is printed on the transcript is rarely the GPA that the U uses.
Thank you so much for your inputs.
I am using this table ( from a private High school resource and I checked with some other high schools) : 97%-100%: A+ (GPA 4.00); 93%-96%: A (3.75); 90%-92%: A- (3.50); 87%-89%: B+ (3.25); 83%-86%: B (3.00). What do you think about this system?
I use A,B,C … to grade. I plan not to grade my kids in self study classes for AP exams (E.g. AP Cal BC and AP English) until I see their AP scores. I also use the GPA from CC classes( with official transcripts) and the standardized test scores (ACT/SAT, SAT II, APs) in their high school transcript. I also include the course description in the Transcript for any self-study courses. I also prefer something simple and clear so I do not like to say “weighted” or “unweighted” but let the colleges make their own judgement. Some college required me to state W or UW when I sent the Transcript ( for a summer seminar) so I thought I had to. I do not recall they have a N/A option.
UW is clear. Weighting is what complicates GPAs bc there is no clear system. Just state UW and Us will understand exactly.
So are your kids only going to take courses from outsourced providers and courses with AP/subject type tests? You aren’t going to provide any grades yourself?
FWIW, take this perspective as simply one homeschooler’s experience (lots of paths out there) but using homeschooling to stand out as different is not a bad thing. Piling on the APs and DE courses is just more of the same ol’ same ol’ that the vast majority of other advanced kids submitting applications do. Using homeschooling to their advantage to really demonstrate internal motivation, self-education to a high level, taking interests and forging opportunities----that is not the norm. (I have had kids teach themselves astronomy, French to pretty high level of fluency (read novels like Les Mis in French and could watch movies/flash news, etc with 90%+ comprehension), multiple programming languages, etc. All of those have gone on their transcripts.)
If they take online AP classes (that we have to pay for), they will have some tests during the class by the provider, I assume so (since they haven’t taken one yet). Then I will use the test results to report in the Transcripts. For the self-study (no one pays me, laughing) for AP exams, using books with my guidance, practice problems with my checking (right and wrong and correction)(E.g. they are self studying for AP Cal BC, AP English, AP Bio next year), I will wait until I get their AP exam scores to include in the Transcripts. I hesitate to grade them because I do not want anyone think that I am biased so I depend heavily on the standardized, national tests and CC. Since my children do not choose history/geography as their major, I am thinking of grading them according to my testing system. I do give them grades for various math classes conducted at home by me (based on the table I adopted from other private/public high schools). It is consistent with their results when they take standardized/national tests so I hope colleges will not think I am out of line in grading my own children. Sounds like you have raised your HS kids successfully. I admire you. I find one of the things our home-schooled kids have disadvantage is lack of academic recommendations if they do most of their rigorous subjects at home. So I have to send them to CC classes but still I am not sure how colleges consider the recommendations from professors who only teach them for one semester class (which is counted for a full year of high school). Do you have any experiences/advice? Thanks.
There is no difference between a CC prof and a HS teacher as far as recommendations go. Most high school teachers only see the students for a semester (or year for schools not on a block system). We had CC profs write our homeschoolers recommendations.
I wouldn’t use 3.75 for an A grade. I’ve never heard of a school doing that TBH. For the public school I work at an A is 4.0 and it correlates to a 94-100. We don’t do A+.
I tried to match the most basic system when assigning grades and stated so in one of the guidelines I wrote about it. I assumed the more work an admissions counselor had to do the less interested they would be.
In general, scores will stand for themselves and are only “a” bar one needs for admission and/or scholarships. It’s everything else about a student that stands out getting them that admission or scholarship. Who are they? What else can they do besides study and get good test scores?
Since one of my lads was a little less traditional I talked with admissions at colleges he was interested in a year or two ahead of time to be sure he wasn’t hurting his chances. I was told that as long as he had “some” outside collaboration of his ability that was fine. They knew a student with a high ACT and a couple of 5s on AP + As in DE was perfectly capable of doing it over and over again. He didn’t have to keep proving himself. It was ok to stray into his loves.
Apparently other schools felt the same way upon seeing his application as he was accepted to all but one school (waitlisted there - a lottery school) and went to a really nice place with a good scholarship. He was also well prepared as he graduated from there Summa Cum Laude and is currently also doing really well in med school. All this and he only had 2 AP + 2 DE and a very high ACT score. The rest was all home taught - actually - he self studied the APs as well. We didn’t pay for outside courses. His ECs and more details about who “he” was via his studies and life filled in the rest. Chances are his interviews didn’t hurt either.
