<p>We moved from Illinois to Texas. In Illinois, my son took the most rigorous curriculum and got straight A's. He got the maximum GPA that a freshman could get.</p>
<p>We moved to Texas, and found out that his new school is going to include his Freshman grades in the GPA calculation. However, in Texas they use an A+, A- system, and 6pts for an A+ in AP, 5pts for an A+ in certain classes, and 4pts for an A otherwise. His A's will only count as 3.5 and one class they agreed to count as 5.5. This will put him in barely the top third. He does have two more years at the new school, but no doubt, his freshman year will hurt him. I just hate to see this happen when my son worked so hard.</p>
<p>Anyways, I suppose that we can forget about him getting into University of Texas, but I wanted to know if the good private schools really take this into consideration.</p>
<p>Why a 3.5? You stated 4 pts for an A otherwise. Yes, privates will take that into consideration, particularly if the GC writes about it.</p>
<p>Thank you for the info. My wife confirmed to me that the GC was very sympathetic to him and most likely will write an explanation.</p>
<p>To answer your question, it was a typo. It should read “and 4pts for an A+ otherwise…”. By otherwise, I meant classes that were neither AP nor one of the “certain classes”. Dang! Good thing my college days are behind me! Wouldn’t want to make that goof in an application essay.</p>
<p>The good private schools recalculate the GPA based on their weighting.</p>
<p>Did the school in Illinois not have a GPA weighting system?</p>
<p>You are right, getting into UT Austin will probably be impossible because they will proably be admitting top 5% or 6% by the time he graduates. However, he can get CAP that allows him to attend another UT campus, earn a 3.2 and transfer to Austin under the agreement. </p>
<p>He can also make it to A&M if gets into the top 25% by end of junior year and scores 1300 on SAT M+V & not score below 600 on M or V.</p>
<p>Keep in mind getting into the 25% will not be easy if lots of kids take AP classes at his new school. That is because your son does not have prerequisite honor level courses to take the AP classes that other kids in the top 25% will be taking. In addition, your son will have to take non AP & non honor courses to meet district requirements for graduation that the other kids may have taken in freshman year.</p>
<p>Our daughter is facing the same thing. Our local district has a specialty program for 11th/12th graders that my daughter transferred into. However, she comes from a different district than the rest of the kids… a district that had an accelerated highly gifted track but no traditional honors classes and only 1 AP through 10th grade. Her classmates came in with several weighted grade on their transcript. She’s top of her class based on 11th grade grades but overall, has only been able to move up 2 spots last year.</p>
<p>However, rank isn’t everything. The admissions office will see that he transferred from another school. They’ll re-calculate his GPA based on what is important to them… not what is important to his current school. The GC mentioning the difference in grading system will help too. Plus, he’s got two more years and the harder classes are coming. He may rise more than you’d think.</p>
<p>Oh, and don’t stress about the AP pre-reqs. Generally, when a kid comes from a different program, they’ll base qualification for AP classes on past and present ability and not soley on whether they took an honors class.</p>
<p>My son had the same issue. He graduated National AP Scholar and National Merit semifinalist. Less than 2% of the kids at his high school received these recognitions. However, his class rank was below 25% when applied for college. So would not qualify for auto admit at UT Austin or A&M. He came from a school where he would have started with a perfect GPA on the most rigorous track. However, it was recalculated and resulted in the above mess. </p>
<p>In Texas, class Rank is everything for admission under the top 10% rule. UT and A&M cannot ignore or recalculate GPAs.</p>
<p>Finally, if he has been placed below the top 33% then the district would not look good if he earned the same grades as the kids in the top 10%. You could then claim he would have been in the top 10% and been in UT if they had not recalculated. So, the district may act unpredictably to protect itself from this type of potential legal problem and take steps to prevent his GPA from rising too much.</p>
<p>The school in IL only weighted AP courses, and did not classify “Honors” courses. We talked to the GC and the school has been cooperative in every other sense. They did admit him in the “Gifted” program, whatever the heck that is. They mapped out his sophomore and junior year. Sophomore year is mostly honors and one AP class. He’s set to take four AP courses during his junior year - don’t know if that is a lot or not. I have no doubt that he will get good grades as he is a very hardworking kid. He good those grades in Illinois while playing basketball and tennis. He makes me feel like I’m lazy!</p>
<p>I was never really big on Texas or Texas A&M. I went to Texas, and as a variation on what Groucho Marx once said, “I’d never let my son join a school that admits people like me!” ; ) As long as he can get into a good private school, I’m ok.</p>
<p>As long as you can afford a good private school it should work out fine! :)</p>
<p>If the school in Texas is a much better school than the one in Illinois then it’s not his fault, the colleges know this and put a ton of consideration into how rigorous or exemplary the school is. It could even help. Although that 10%/8% UT rule is somewhat ridiculous and not being in the top 10% anymore could be somewhat detrimental.
As long as he takes the most challenging classes possible (all PreAP and AP) he will be fine. I never took one regular class in high school and was in the top 14% and was admitted into UT Austin from a good Texas public school. Texas A&M is fantastic as well. He could be in the top 30% and still go there.
Ensure he does very well on the SATs. That’s where the real consideration is.</p>