How exactly does UF/FSU/[Any school that uses SSAR] use middle school grades in GPA?

They are both using the SSAR which requires you to report middle school grades taken for high school credit, but it works so differently for each district.

For example:

People from my county have Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 appear on their transcripts AND count towards their high school GPA assuming they took them in middle school/junior high.

However, other people from other districts or counties have different policies and those classes might not be factored into their high school GPA despite having it show up on their high school transcript, and other counties may not even show those classes on your transcript at all. Some districts group them together with 9th grade classes, some districts don’t allow 6th grade classes to be shown, some include Earth Science or Language classes whereas mine doesn’t.

How exactly can UF treat this fairly? Does the SSAR only ask for us to report middle school and junior year just so they can confirm that we’ve taken and passed the class? What about the people who have taken it but just don’t have it shown on their official transcript? Anyone know more details about this?

I’m assuming they have the SSAR automatically calculate the GPA for you since it’s digital rather than have the admissions team manually do it to exclude middle school, so do people who happen to live in districts that display those middle school grades just get a random boost or decrease in GPA depending on whether or not that class was weighted or not?

My guess is that they only want you to report middle school grades so it can efficiently scan it and compare it with your final transcript to make sure everything is there, but I have no idea how any of this works nor do I know why I’m expected to submit those courses in the first place.

The state of Florida sets a standard for course naming conventions and I believe HS transcripts for public schools. Even though each district may have a different method for calculating weighted GPA, the classes should have standard names and standard course #'s (in most cases). Each district can create “unique” classes and define them as being “honor” courses or such, but that’s something of an exception.

Most Florida public HS transcripts will include classes from middle school that Florida’s public universities would use to determine college preparation.

The SSAR is self-reported, you can add the classes (and grades) to your SSAR. They don’t compare it to the actual transcripts, till after you’ve been admitted.

Don’t try to over think it. The middle school classes that are most likely to be included are math (Alg1 and Geo) and foreign languages. It works out to 1 or 2 classes for most students. It really isn’t anything that’s a competitive advantage/disadvantage.

Flagging this post.

Flagging this post?
:-??
Why, for it’s sheer AWESOMENESS? Or perhaps, if you read it backwards it spells out “Paul is dead…Paul is dead…”

@Gator88NE , a bogus poster put an advertisement on this thread.

Thanks, hard to tell once it’s been removed :-S

@Gator88NE Wait, what happened?

Someone posted an advertisement to this thread. It was “flagged” and then removed by a moderator.