What @mountainmomof3 said. As far as the admission process itself (separate from individual schools’ merit issues), weighting is entirely meaningless.
Just think about all the different weighting (or not) systems that those of us who post here have talked about, and ponder how many hundreds more situations are out there. Admission teams could not possibly have time to parse them all, and do not care about how your school individually weights (or does not weight) grades.
Wow some of your high schools offer a very wide range of classes. I feel like d20’s is pretty basic. I talked to a few parents about the teacher “who doesn’t give A’s”. They say he definitely says that all the time but actually does give A’s and is a pretty good teacher. Now to see if I can convince D20 of that.
@lkim10 - we have fairly limited offerings at our local HS. Another issue is our size limits the number of sections so seniors can struggle to get the elective classes they want. I am hoping our school profile spells out those limitations.
Hi, @AlwaysLearn. You just totally summed up how I feel. We were going along, casually reading about various schools, then WHAM. All of a sudden it seems like it’s time to really start narrowing down the lists.
Thanks to all for the information about Pepperdine (I’d learned that it was a Christian school, then forgotten again), so it’s off the list for now. Today we spent some time sitting with D20 to talk through various options and Google while taking notes.
We’re a full pay family, so merit aid is a huge deal. One question that I have is that people mention over and over to run the numbers and narrow down your list based on what you can afford. But it seems complicated for those chasing merit, but while X school may be well out of our price range if we’re paying full price, it may be solidly within our range if she received a great merit package. And it seems like the only way to know is to leave it on the list and let her apply. Is that how most people handle this?
I feel like she’s already in great shape in that she has a firm safety that she loves, has solid stats, and is really engaged in the process. It’s the narrowing down/taking notes/remembering the details of all of the schools that we’re struggling with. THERE ARE SO MANY OPTIONS.
@ebh87 – re: the circus bug. Well i have a sister who LOVES to take her circus classes. She’s been doing it for 7+ years. She works a tech firm to support her habit. I recently met some of her circus friends. You wouldn’t believe the caliber of professionals they were: NASA physicist, Neurologist, retired aerospace engineer (YOUNG!!) Lawyers, professors, etc. She has traveled around the world to take classes, sometimes they go in groups. I guess my point is: i understand your daughter’s love of it; and 2) she can do it her whole life - or at least for many years going forward and 3) a healthy paying job can go a long way to support her habit. Hope it works out well for her.
Not really. It is school policy and the kids know about it before they register for the class. It is also on the syllabus which the parents and kids both sign the first week of school. There are regular classes and honors classes as well so kids have options if they don’t want to take the AP exam.
Regarding the teacher who says that they don’t give As, we have a teacher like that. I think it is manipulative so s/he gets a class of kids who care about the subject and will work hard. I notice that teachers in general are much more difficult and strict before the drop deadline. After they weed out the kids who don’t want to make the effort, the teachers seem a lot more reasonable.
@glitterbug No, that is not the only approach. If you are talking about competitive merit, start reading the profiles of previous yrs’ winners. Look at the common data set/IPEDS info. Be extremely critical of your student. Their stats need to be in the very top range (GPA, course rigor, test scores). Then they need to have what it takes for their app to actually be considered (the former is simply what it takes not to be eliminated immediately…big difference to be considered.). Something about their app needs to stand out above the nationwide top talented applicants that have the same everything. The additional could be national/international awards/honors, some exceptional local achievement (significant local community impact), unusual level of academics, etc.
The higher the school is ranked, the more exceptional the pool. Some scholarship winners are accepted to multiple tippy top elites and turn those down to follow the merit money. Even at mid-level schools competitive merit is extremely competitive. Filtering the schools and applying strategically where the student is offering the school something the school wants to capitalize on, the higher their odds. Many of these scholarships are in turn advertising elements, so the stats/profiles of the students are used to attract future students. So higher profile stats at lower ranked schools stand out more than at higher ranked schools, etc.
The poorest decision you can make is applying thinking that stats alone will make a student competitive. That is most likely not a realistic assessment. Automatic merit is where you look for that.
ETA: Apps are very time consuming. App fatigue is real. It is prudent to limit apps to realistic options where they are willing to attend so that the apps are well-put-together vs slipshod. Lots of apps more than likely means applying with poorer quality and quality is what will make the difference.
@Glitterbug One thing I would add, and one thing to emphasize from what Mom2 said: There are schools with published guaranteed merit, where it is easy to determine the amount of merit your student will receive based soley on stats. Schools like Bama and Arizona are like this. Then, there are some schools where you can’t really tell ‘exactly’ what your student will receive. They may publish a range of the award…so it’s ‘automatic’, but the school could adjust the amount from year to year. One of the schools on D20’s list is like this…Univ of Iowa. Look at the ColConf threads for the schools on your list, find the awards for the 2019 kids and what their stats were. That should narrow things down when the NPC does not include a merit component.
@ebh87 Would your D consider a gap year?
@bgbg4us D20’s aerial instructors and classmates are almost all professionals - mostly professors. They are great examples to her of how she can continue pursuing her passion while having a career. Like your sister, they travel to retreats and they also perform so D20 sees that she can do both. We’ve talked about it a lot and have made it a priority to only look at schools with studios nearby where she can continue training and maybe performing.
@bigmacbeth we’ve talked a little about a gap year and I think it might be good for her. But she would only want to do circus during that year and the professional circus programs are usually three years. Two at the least. And they are expensive.
