Our school doesn’t grade bump c.c. classes.
@Khmama and @VickiSoCal - the bump is not from the school. It is for the UC GPA. When the UCs calculate GPA then CC courses get a bump like APs, during 10th and 11th grade. They also max out at 8 extra points.
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/q-and-a/calculating-gpa/index.html#16
re: ASL bump. S took ASL through a cc that counted for UC/CSU GPA. He was fortunate that it was taught on his HS campus.
I checked D’s online grade report and was pleased to see that all but one teacher has reported grades. Unfortunately, the one who hasn’t is the math teacher and I’m most interested to see how’s she’s doing. A similar system was up and running during my older kids HS years but not all of their teachers used it so this really helps.
We received yet another email, but this time it was with mid-term grades (we are on quarters, so we are 1/2 done with 1st quarter). Seems to be fairly on target thus far, some improvement needed as the way GPA is calculated is a bit of a head scratcher.
While the school gives grades within a range or A+, A, A-, etc…GPA is calculated as any “A” is a 4, any “B” is a 3, and so on and so forth. Those Bs as 3s are a real killer really fast on GPA. Especially painful when the B is an 89 (so B+ aka 3) so just 1 more point would bring it to a A- and therefore a 4 for purposes of GPA calculation. Then another weird system is in place to weight Honors and AP classes that makes less sense than the base GPA system.
Sorry for the soliloquy on GPA calculation, just figured it out with the mid-term report and was wondering if anyone else had something similar.
We’re on hundred point scale so GPA is reflective of actual grade but here’s is the weighting that gets me. Regular classes have no weight so they are multiplied by 1.0, pre-AP classes are multiplied by 1.1 and AP glass are multiplied by 1.2 so grade a of 100 in a regular class can actually bring down your GPA!
We’re on a 9 week grading period but get progress reports posted every three weeks.
DS20 scored lower than he thought he should have on an English writing assignment and was pretty bent out of shape about it. I told him he should meet with the teacher during her office hours to go over the assignment so that he would know what he did wrong and not repeat the mistakes again. The teacher normally saves her notes electronically but for some reason could not find her notes on this assignment, after rereading his assignment she could not figure out why she gave him the grade she did! She did offer to increase his score but so far she hasn’t actually changed it in the grade book so his first 3 week progress report reflected that grade.
Ok, that weighting system just as strange as ours, just in a different way. Our weighting system adds a bonus on your unweighted GPA calculation. For any honors or AP class, they add 0.25 to your total GPA calculation. For example, if you have a 3.0 UW GPA, but are taking 4 honors and/or AP classes within the total classes you are taking, you would add 0.25 for each of those classes, bringing your weighted GPA up to a 4.0. Don’t get it, as those two GPAs don’t even seem to possibly be able to give anyone an indication of what the student is capable of either weighted or unweighted.
So, in Oldest’s case - GPA done with our school system is 3.3 UW (3 As, 3 Bs - two of those Bs being 89s!) plus 1.0 in weighting for a 4.3 W GPA. But, if we took the numeric grades in each class and averaged them, Oldest would have a 93 (what I would call an A- or 3.7 UW) plus 1.0 in weighting for a 4.7 weighted grade, or if the school used their any A is a 4, numeric score would lead to a 4.0 UW GPA with adding 1.0 in weighting giving a 5.0 W GPA.
And in 3scoutsmom system (if I understand it correctly), my child would have a 3.7 (93 numeric UW GPA), or a 4.0 (98 W GPA).
I know there won’t ever be a “perfect” system, but it seems ridiculous to the same work can [easily] be converted into 4 different GPAs that may give radically different views of the exact same work product. It also makes it clear why so many college admissions choose to recalculate to their own standard because Whoa, this doesn’t even start to make sense to me, a clueless parent.
And yes, I probably have spent too much time thinking about this. I’m sure y’all can tell that is my oldest child just by the time I’ve spent with something clearly not that important in the grand scheme of things, but feels important the first time you encounter it.
D17’s HS go with GPA system, where A+ (95+) is 4.5, A (90+) is 4.0. Honor class add 0.5 to the grade. AP class add 1.0 to the grade for weighted GPA calculation. Sum of all the grades times their corresponding credit (science classes have 6 credits, Math/english etc have 5 credits, half year electives have 2.5 credits etc) divided by the total credit is the GPA. Weighted GPA factors in with honor/ap add-ons.
S20’s HS go with a Quality Point Avg system that is on 100 scale. the QPA is the sum of (each class’ grade * each class’ credit published) divided by total credit of all classes taken. All classes at this HS are considered honor so there is no honor special treatment. I can’t find any mentioning of add-on bonus for APs so probably there isn’t any.
Following the rules, I was able to create a xls to calc D17’s weighted and unweighted GPAs myself. I might start one for S20 after his freshman year.
@beebee3 I agree that the whole GPA system is just crazy! We home school until 9th grade and so my kids never really got that grades ‘were a thing’ let alone GPA. I was really taken aback by the whole system and did not realize that students here strategically plan out courses to allow them to take the most AP classes starting in 5th grade! My middle child figured out the whole GPA about half way through 9th grade and said he was “doomed” because he was encouraged because his sister convinced him to take regular 9th grade English instead of Pre-AP English. Because band, PE and orchestra are not weighted the school made a rule that all students must take at least 4 non-weighted classes, at least 3 before senior year.
