I don’t know if it really makes a difference, but I don’t want to do anything that will be confusing for AOs.
This is really two questions:
(1) For S24’s freshman and sophomore years all of his classes from outside providers gave grades as both a percentage and a letter grade. I had originally set up his transcript to just report the percentage for each class because I felt like it gave more information. However, his junior year he had 2/4 providers that only provided letter grades (not percentages), and senior year he will only get letter grades.
I can
- continue to report percentages for the classes that provide them, and report letter grades for the classes that only provide that
- starting with junior year report all grades as letters rather than percentages, since all his providers do provide a letter grade
- change the transcript I have written up (very easy to do) to replace all percentage grades from freshman year on with letter grades, since all providers did provided letter grades too
(2) Freshman and sophomore year all providers only provided one final grade for each class. Junior year all of his providers of year-long classes gave both semester grades and final grades. His letter grades were the same in both semesters for all but one class (percentages slightly different each semester for the classes that reported them). For AP Physics he had an A first semester & a B second semester, for an overall B. (No percentages given so not sure how that worked, maybe more points in second semester?)
I’m leaning toward just reporting the overall B for the class to keep the transcript simpler. Does that seem fine? (It makes his GPA 3/100 lower than reporting semester grades but that doesn’t seem like it would make much difference.)
I homeschooled my oldest one year of high school so I did a mixed transcript. We did one semester of community college and one semester of at home homeschooling.
I did all 3 for my homeschool grades – percentage out of 100, letter grade, and 4.0 scale so it was in a column that looked like
Final grade:
93/A/4.0
90/A-/3.7
84/B/3.0
etc
For the community college classes I included just the letter grade because that’s how they reported it and also the college semester hours (1.0 or 3.0) and the high school credit hours (1.0).
At the bottom I put the 4.0 grading scale. (A+ = 97-100 = 4.0; A = 93-96 = 4.0; A- = 90-92 = 3.7; B+ = 87-89 = 3.3, etc)
What kind of provider did he take classes with? If it’s a Community College they will have their own transcripts. If it’s a homeschool specific class I would definitely make that A first semester and B second semester be a 3.5. That could really matter.
Oh, wanted to add that the transcript from the years that my kid was in public charter high school was percentages for each class, but also an overall GPA on the 4.0 scale.
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For my previous two graduates I only ever gave final grades that were simply letter grades, no +/-, but neither applied to super competitive schools. For my current senior I’m doing the +/- and adjusting the GPA like @Sweetgum. But as in the past, I’m only doing final grades. From what I have seen and based on a little seminar I took several years ago, most traditional schools only assign final grades on a transcript.
The reason I’m going with the +/- this time is that though he is going to pursue a BM in Composition, he’s applying to some top-tier schools (e.g., Rice, Indiana U) where he has to get accepted into the university AND the music school. Where weighted GPAs may be considered, his A+’s in his Honors and AP classes give him a boost.
If you used the +/-, would the class grade from which he got an A & B end up as a B+? Honestly, I would play with the calculations to see what presents his GPA in the best light.
Ultimately, though, it is one grade out of all his high school grades which is just one part of all the things the AOs take into consideration. 
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Yeah, the grade for the class was a little weird, and I didn’t get to see any of the calculations that went into making it. I just re-checked my records and he had an A- 1st semester, and a B second semester, and a B overall for the class. So, if the A- was a 90, and the B was an 83, that could have worked out to a B overall for the class.
It only makes a difference of three hundredths of a point. His UW GPA is 3.93 if I list the semester grades, and if I do final grades he has a 3.90.
It is a tiny bit frustrating, because both of the programs that only give letter grades do not give A+s. So I know (from the online gradebook the teachers kept and S24 had access to) that he got a 98% in his dual enrollment French class, and a 97% in his AP Computer Science A class, but those are both just reported as “A“.
I think overall it doesn’t make a huge difference for him. There is only one school he is thinking about applying to that has merit based on GPA, and it might have an effect on that. But, I’m going to assume that for most schools he’s applying to it is not going to make a huge difference whether he has a 3.9 or a 3.95. 
The standard 4.0 conversion on College Board makes no distinction between an A and a A+. Both are a 4.0. How to Convert (Calculate) Your GPA to a 4.0 Scale – BigFuture
You could give an additional +.5 or +1 for Honors or AP. That’s consistent with weighting at our public schools in NC.
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Oh, that’s good to know. I had been using the Massachusetts higher education conversion, which gives bonus points for 97, 98, 99, and 100.
For my older son I just did a straight A is a 4.0, B is a 3.0, etc. with no distinction for plus or minus.
Thank you for the info!
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