@homerdog We have the same weighting in terms of finals as your highly selective school . We also have no "do overs " , it is what it is. You get what you earn. In terms of colleges determine readiness of the applicant , I would think that they weigh each individual student’s attributes including performance on national standardized tests, GPA and rigor. There are many high achieving students at every HS in the US. I’d like to think that individual performance is more important than what school that they went to. Maybe I’m being naive. Attending the HS that my boys attend didn’t hurt my oldest son. He was invited to interview for some lucrative scholarships over students at the number 1 HS in our state.
Any school may be ranked XX in any given state. However, if kids are applying to schools in parts of the country their HS does not typically apply to, it’s pretty irrelevant. With thousands and thousands of HS’s in the country and hundreds of colleges, no college will know all HS’s. If however a student applies to relatively local or only to popular schools that students from that HS apply to then yes, a college will have a good idea. If your school has naviance then you can get a good idea on which colleges are actually aware of your HS and application track record. Some schools will have good data on a wide variety of schools both in size, type, prestige, cost and geography. Others will be far more narrow in any one area or multiples. Feeder schools absolutely exist. They can backfire too as those kids are competing against each other. I know a local “top” school that had a shocking amount of kids waitlisted at our flagship. For some of us though our kids are looking really out of the box (at least within their HS) at schools and there may be zero applications to a particular school. Pretty hard to know how that college will interpret the information submitted in the total absence of historical data. Not something I think about at all for S19 yet but S17 is in the thick of it now. Out of his 5 colleges that have officially made his “will apply” list, we only have good solid data on 3. 1 has very limited data points and two have had zero applications ever from his HS. LOL!
As for grading, I think stated weighting is quite fair and it’s pretty easy to know what you need to bring in to have that final grade be correct. Some kids test exceptionally well and don’t turn in their homework. Should they get an A simply because they ace all the tests? No. Others test miserably but are rock solid on homework and active in class, they should have that recognized to. In general I think most teachers really try hard to be fair and accommodate a range of learning styles and weighting allows for that and also sends a clear message as to what that teacher finds important. 20% is a lot, but unfair? I don’t know that I agree with that. I would probably take more issue with the fact that “no one” gets much above a 90 or barely an A? In that scenario, yes, a C on a final could kill your grade whereas ideally the semester’s worth of work, if really at A level should be higher than a 90. I am personally glad we do not have a “set” weighting that is applied to all classes. I’ve seen finals count for 10% of the grade, and I’ve seen them count for 40% and for the most part it is at that teacher’s discretion and in some cases there may actually be 2 separate scales for the same class.
S19’s PreCalc class is likely to be weighted like that. I don’t know for sure as he hasn’t started school yet but last year this is how it was last year. The class is considered a “college in the classroom” class and you can, for a fee, pay to get flagship credit. However S won’t be able to do it since they only allow it for juniors and seniors (the college credit part). But for his brother we had to be aware of where he was at in class, as well as for the college credit as they were 2 very different weighting scales.
It will have 2 scales The HS grade will be weighted like this
65% Assessments (Tests/Quizzes/Projects)
20% Homework
10% Final Exam (per semester)
5% Participation
And his college grade (if he could get one) would be weighted like this
Cumulative Final Exam (end of the year) 40%
Chapter Tests & Quizzes 35%
Homework Effort 20%
Participation 5%
While at the end of the day both scales weight tests and quizzes a total of 75%, the weight the final got was quite different.
Suffice to say, one could get a VERY different grade on their flagship credit transcript versus the HS one.
I got the impression that most colleges (or maybe not the smallest ones?) have admissions officers divided up by region. So, there would be a Midwestern admin officers (or possibly a couple) who get the Midwestern kids’ applications for a first go-around. They are responsible for knowing the high schools in their state. I’ve heard this is true for Northwestern and even for small schools like Reed (which is obviously far from the Midwest). That way, they really can have a better chance of knowing each school. Of course, they get a high school profile as well so I’m sure that helps if they don’t have much history with a particular high school.
Agree with Naviance and some schools have more info than others. Lots of stats on Big 10 schools, popular elites like NU, Wash U, Vanderbilt, Chicago, and other niches that take a lot of our kids like Miami of Ohio. Have yet to find a school that has no apps but certainly small LACs only have a few here and there.