It wasn’t necessary to try to be a typical top student. They wanted a capable interesting one. I think that’s the same for students from public schools too. Show what you can do for the basic bar, but then be interesting. It worked for my youngest who went to public school for high school.
I think I should make it simple to just A,B … and no “+” or “-”. Thanks for the advice.
One other tidbit of advice I heard a lot from admissions about homeschoolers is they wanted to see socialization demonstrated via ECs. I’ll admit it miffed me at the time because “of course!!!” my lads were socialized via community clubs, youth groups, our travels/wanderings, etc. I felt it was a really nasty stereotype.
Then my oldest went to a college with a fair number of homeschoolers. I asked him his thoughts (in general) - if there were pros/cons I should send to other homeschoolers, etc. His words? “Well, mom, to be honest, not many of the homeschoolers are well socialized.”
At the higher level school my other homeschooled lad attended I made a point of thanking the Dean of Admissions at Accepted Students Day for considering a homeschooler. His words? “We love homeschoolers. They are some of our best students, but only if they’ve been active outside the home. If not, they don’t do so well. You’re obviously doing a great job and your son should do well.” That lad definitely did. (So did my other lad, but “award” wise not as high. “Life” wise, just fine.)
I suspect homeschoolers need a strong EC section of their apps if wanting higher level schools.
I just found this grade table on College Board site.
https://pages.collegeboard.org/how-to-convert-gpa-4.0-scale
This tends to deflate GPA compared to typical US high school GPA calculations. In cases where +/- is ignored, all A+/A/A- = 4.0. Where +/- is used, the base grade is x.0 (so A = 4.0) while +/- adds or subtracts 0.3 or 0.33 (but A+ is often 4.0, not 4.3 or 4.33).
Regarding weighting, it may not be worth the trouble unless the target colleges are state universities in a state with standardized weighted high school GPA recalculation (e.g. CA or SC). In this case, you may want to match the weighting to that system.
Another possible reason to use weighting is if there are target colleges or scholarships that take weighted GPA at face value from the high school transcript instead of recalculating for comparison to a threshold.
Thanks for your good inputs. I am very new to this and grateful to be educated by you who have been through this before. Yes, we have balanced our ECs with few solid activities they have participated since elementary age, really enjoyed and excelled. Although our kids plan to go to college, we do not do things just for the sake of “looking good for the college application”. I like what an admission officer at MIT once advised the applicants to enjoy what you learn and be good at what you are interested in so even if you are not admitted to MIT, you still do very well anywhere else you go.
A perspective:
My daughter moved schools after her sophomore year. The first high school was the US News #1 STEM public magnet school with a 0-100 grading system. We moved internationally for work, so the second was a German International School with an IB program that has a 1-7 grading system. We never knew what her 4.0 scale GPA was. Colleges admitted her anyway and gave her merit scholarships. The only glitch we had was our State Public U that had an automated system for scholarships based on self-reported data. An email to admissions cleared that up and she was also awarded merit.
My point is, don’t worry about it, the colleges figure it out.
I would just write the names of the courses, the number of credits, and the grades she earned. Colleges will decide how to use them.
I think it’s easy to overthink these things. Just put down the grade the college gave.
I seriously considered homeschooling for years, but I was never planning on giving grades at all. Outside institutions were welcome to give grades, but I think it’s pretty hard for a parent to do an assessment, especially for things like essays or research papers, where you don’t have the experience to know what kids that age should be capable of. When my kid was using EPGY for math, he took plenty of quizzes, but I don’t believe they gave him a grade when he completed a course. It was a long time ago however.
I’m pretty leery of using GPA as anything more than a very general guide about where a kid should end up. Our high school had a very screwy system for weighting grades, and the weighted grades only appeared on the transcipt as an overall GPA and for ranking, but you could see my kids consistently got 88’s or 89’s in Honors English, not that via their weighting system that should be a 93.45. Colleges seem to be able to figure these things out and their admissions officers aren’t comparing homeschooled kids to regular school kids in terms of things like GPAs. Getting good grades at the local college though is a very good check that the student is competent.