<p>Sending positive vibes for your son, ConfusedMominMA! Keep us posted.</p>
<p>Good luck ConfusedMominMA. DS’s taking his last midterm right now. We’re oping on a little bump too. Sending postive vibes.</p>
<p>cooker - thanks!
bkbmom - thanks and sending good vibes to your DS too!</p>
<p>Coral–yes! Nothing like a little outside motivation to light the ol’ fire. I think something similar happened with my son whose weighted GPA now bumps him a bit past the stats this thread is aimed at. (I still feel comfortable here bc, like some of your kids, DS has a GPA that is not the best gauge of his true ability or level of intellectual curiosity.</p>
<p>Confused–keep us posted and best of luck!</p>
<p>Seems like many of our late bloomers are doing well. My D’s excellent first semester bumped her up in a huge way, up to a 3.44!</p>
<p>Mamduck- that’s great! I am hoping that my DS will be able to get his up to 3.4 with his 1st semester grades but it will be a stretch for him.</p>
<p>We are updating her Creative Resume with some more film projects she did since EA application. Over Xmas break she volunteered as camerawoman for a college film project and got a lot of good experience. She is very shy about contacting her admin rep but I am forcing her to send in an updated Creative Resume and notify him that her excellent semester transcript is on its way. It’s like pulling teeth to get her to communicate with her top choices. Especially telephone conversations, these kids are absolutely allergic to making live phone calls.</p>
<p>Now, if I can just get her HS to hurry up with that transcript!!<br>
I hope they will take her new projects into consideration, although I think it is only fair since the RD applicants got 2 1/2 more months of stuff on their resume.</p>
<p>Like many of you, we are waiting on the decision of one more school. (It’s SO hard to be patient!)</p>
<p>My S’s mid-semester grades were the best we’ve seen. He says his finals went well, but I’m biting my nails until I see the grades. However, the big difference in this year, to me, is that my S did everything on his own: read, studied, wrote, edited and practiced. I have been hands off! So even if his grades aren’t better, the fact that he showed the initiative and the independence to tackle his work completely on his own makes me feel that he is rising to and will be able to face the challenges and demands of college.
Yay!
What a difference a year makes…</p>
<p>Best semester ever here, too! Not enough for a huge bump in cumulative GPA but every little bit helps, and so fun to see those As! I agree, though, the big steps in independence are the best part.</p>
<p>We also saw a bit of a bump in GPA. Her senior year is turning out to be her best. She is loving her internship at the theatre and is learning so much! In all, my D applied to 15 schools (due to the BFA theatre thing). She has been rejected at three. We think two of those were artistic and one academic (don’t even get me started on THAT one…grrr…). She has withdrawn two applications. She has seven academic acceptances. Three schools give artistic and academic notifications at the same time. Now, we wait until next weekend to begin the month long tour of schools and interviews/portfolio reviews. After that, we wait for those decisions and finally aid packages. This is such a crazy process!</p>
<p>Please forgive my ignorance of a few things. When you all mention GPAs, are they weighted or unweighted? Are they just for core courses or all courses? When colleges post mean GPAs or those needed for merit based scholarships are they weighted or unweighted?</p>
<p>My D’s public high school only reports grades one way, and it’s (sort of) weighted, although the highest they would report is a 4.0 (anyone above that is considered a valedictorian, so there are multiple valedictorians. There’s a competition for graduation speaker amongst those). AP and dual enrollment classes are given a 5, and mostly available to juniors and above. There is not an “honors” and Pre-AP classes are not weighted.</p>
<p>My nephew in another state was shocked at how low D’s GPA was - until we compared and his HS weights almost everything “college bound” with 1 extra point and AP with 2 extra points!</p>
<p>On the other hand, I work at a private school, and this year’s class does not have a single 4.0. It is very academically challenging, and nothing is weighted.</p>
<p>I asked several admissions people at various colleges what they do. Some take whatever is sent on the transcript, regardless of weight. Some counted only core classes and left them weighted. Some counted only core and made them unweighted. And one school went back and weighted all Pre-AP classes, as well as anything designated “advanced” (which would have skyrocketed my D’s GPA).</p>
