My daughter took a year of foreign language and a year of Algebra 1 in middle school. These are part of her a-g requirements.
The UC application specifically has a section to put courses taken in middle school, but we can’t find that on the CSU application. There doesn’t seem to be any place at all on the CSU app to put in HS level courses taken in middle school. All my daughter can do is enter her middle school as a ‘high school’ and say that these courses were taken in 9th grade, albeit in a different year. Is that the right way to do it, or is there something we are missing?
@Mom2Engineers, that was the case last year when my son applied. He was able to enter grades fro Algebra 1, Spanish 1, and a Science class that he took in 8th grade. Our school district included them on the official transcript and they were A-G classes. It’s a pretty common practice in our district because half of the high schools are located on the same campus as their feeder middle school. It’s also an efficient way of fast-tracking kids through their A-G requirements and freeing them up for AP classes later on. I believe it was a big factor in my son’s acceptance to Cal Poly because he had a long list of “rigorous” classes.
I wonder why it’s necessary to enter middle school grades unless the kids took the classes at a high school/college during middle school. If a kid took to Algebra 2 or Spanish 2 in HS from during 9-12 grades, is it necessary for them to enter Algebra 1 or Spanish 1 taken in middle school?
@coolweather, I had a similar question regarding the inclusion of the classes on the transcript. What I was told by counselors is that it improves the overall number of rigorous classes. It doesn’t usually improve the GPA that much since the weighted points are capped at 8 semesters and I think those MUST be from grades 10-11 (I’m not 100% positive on that).
Take Spanish as an example. My son took S1 in 8th grade, S2 in 9th, and S3 in 10th. If he leaves off the 8th grade year, then he only has two years of a World Language, which is not at all competitive for the most impacted CSU’s like Cal Poly.
@coolweather If my daughter doesn’t include those courses, she doesn’t meet her language requirement and misses out on showing one math course (which would give her extra points in the Cal Poly SLO MCA calculation). So yes, they need to be recorded on the application somewhere.
@AMCdad Yes, my daughter’s high school does include these courses on the transcript, with an indicator that they were taken in middle school. It just seems odd to list them as 9th grade courses on the application. Still, right now that seems like the only option. Thanks for relating your son’s experience.
7th and 8th Grade Coursework
If you took Algebra 1, Geometry, or a Language Other Than English (LOTE) in the 7th or 8th grade, report your course(s) and grade(s) earned as 9th grade.
My son took the additional step of adding his Middle School to the list of High Schools, and added his HS level courses taken in MS that way, so it was clear these courses were taken in MS. The on-line help desk said that would be a good way to do it. His HS does not include those a-g courses on his HS transcript, so that’s the way to make it count.
Note that at least for CalPoly SLO it is very important to list Alg I and Geometry courses if they were taking in 7th and 8th because of the way they compute extra course rigor points for math in the MCA score. It can be the difference between admission and rejection.
@Ynotgo I completely agree, and my daughter has exactly this problem. It’s difficult enough including the freshman HS grades in the GPA for SLO, but now the middle school grades come into it as well? But we looked at it as having that difference made up by the extra rigor points for having taken 5 years of math. Yes, it’s a bit of a disappointment, but everyone who took extra math and foreign language will be going through the same thing.
I’m asking this question here, as the topic was touched on in the info posted from Cal Apply by Mom2Engineer above.
My son has straight A’s through 11 grade and took Span 1 equivalent at CC and took Spanish 2 in high school. He got a B in the CC From the reading of the Cal Apply, he should be covered for his 2 years of foreign language based on grade C or better in Span 2. •Satisfactory completion of a second year of LOTE (Language Other Than English) will validate the first year. We would enter the CC class with the B but not tied to A-G, so it wouldn’t impact his eligibility index. He has more then 8 semesters of Honor/AP, so he gets not bump of the college class and it would drop his EI by about 80 points. He wants to apply for Comp Sci at San Jose and he is right around last year’s cut off for out of area freshman. I’ve gotten conflicting info from admissions at SJ State and another CSU about this. Which way would you go?
each CSU calculates the EI themselves. SJ is one of a couple of the CSUs that uses a different eligibility index for some STEM majors (though the variation is around test scores,) it could be why you are getting different answers from different campuses. It seems like the CC Spanish class would fit in the G bucket. in calculating the GPA,they just use the grades from a-g classes taken during 10th and 11th grades. So, middle school and freshman classes are included in the ‘checking of the a-g boxes’ but not the GPA.