Hi, wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation and can advise!
I have decided to pull my son out of 10th grade and move him into a private school to repeat 9th grade. He worked remotely last year and his grades were atrocious. It was a wasted year. He also has a late Fall birthday, so would start college at 17 unless he repeats…I just decided it would benefit him to repeat. He will start at the new school at the start of MP2. He will not have grades for MP1. They have suggested we use last year’s grades. This does not sound kosher to me (and those grades were not good!). I would prefer INCOMPLETE, but they said this is not possible. thoughts?
I’m confused on why they would put grades when he wasn’t in the school. If someone enrolls in 11th grade, would they fill in 9th and 10th grade grades?
@lala516 if I understand correctly …
I think the intent is to list only the new private school as “attended for 9-12”, which you hope would, at college application time in 3 years, result in no grades being requested from the previous 9th-10th grade school. The newly-discovered problem is that if, in January 2022, the student starts 2nd semester of the new 9th grade year, the school will have no grades to enter for the 1st semester of the new 9th grade year.
Assuming the new school has no plans to “transfer” your son’s 3 semesters of grades (all of 9th and 1st semester of 10th grade) into their grading system, and that the new school plans to allow your son to progress to the 10th grade in August 2022 with only one semester of 9th grade schooling on their books, I suggest you list only the grades the new school will record for 9th grade, which will be only the 2nd semester of 9th grade.
Keep in mind this may put your son behind in having enough credits to graduate, but you can address that by maybe taking summer school classes, etc, over the next 3.5 years.
If that’s the OP’s intent, one can’t simply omit HS details from a college application. If the attended 2 high schools, they need to list 2 high schools.
I know a student who transferred after completing grades 1st-9th at public schools to a private school. While this student had good grade-9 grades at the public school, after the admissions test it was decided the student should start the private school at the 9th grade level. When this student applied for college, the public school’s 9th grade stats were not included as part of the private school’s transcript. His transcript had only the four years of grades at the private school.
Maybe the situation would be the same with the OPs student?
As many on the forum know, I attended one of the NE boarding schools often discussed here. There, and at many BS, up to 30% of the class are repeats. The college counseling office was clear - you report all schools attended from 9th grade on, regardless if any credit is awarded from the old school
And the questions on the common app are not ambiguous: “If you have attended any secondary/high schools not listed in the previous section, please indicate the number of schools.”
Equally unambiguous is the affirmation section: "I certify that all information submitted in the admission process — including this application and any other supporting materials — is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented…’
I wouldn’t fixate on Freshman grades. Presumably your son will have a lot of interesting accomplishments by the time he applies to college! Whatever the school’s policy is on transfers/repeats- I’d go with the flow and encourage your son to get back into “regular” school rhythms now that distance learning is hopefully behind him!