@techmom99 Sorry, I meant New Hampshire not New Haven. All these darn abbreviations!!
@carolinamom2boys thank you!
If he in good faith thought it was actual cheating, heâs protected from blowback from acting on that decision. (Though his decisions could be overruled by administration, at least in most cases, upon finding he was wrong.)
@kab2kab My husband and I are both DePauw grads! Sheâs officially visited but didnât fall in love. Iâd love to know more about the current vibe at DPU. How is the Greek situation there now? We worry a bit about a campus with such a high percentage of Greek participation if a kid chooses not to participate.
@carolinamom2boys @Gatormama Sheâs a humanities kid and will likely major in Public Health, Public Policy, Poli Sci but has not ruled out English Lit. She also testily informed me that I was wrong on her ACT. Her last score was 33! Ugh, it kills me to see such great test scores with such a lackluster GPA.
@sarapheena How great! My daughter really loved DePauw and squeezed every last drop out of her time there â Honor Scholar, student government, Prindle intern, tour guide, study abroad, and yes, a sorority. The thing Iâve come to realize about a school with that high of a Greek percentage, though, is that in some ways itâs actually less stereotypically Greek than other schools, or at least not every house fits that stereotypical mold.
Had her high school had such a thing, there is no doubt my daughter would have easily won âLeast likely to ever join a sorority in collegeâ. (We even specifically requested lunch with an independent student during one of her high school visits because there was no way she was going to join one.) Yet on a campus where 2/3 of the students go Greek, she ultimately decided to go through recruitment for the social aspects. (Also in play: she had dated a fellow student all first semester and had her first major heartbreak when they broke up over the holidays, so she was ready to create a whole new social circle come January.) She ended up in a house that had an eclectic mix of girls, not one of the stereotypical âpopular girlâ houses, but one that met her needs. She didnât enjoy everything about being in a sorority â she only lived in-house for one year, for example, and routinely lamented all the touchy-feely stuff 
â but she said many times that the positives outweighed the negatives for her.
All that said, she says there is definitely room for independent students and they are not shut out of social activities. There are tons of clubs and other activities in order to meet people outside of class, and the campus culture is such that Greek & independent students mix regularly and do not âshunâ each other. There is usually at least one âopenâ frat party each weekend, plus independents can get invites to closed parties from friends in the various houses.
Sigh, I really loved that campus, and I miss visiting, LOL. Itâs not a good fit for my S19 (while they certainly have a ânerdy, quirkyâ contingent there, itâs more prevalent at other schools he likes more), but I canât help champion it for kids who are more well-rounded, especially if they have a âjoinerâ personality.
@Bubblewrap666 I have a newly minted sophomore at UVM but didnât look at UNH. We are west coast and there were specific things about UVM that were attractive to him but I wouldnât be able to really provide any comparison points. Happy to answer any questions about UVM that I can though!
So we have started the college application process. Discovered earlier in the school year that math and science classes taken as an 8th grader are counted into high school gpa, even when student goes on to do 4 additional years of science and math in high school. Disappointed as this does not work well for our student. Wondering if this is a NY thing or is common around the country.
@EENYMum ours does not count into the HS GPA unless you request it to. This applies to math and FL for both 7th and 8th. I am not sure if the process to get it to count, though we may ask on the math side (definitely NOT on the FL). It simply shows as an âSâ on the transcript.
@EENYMum Jumping in on this thread to say that our NY school also counts 8th grade classes and its upsetting. 8th grade Spanish was not my daughterâs friend. Nor were we given the choice of whether we wanted her to take a class that would show up on her record at that young age. She was not at all ready at that point.
I have asked around and it appears that many colleges will recalculate the GPA and delete things like 8th grade classes.
We are NY and the 7th and 8th grade grades are not part of my kidsâ GPAs. Their regents scores do show on the transcripts though (possibly the âcheckpoint Aâ for FL too, but Iâm not sure of that).
In SC , Honors classes taken in the 8th grade count as HS level classes and are averaged in to their HS GPA. It was for this reason that we did not allow my son to take English 1 Honors in 8th grade.
We are in MD and foreign language classes taken in 6th-8th grade go on the transcript. Also, Algebra I or higher math class goes on transcript.
How do colleges delete the 8th grade classes when calculating their own GPA? Or do they show up differently somehow? 8th grade classes that show up on the high school transcript here (which only happens by request) appear on it as if they were taken in 9th grade.
We are in VA and Algebra 1 Honors (and higher) from 7th and 8th grade, and world language courses in 8th grade, all are included in high school GPA. There is a way to opt out but itâs a short time frame in 9th grade â maybe the first six weeks?
@mom2twogirls yes doing a bit more research am finding that it differs from district to district in NY. It stinks because we were never informed that grades would follow into high school record. May have made different choices if we had known Have also discovered that middle schools get to count the results of 8th grade accelerated math and science into their annual performance (vs HS annual performance). So district gets to count accelerated students in middle school data but kids have to count it in their high school data. Crazy. Esp since our kids were the first year of the new common core math and science regents.
It definitely is something your childâs school should have been more clear about. I feel like ours was pretty clear, but luckily, as I said, only the Regents exam grades carried over. Of course, the kids can retake those if they choose. We were told that while they can retake them, our school will show both grades on transcripts. Quite a few kids we know chose to retake that first algebra 1 regents because it was so hard to prepare for.
@eandesmom Having to request middle school accelerated grades count into HS gpa seems like a reasonable approach! It takes away a large potential disincentive to students challenging themselves with accelerated course. Do you mind if I ask what State you are in? And is it a State or local policy? @gallentjill we were in same boat. Never informed that language or math or science would follow student into high school. We may need to send the Regents our thoughts 
@EENYMum I am in WA and have no clue but suspect itâs a district policy. I do know that they donât âaskâ if you want them to carry over. Or at least not that I have heard. When registering in 7th and 8th we are told that they will satisfy grad requirements and show on the transcript as an S but will not impact GPA unless requested. We shall see what the GC says.
@mom2twogirls we were also told pretty explicitly during an information session about Honors classes transferring to the HS transcript. I believe that we were also told in our GC meeting to schedule 8th grade classes. Our student also had the option to retake the class, but the HS class would override the 8th grade grade even if it was lower.
I am in NY and we were always told that the fact that our children took a HS level class in 8th grade would show on their transcript, any Regents score would be reported but the grade itself would not be calculated into the GPA. In my district, the 8th grade FL class counts as first year of HS, while many kids take Earth Science and some take 9th grade math. 4 of my 5 kids took at least one of those classes in grade 8 and it was never in their HS GPA.