@carolinamom2boys that is lovely to hear. I think most of our HS is like that. Partially due to the fact that we do not weight, for the most part no one really knows true standings and that lessens the dog eat dog climb over other kid mentality that some schools can have. I hate the idea of kids thinking they are competing with their own classmates for a spot at a college, to the extent of not sharing lists etc. The honor society kids have an idea overall gpa’s (though that will not account for rigor at all) but…there are kids who qualify and don’t bother to fill out the paperwork so even that isn’t a sure thing. At the very end of the year you can get an idea by some of the awards given out but Val/Sal are not ranked positions and rather senior speakers are audition based.
And yet we still manage to send kids to Ivies and selective colleges. Naviance is annoying me at the moment. It’s really annoying when you know of xx kids that are attending Y school and the naviance numbers show less or none at all.
I guess what I find frustrating is the implication , whether intentional or unintentional , that high achieving students in " less selective schools" would not or could not be high achieving in the more selective schools. There is no way to know that, and frankly it’s a little insulting. Yes , admissions officers are usually divided up into areas , and yes they should be familiar with the schools that they serve as contact . That does not mean one school is given more weight over another . Does it happen? I’m sure that it does. Is that the norm? I really don’t know.
One last thing I’ll say about weighting. I don’t know if 20% for the final is fair or not. Not sure how they decided on that percentage. What I do know is that the kids all know exactly the percent they need to get on the final to get an A or a B. They take their first quarter percentage (multiplied by .4) and their second quarter percentage (multiplied by .4) and then they can figure out what they need on their finals to get a final semester percentage and grade. I don’t love that. In some cases, it meant our son only had to get a 60% on his final. Hence, he spent no time on it. The other extreme is when you know you need to get a 97% on a final which is unheard of. In that case, you don’t study either because if you need a 97 percent to get an A, you probably only need less than a 50% to get a B. Kids only study for the finals for classes where they need to get a reasonable score to keep your A!
What our son has learned from this system is that he needs to get the highest percentages he can for his quarter grades so that he doesn’t have many finals to study for. It turns more into figuring out the system than just learning for learnings sake. ;(
@carolinamom2boys I really hope that all kids are given a chance no matter the school. I didn’t mean to imply that they should not. I went to a middle of the road public high school. I was in the top 10 of 600 kids and I was accepted to the two highly selective schools I applied to. It probably helped that I was also a woman in engineering. It didn’t hurt me that my school wasn’t so terrific. I did the best I could with what I had in high school and I assume it’s the same now.
There are good things and bad things about going to a school like ours. Many of our neighbors have actually decided to send their kids to Catholic high schools instead of our local school so their kids could shine more. I’m sure their kids would have done a great job at our school…they just would have been among way more kids doing just as well.
Back to the topic of your S19, @carolinamom2boys: I love that your S19 knew what was right for him and that you knew to trust him. Some good parent/child relations there. :x
Regarding high school rankings: I feel certain that our school is #1 in our state, and possibly even better than that. 
B-) “Be true to your school, now, sis boom bah.” B-) (Wish CC had music emoji…)
@carolinamom2boys I don’t think anyone “really” knows. We all can hypothesize to death but at the end of the day the only real data any one can see is their own schools results. And some, if they don’t have Naviance (or I guess some use Parchment?) can’t see a thing. Who is to say what is normal. I suspect that for some colleges, they may give more weight. Then again, there are hooks that can trump the HS selectivity/rigor rating. I.e, Female URM from North Dakota going for a STEM major at a selective college will likely trump selective HS white male with equal or even higher gpa in test scores.
I’d like to believe that colleges do try to do their best to level the field and make things as apples to apples as they can. It’s so skewed it seems an impossible task to be honest but that’s my hope as frankly the alternative really doesn’t sit well at all.
School is off to a good start for son19. First HS soccer game of the fall today. He had fun at robotics the other day and said he is going to master CAD this year. He learned the basics last year. He is going to work with a senior to learn more this year and then maybe next year he can be the lead CAD person for the team. He’s taking an Engineering Graphics 2 class so that will help. Sounds like a plan!