@lkg4answers but what if a student wants the AP level class and/or teacher but doesn’t need or want to take the exam? What if the student decides at the end of the school year they are not prepared well for the exam? I believe students have the right (especially in public school) to take the class without being forced to take the exam - especially if it will not benefit the student in any way. Why should the school take the AP designation off the transcript simply because the student didn’t take the exam. The student did the work and earned a grade. Sorry, I don’t mean to make a big deal about this but I really find this appalling and would make a big stink about it if I were a parent at a school that had that policy. Especially if I had to pay for the AP exams.
Yes to everything @bigmacbeth wrote about some scholarships. Some other examples like that are Case, Pitt, and Temple. It is pretty easy to determine a general ballpark amt by reading CC. Those scholarships are pretty much automatic with unpublished formulas for the amts and are different from competitive scholarships like the Robertson, Wells, Jefferson, etc.
Then there are the class of schools that give token merit to everyone. (Basically every applicant rceives a $5-10k award.)
If merit is make or break for ability to attend, also watch out for schools that frontload. Frontloading is when a school offers more $$ to entering freshman and then cuts funding for subsequent yrs. In another general financial category, watch out for wording that is fixed amts vs equivalent to if this can make a difference in affordability over 4 yrs. some schools’ costs go up 5% per yr and you might find yourself gapped in subsequent yrs.
@Mom2aphysicsgreek Great point about “front loaded scholarships” My DD16 actually ended up with a lot of front loaded scholarship money, all the one time local ones and the school scholarship covered freshmen year dorms and a one time ‘books and technology’ stipend that was paid the first semester of freshmen year. For her, the front loaded scholarships turned out to be a good thing because we only had to pay taxes on scholarships the first semester of her freshmen year and not two semesters as in following years so the tax burden averaged out. Of course it would have been great to get those funds every year;-)
@ebh87 In the case of our large public HS that takes away .5 of the GPA weighting if you don’t take the AP test, it is kind of a bummer, I guess. But at least in our case you can take the test (at our expense, which is the bummer part) and answer all B’s and walk out of the test. We don’t have teachers looking to improve their averages through threats. I’ve actually never heard of an issue, which I guess is strange. Most kids want that bump, and are prepared, so they take the test.
@bigmacbeth but why should the school punish the student for not taking the test? Why is the school involved at all? The job of the district is to educate students. If students take AP classes and the district weights grades then all students who complete the class should benefit from the weighted grades equally. The AP test should not have a connection with the student’s GPA.
^Because that is the commitment when you sign up. The school is probably trying to see how well they are teaching the class and sitting for the exam is the best way to do that. Knowing what you signed up for and sticking to the rules is an excellent lesson in life. Sorry, don’t mean to be preachy, really, but I truly believe that.
I am a huge believer in taking that test… not just because that’s what was committed to
(at sign up) but it’s an excellent insurance policy. You may think your child is going to go to a school that won’t accept the credit, but you don’t know what’s going to happen in future years and they could need that credit in a different School.
@ebh87 Why should districts provide any sort of bump for APs, then? Why should some districts give ‘+’ and ‘-’ grades? Why should they put YOUR standardized test scores on THEIR transcript (ours doesn’t anymore…but they used to). You could go on forever.
I really don’t understand. My feeling is that students take the AP class for various reasons and the school should provide that level of education regardless of whether or not the student takes the test. Merely taking a test shouldn’t have anything to do with a student’s GPA. Our district doesn’t weight grades so it’s not an issue here but I’m absolutely shocked at the way other districts handle this. Sorry if I’m beating a dead horse. 
I know our district uses the scores to assess the teaching not so much the student. When the overall AP pass rates were low, the district started investing more in AP teacher development. But some AP classes will give you a grade bump for doing well on the test. “B” in class but 4 or 5 on test will have your grade bumped up to an “A” after the fact. They do not lower grades in response to poor exam grades but I have heard of school districts that do in other states.
Honestly, I would have my kids test regardless in case they need the credit. For most classes, they are prepared enough that minimal review results in a passing exam grade. For harder classes, more review needed but not an issue getting a 4 or 5.
It would be nice if the school paid for the tests but that will never happen here. It would be even nicer if the school provided the required textbooks for all of the AP and DE classes but that is not the case either. But at the end of the day, the money we spend on tests/books will result in around 53 credits and I am pretty sure we will come out ahead.
@ebh87 The district isn’t punishing the student. It is as if a student didn’t take a final exam. The AP exam is considered part of the class. If you don’t take it, you don’t get credit. Just like students should be prepared for a final at the end of a course, there is no reason that a student taking an AP course at our school shouldn’t be prepared for taking the AP exam. If you want the AP distinction on your transcript, you take the AP exam. If you don’t, you take the honors course.
Our school has AP courses in 30 subjects and honors courses in 28 subjects so obviously it isn’t an issue with the students/families in our district. I need to go through the list of courses that are offered as AP and not honors but I believe they are courses like AP Seminar. For most core subject courses the instruction in honors and AP is similar except the honors course focuses less on preparing you for the AP exam. As far as needing or wanting the exam, it is up to the student whether they send the test scores to a particular school.
Regarding wanting to take a particular teacher, the same can be said in college. What if you want a particular professor and they only teach an honors level course? What if they require attendance in order to pass the class and you don’t want to purchase a clicker? There are always “what if” scenarios. You make the decision to take the class based on the criteria set forth before your register.
I think the variability in what goes along with AP distinction or teachers who don’t give As is part of why there are regional admissions reps. They understand the rigor of an AP course relative to an honors course at our high school vs another high school. I also think it is why most colleges rely on SAT/ACT exams. The standardized tests are STANDARDIZED.