My son did IGCSE 2 year course from overseas and my son scored all A’s on 10th but the local school does not accept the 10th-grade result and match it for 9th while the IGCSE is for 2 years with final grades as results and the mock tests don’t count. It takes his score goes down a lot. Has anyone known of such a situation or know how to deal with this please help Thanks.
is your son in 10th grade now or is he a junior?
Did he complete the two year sequence or is was he in the second year of the two year sequence?
If your child is coming in as a 10th grade student, they will not give him credit for a course that is not complete (it seems like they are giving credit for the 9th grade course since that is the part that has been completed)
Mock tests will not count.
It has been my experience that transfer credit is usually given as credit/no credit on his new school transcripts (the grades will not be part of the new school transcript). When he applies to college, they high school will send all grades.
Did he do IGCSE in 9th and 10th but not take the 10th grade IGCSE exams? Why would he not complete the course?
Many thanks for the response.He did not complete the IGCSE exam because he moved to the US on the 2nd semester of grade 10 (Grade 11 for IGCSE). The former school only has his mock tests and predicted results which are all A’s. So he studied 1.5 years on IGCSE. But the school in the US counts on mock tests so his grade comes down a lot. The former school also confirms mock test don’t count but here they still count. He applies to college this year. What should I do?
I don’t quite understand how his grade comes down a lot. Are his mock test grades below A but the predicted result grades are all A? Is it necessary to convert previous school grades to new school grades?
Some schools calculate the mock tests based on percentage of curriculum covered, so that a student may have a 47% but have a predicted A - because the test was on 50% of the total content so a 50 is the highest mark… Then the next mock exam would add 25% more of the content so a 22 would make for a 69% but it’d still be an A… But if the US school considers it’s a 69%, instead of an A for completing the curriculum to ‘A’ standard for the 75% of the content, the student ends up with a D… completely unfairly.
Don’t send the US version of his IGCSE’s but the official transcript sent by his original school. Ask the US school to upload it as colleges will want to see that.
Or could the student simply take the IGCSE’s s/he prepared for 1.5 years? That would simplify things.
How can he now be applying to college if he’s in the 10th grade?
He is 12th grade now and I just found out about his transcript problem!!!
Some students have had useful results after submitting their foreign records for formal evaluation at WES.org. Investigate that option as well.
When schools send transcripts, they have to send the current school transcript, certified copy of the old transcript and translations . There is no, “well just don’t send the US translation”. That would cause more harm then good, because student and school would be misrepresenting.
Send everything and have GC explain the situation
The student can also give an explanation on the Common App or in other area of the application.
However, I would prefer to see the counselor write something like “Algebra 2, completed at IGCSE school ABC, grade G,…”.
Colleges know more about IGCSE standards than HS counselors.
Many thanks. I know there are some parents on the forum had this problem before. I would like to know how the problem is solved. I may go ahead for Wes translation and request a separate submission of record one for the current school and another from the old school but not sure the current high school is fine with submitting only their part and how we can calculate the GPA.
The high school is responsible for sending all transcripts to the college. This includes the current school and the overseas
Dear Sybbie, the problem comes from the fact that the high school sends all transcripts but they convert the grades based on mock tests so the total GPA goes down a lot.
Doesn’t matter. School has a responsibility to send all of your child’s transcript to the college. The GC/School can best write the explanation about how they granted credit and their grading policy.
The college will work it out, especially the more selective schools as there will be someone on staff who probably handles admissions for international students and can explain the grading policy on the overseas transcript
I live in NYC where there is absolutely nothing unusual about students coming into the NYC DOE from overseas. The process is consistent across the board. In addition, if you transfer credit, there are no grades being updated on the new transcript, just CR (credit)/NC (no credit), so it doesn’t throw off the ranking of student who have been in the school/school system since freshman year.
Students who have not been in the school/school system would not even be part of the school ranking.
^Actually, at many schools, if the student took classes out of that school, it’s the other school’s/the parent’s responsibility to make sure the transcripts for these other schools/classes are sent, the school itself doesn’t have the staff to handle extraneous transcripts coming from here and there and collate it all. Some HS won’t even collate DE CC transcripts!
In addition, for more selective colleges, admissions prefers having the “original” foreign transcript, in addition to the US HS version of it.
The issue here is that the student didn’t take IGCSEs so has nothing. If any parent is reading for future reference: if you’re in a system where evaluation depends on a final exam after one or two years, make sure the child takes the exam, even if it means having a parent delay moving to the US till the exams are taken.
If the US school doesn’t use the C/NC system, it’s very important to know whether the US high school understands the grading scale - ie., and IGCSE B is a US A-, etc.
A WES transcript can also help for the college.
However the parents have to get on it ASAP.
In his transcript from the old school, there are predicted results and there is a debate between two schools on the correct conversion of the grades, mainly on whether counts or not counts on mock tests. The former school says mock tests do not count and predicted results count as IGCSE is a two-year program but the school here just counts on mock tests!!!
Predicted results do not mean anything. If you read enough chance threads
Everyone is predicting a 172+ on the LSAT
Every high school kid is predicting at least a 1500 on the SAT
You cannot be granted grades based on predictions
And every kid who scores a 580 on their math SAT “knows” that with a prep course over the summer they are going to score a 780.
The predictions are not made by the student, but by the school, based on past experience with other students. No, they are not 100% accurate, but they are far more accurate than the predictions individual students make about their own scores
Predicted results have to be reasonably accurate or the school is dinged or decertified. Head teachers can’t recklessly predict high scores without consequences, and selective admissions rest on those predicted results. They follow a national system. Mock exams, on the other hand, can follow any system, and are seen as having no value - only the predicted results matter.