At our school the semester is worth 80% and the final is 20%. If a kid has a 96% in the class they can exempt the final. They can only exempt 2 classes like this though and it doesn’t work for the classes that the state mandates that everyone take the test for like English,Math,History… at lot of times they end up exempting the Band or Acting final…
S19 started back today and was still being dramatic over his schedule as of 7:10 this morning. . Hopefully he’ll see his guidance counselor and make some adjustments (and is bright enough to realize that he shouldn’t just go in and ask for different sections of the same class for no reason - he’s going to have pick up another honors class if he wants an excuse to change things around) He’s acting like his life will be over if he doesn’t have a class with his GF.
I’m staying out of it unless he does something crazy. He’ll probably end up taking honors Chemistry after all, which brought a boatload of misery to the house when D16 took it, so that will be fun.
@eh1234 Honors Chem a boat load of misery for our S too. In fact, I had three (!) friends give us their kids’ Chem H books from last year - dropped them at our house in June and said they couldn’t wait to get them out of their house. :((
My son is also taking honors chemistry this year and he said it is supposed to be really hard. I checked my older son’s transcript and he got an A- in it though, so I told son19 to suck it up and study more and get a good grade.
I have no idea what to expect from S19 in chemistry because he’s never studied hard for anything and I don’t know if he CAN study hard. I was worried how he might do in even regular chemistry, so I guess I’ll just brace myself if he takes honors (at least he’ll understand the math aspects of it better than D16 did, that might be half the battle). 
My older son somehow pulled an A- in honors chem without a ton of studying. He does have an amazing memory though, so that might have helped. I think son19 is going to have work harder to get the same grade.
@eh1234 that’s how we felt about our S last year. He never really studied for tests. Did all of the homework, took good notes and participated in classes and then just did well on tests. Bio H last year as a freshman was a chore but it was good for something - it made him figure out how to really study. He spent hours preparing for tests, pouring over notes, practicing extra problems, going into the teacher early if he had questions, etc. It worked. (Thank goodness.) I’m sure that every student eventually hits that class that requires actually studying…you just never know which year it will be!
@eh1234 I can just imagine a class change to be with GF (or because you don’t like the assigned teacher) not being well received.
It will be interesting to see how honors chem goes here, a bit of drama around it. Technically sophomores aren’t allowed to take it, unless it’s a double up as bio is the required 10th grade science. There are 10 or so kids that tested out of freshman science and into bio or honors bio last year. Most of those kids are taking chem or honors chem. S19 requested honors chem and got it. However 2 of his best friends on the same exact track, requested it and got regular chem. We can’t see a reason schedule wise or track wise for this. Our only lame guess is that S19 is 16 as of yesterday and the other 2 aren’t?
Really upsetting to one of the boys in particular who is obsessed with Chem. It will be interesting to see if they are able to change and what the reasons are.
My S tends to just show up and test well without studying, it’s a huge issue and concern. He did get all of the summer homework done. With the exception of memorizing the periodic table. Allegedly the test on that isn’t till next week,
S19 is back in school as of today. He has a heavy schedule at his request but hates to do homework so we will see how this year shakes out.
Regarding college I’m trying to stay relaxed. D15 is at UVA and I think that could be a great fit for S19 but it is not an easy school to get into, even for instate. D16 is at a small private LAC in Michigan that I think could also be a great fit and would be pretty much a guaranteed admit for S19. He has the brains that he could handle pretty much any school in the country but so far at least not the discipline to shoot for straight A’s.
Having gone through this twice in a row now, first with one shooting for competitive admission schools and a nail biting senior year, and then one with even higher stats choosing an easy admit for anyone school and seeing how both of them ended up in absolutely the perfect place for them, I’m trying to chill out for my son.
Mostly, after two years in a row of college admissions madness, I hope to just focus on enjoying his sophomore year and putting thoughts of college admission aside for one year. Hanging around CC probably won’t help this goal.
My S19 does well without studying, but for him to do that, the material has to be covered in class. Honors chem will require him to learn almost everything on his own, given the pace of the class and the quality of the teaching in this subject. Maybe he’ll end up liking it, stranger things have happened.
On the bright side, if he survives or even does well, AP Chem should be basically a repeat of this year and he can plan on taking that later on.