<p>In other words, high school GPAs are nearly impossible to compare without taking into account the high school’s profile and what each respective college does. If you do not have a high school profile, ask your guidance counselor for one. They include it with all the transcripts they send. It will have all sorts of interesting information on it.</p>
<p>Thanks Mama! Our school is not very forthcoming with information and they don’t do much of anything until at least September of senior year (next year for my daughter). It makes it very difficult trying to decide where my daughter might be eligible for admission/merit scholarships when there aren’t a set of guidelines to follow. </p>
<p>In her high school your grade is weighted (multiplied by 1.1) if you are in an honors, AP or college level course. They also give numerical grades (82, 83, 84) which makes it harder to figure a GPA because every website uses a different calculation.</p>
<p>“In other words, high school GPAs are nearly impossible to compare without taking into account the high school’s profile and what each respective college does. If you do not have a high school profile, ask your guidance counselor for one. They include it with all the transcripts they send. It will have all sorts of interesting information on it.”</p>
<p>Just yesterday I had reason to check on a few high school profiles from Upstate New York and this quick perusal underlined how true it is that GPA can only be understood within the context of the specific school. One highly regarded public HS in the Syracuse area reported on its HSP that half of last year’s graduating class had an unweighted GPA of 90 (out of 100) or better. Two public high schools across town reported median unweighted GPAs in the 86-87 range. At our local HS about 20% of students graduated with a GPA of 90 or better, and the median GPA is 83. All four of these high schools send about the same percentage of graduates off to college each year.</p>
<p>So if my daughter’s grades/SAT scores are above the norm for her school, colleges will take that into account during admissions? Even if she may be at the lower end of their requirements, she might get extra credit, so to speak, for having done better than the average at her school?</p>
<p>My DS’s GPA is the same weighted or unweighted because up till this year he hasn’t taken any Honors or AP classes. We have 4 levels of classes CP2, CP1, Honors and APs. He has taken all CP1 classes up to this point. He will have a couple of Honors classes starting next week with the new semester.</p>
<p>I can see there isn’t really going to be a way for me to know how this is going to play out until she begins to apply and will probably require us to reach out and find out what they are looking for. I found a school profile online for my DD’s high school and it shows the average SAT scores, how many in last year’s class who were Scholars (5) Distinction (2) or with Honors (4); how many go to 4 year college, 2 year, jobs, military… I’m hoping she’ll graduate top 10%. Her school has academic as well as career oriented programs and is a middle of the road type of public school in NJ.</p>
<p>^if your daughter’s school uses Naviance then look at the admission “scattergrams”. You can find out specifically how colleges are using her own school profile in admissions. It essentially gives you the data on where kids from her school are getting in, and with what stats. </p>
<p>In my daughter’s case, no AP’s until this year (one AP --AP Enviro.) so her GPA is not “weighted”. She’s always had a 3.1 consistently up until this year. She has a 4.01 for first semester (bringing cum to 3.29)! Another one to add to the late bloomers list :).</p>
<p>HeavyLidded - I’m with you, too. Midterms brought DS’s grades up a little for some and down a little for a couple (bombed midterms) so overall right now he’s the same as before midterms. We’re waiting on the last midterm to get posted so haven’t given up hope. He’s in at three schools but we were hoping they’d help with the two schools he was deferred at and the other (4) schools he was applying RD to. He’s taking 6 AP’s so maybe they’ll weight them even though our high school doesn’t. Oh, well…</p>
<p>DS just finished first semester finals yesterday-- hoping for good grades! He said they were good going into finals (5 A’s, 2 B’s) so I hope that stayed the same. </p>
<p>He also finally heard from his last EA school on Wednesday-- Accepted to Redlands. Then today he got a second letter from Redlands with a really nice scholarship! </p>
<p>HL-- sounds like your D has a very tough senior year schedule-- that’s great if she is maintaining her gpa. My S has several “easy A” classes. Good luck on Earlham! When will you hear?</p>