<p>I just received a call from my son's GC begging for help from the parents at our school. Seems we need to light a fire under the person who is supposed to fix the computer program that calculates rank and GPA. Currently it will only calculate for last semester, instead of for seven semesters.You can imagine what this has done to the rank and GPA. While they could recalculate by hand GPA on a case by case, the rank will have to wait. There are about 900 seniors at this point. All the mid-year reports and scholarship applications are now on hold. The Parent Pit Bull Brigade has been activated, but I don't know how long this will take.</p>
<p>Here's the main issue: We don't know when this will be fixed. What should my son do about his mid-year reports? Contact his schools? Have the GC send in what she has without the rank? At what point is it better to send something than nothing at all?</p>
<p>I would have the scores sent with a note from GC explaining the problem. When the class ranking is completed, that information can be sent at that time. With 900 seniors this affects thousands of applications I would guess. The school needs to prepare a letter to be sent to every school these seniors applied to. The colleges don't need the class rank this very second; I would think for most kids their rank will be similar to last semester.</p>
<p>This is stress these kids don't need right now. This is the high school's problem, and they need to take care of it today!</p>
<p>Apparently the rank is a huge problem, it dramatically altered some of the ranks. We have kids that are right at the 10% auto admit cut off and need verification. Then there are the val and sal that are also affected. </p>
<p>But your solution would work for my son. His GC could send out everything but the new rank, and a hand calculated GPA plus a note of explanation. I think that would be preferable to nothing, don't you?</p>
<p>Sorry, I wasn't even thinking about the 10%; I'm not in Texas so that didn't even cross my mind even though I know about the 10% auto admit. </p>
<p>I think having the GC send that info off now would be best. Just think, this computer glick is so unusual, the colleges should remember your son!!</p>
<p>I know that the counselors at my school are in contact with admissions officers for our area (ie. the people at the UT Houston office etc). You should ask the counselor to call the admissions office and let them know the details of the problem. Will it be possible for this an explanation letter to be written and mailed out to the colleges before the Feb 1st deadlines?</p>
<p>I think they can generate the letter and send out the mid-years by the deadline. She's got everything done BUT the rank and GPA. Apparently she can also hand calculate a correct GPA, which would leave only the rank. </p>
<p>I don't want the schools to think we are hiding something, other than the incompetence of our district to get transcripts out in a timely fashion! </p>
<p>tanman: Sadly we have no admissions officers for our area for my son's colleges of choice. You have to drive up and mooch off Houston or San Antonio. They just don't spend time where they are lucky to get an application once in a blue moon. Quite understandable.</p>
<p>I will admit I have heard of many school district gaffes, but this one is right up there. Let me see, now, there are 900 kids with seven semesters of grades. A team of volunteers (have to be academics due to confidentiality issues - ok so, pay them OT) could input these into a spreasheet within a couple of days at best. Excel works wonders at sorting stuff. Since the rank and gpa are the only thing remaining, the data could be entered into a letter signed by the GC (or better, the incompetent IS dept chair), and mailed. Where there is a will there is a way. It could be easily done by Monday if the district wants it done.</p>
<p>I will definitely pass that idea along. The director of MIS probably wished he was MIA today. I know that he got calls from several school board members as well as the parents. It is frustrating that a GC has to call a parent to force the issue. It isn't like they can elect NOT to fix this program. </p>
<p>Another subset of kids that got hit...those wanting transcripts for the Telluride Summer Program. sheesh. </p>
<p>What I am hearing is that it is better to send along what we have and explain what we don't, then to send it all along late.</p>
<p>And when did this become the parents and kids problem? bluebayou is correct, the school system need to get off their ass and fix this problem yesterday! It just boggles my mind that the school system doesn't see the importants in geeting this done ASAP.</p>
<p>Once the program is 'fixed', have the GC or someone due a sample of hand verification of GPA's, and scan the rankings to insure that the ranking is correctly implemented (especially ties). Sometimes, emergency fixes introduce their own bugs.</p>
<p>Yes...I am quite furious that it is now a parent problem. The GC called yesterday after not being able to get anyone from MIS to fix the issue after repeated attempts. She thought, and rightly so, that more voices would bring resolution. I don't know if we will get it resolved any faster, but it will definitely shed light on the situation.</p>
<p>A few years ago we had students that got warning letters from their colleges because final transcripts were not sent--and this was December after their senior year. Boy, look at all the progress we've made. <em>cough</em></p>
<p>It seems that MIS started working on the problem after about two hours of our phone call blitz. The new reports were finished Friday, and they can be mailed out this week. I still think that the counselors should have been able to get this fixed without having to call parents to their rescue. It makes me angry that MIS ignored their requests for over a week!</p>