I transferred to a boarding school down in Cali for grade 10. Since then, every year I took around four honors/AP classes. The California school system states that for every honors/AP class taken, it would boost up the weighted GPA by one point. Now, the school decided that it would put all the classes I took back in Canada into my transcript (I attended 9th grade and also a half year of 10th grade in Canada, also a bunch of online classes). All these classes I took lowered my GPA because they cannot be converted to honors classes even though it is clearly stated on my Canadian School Transcript that some classes I took are honors.
I have so much credits that I can graduate right now without even doing a senior year, but my GPA is low due to all these classes not even in the American education system being added to my transcript. My ranking is also low for that reason. I challenged myself to the maximum while I am in school, but don’t you guys think this is a little unfair? Is there anything that I can do about it?
A private boarding school can calculate GPA and rank any way they want. They don’t have to follow the rules for public schools. You can try meeting with the administration or maybe get your parents involved to tell them that you believe your prior credits aren’t being handled correctly. But if they decide against you, there is really nothing you can do.
It’s hard to see how this could have that much of an affect though. If it’s just freshman year that is a problem and only some courses being honors, not all, it doesn’t seem that the overall affect could be significant.
If you can’t resolve this with your school’s administration, I would suggest explaining it to the colleges you apply to through an additional letter or in the “Additional Info” section of the Common Application.
@me29034 The problem is that there are far too many courses included in my transcript that it dropped down my rank so much.
@yonceonhismouth I am worried that the colleges would just look at my rank and just be like this kid is not even in the top 10% of his class and just throws my application into the garbage without a glimpse of the addition info on my application form. My rank in the school right now does not even reflect the actual academic progress I have made since I entered the school, and the school won’t fix it. Maybe I am wrong of telling them the online courses I have taken in the first place.
Colleges won’t throw your application in the garbage- AOs say they read all the application- they’re not just going to reject you solely on your rank.
I really hope they can see how well I did compared to others in my 10th and 11th grade years of high school. If the ranking is based solely on the grades I have once I transferred to the school, I am absolutely sure I am at the top 5% of my class. I don’t know how I can explain that to my GC.