His brother will end up with 5 non weighted classes before senior year and he will not let DS20 fall into the trap
@3scoutsmom, we homeschooled until 8th grade for my oldest. The younger ones wanted to try what oldest was doing so they, too, are in public school even though our original plan was to homeschool all the children until high school. The whole grade thing was very confusing for oldest last year as an 8th grader - we had always taught to mastery, not to a grade but I was glad in retrospect oldest asked to go in 8th grade because it gave us some small insight into what grades (and the accompanying insanity) have become at this time. I still miss homeschooling because it was so much simpler!
It feels crazy to me that oldest was advised to reconsider band and foreign language (neither weighted) because of the “drag” on GPA - we ignored that advice as music and language are oldest’s passion. I guess we should be grateful PE isn’t considered at all for GPA.
There aren’t any caps at our school regarding being placed into weighted classes, so freshman can have a total of 4 weighted classes, sophomores could have 5 and junior and seniors could easily have all 6 classes with a weighting advantage. Of course, that would require taking the mandatory health and drivers ed classes during the summer so that you were able to fully load your year long schedule. But that seems to be what many students choose to do in our district. We’ve pushed back against that as oldest has ECs outside of school that require travel during the summer and a large time commitment. We know that will put oldest at a disadvantage GPA-wise in relationship to others at the school, but we are trying to encourage our children to not use GPA as a measure of their value and to follow their interests/passions.
It’s a balancing act for sure, as I can feel the pull of the crazy it would be all too easy to fall into!
Our GPA is pretty simple, all A’s.are 4, B’s 3, C’s 2, and so on. UC weighted classes are +1.
D20 is in 2 UC weighted classes as a freshman I believe, pre-calc honors and APHUG.
Math before pee-calc, Freshman and Soph honors English, first 3 years of foreign language are not weighted. So no GPAs are too crazy high first 2 years.
I too realized that taking an extra regular “unweighted” elective brings GPA down. However, I would still encourage 20D to take that second optional elective next year - photography, or art, or whatever she wants, to help expand her horizons. I can’t believe her chances of admission would go down because of a tenth of a percent difference in GPA, while taking an interesting elective might open up some exciting opportunities or simply give new skills that might come in really handy later on in life. I did ask her however if she’d like to take AP Human Geography exam on her own (since it’s not offered in school) to give her college application an extra boost and possibly earn some units and she was pretty open to it. I don’t think she’ll learn what she needs in World History class, so will be asking for some study materials recommendations at some point. Thanks in advance!
These posts make me so glad that we homeschool all the way to graduation.
I have been touring colleges with my current 12th grader. Over and over she has been told that they would be excited to have her in their dept bc they don’t get students like her: full of passion for learning and pursuing what she loves to such a high level in high school.
Your posts tell me why. Her passion is foreign language. She will be graduating with an extremely high number of FL credits bc she has studied 3 languages to at least yr 4+. I am guessing all those unweighted credits would have impacted her GPA.
Ridiculous. Our entire system is designed to make top kids cookie cutter replicas by placing so much emphasis on micro GPA differences. Kudos to all the kids who march to their own drummer and are thwarted by the system for taking courses that really matter to them vs. playing the game. One day someone somewhere is going to appreciate their self-perception.
Hi y’all. I just found and bookmarked this thread after having gone through the college choice process with S15 & D16. Thought i’d take a break, but i’ve found myself back here once again as i was thinking about my S20.
S20 is chill. He hates to be pushed. Yet, he knows there’s some expectations. We are setting about this process more strategically than with the first because we need to have merit $ if he doesnt want to live at home during college.
The GPA talk is interesting – carry on! And for those of you who’ve been homeschooling and now have kids in High Schools – how is that going for them?
The “unweighted classes affecting GPA” only happens if you assume the kid get’s straight A’s.
It’s a ridiculous premise to form a schedule around. If the kid gets a solid number of A’s in non-weighted classes, a few B’s in weighted classes and a few A’s in weighted classes (that’s what D17 has) they will probably end up somewhere around a weighted 4.3, unweighted 3.8.
My D17 was never going to have a unweighted 4.0 and weighted 4.7. No matter what. She takes too many difficult classes in areas that challenge her and is in two sports and works part-time. She’ll be fine and she has enjoyed her high school experience and learned oh so much.
I also think a lot of college recalculate GPAs and will only pick the core courses. So kids should be able to explore other interests and not to worry about impacts to GPAs. My D17 took 6 semester worth of electives ( converts to 3 full year courses) in 9th and 10th grade. Because we thought that would be the perfect time for her to explore all possible interests. And then she reign back and pretty much focused all on AP hard core classes in 11 and 12 grades. S20’s HS doesn’t have as many such kinds of electives available. But it does offer mandatory vocational classes (engineering related subjects, 2 full year courses each grade except 10th that only have 1) that do fit his current interest. However these mandatory vocational classes are not APs so won’t be weighted and they will take a lot of blocks. Thus S20’s AP choices will be limited. I am pretty sure he won’t have anywhere close to his sister’s # of APs.
@VickiSoCal we all have different expectations for our children, personally I do expect that my children will make all A’s and take the most challenging courses. Like @BeeBee3 we are a former homeschooling family and taught for mastery. I still expect my children to master the content of their courses.
FWIW DD16 graduated with GPA of 110.1 with 6 and a half unweighted classes she just barely made it into the top 5% of her class. (unweighted GPA 98.34)
In Texas you must be in at least the top 7% of your class to get into UT-Austin there’s no way you could get B’s and make it into the top 7% at our school
My DS18 has GPA of 108.5710 as end of 10th grade (with 5 unweighted classes) we expect his GPA to increase as he takes more heavily weighted classes. (current unweighted GPA 98.71)
Based on DS20’s 3 weeks progress report he has all A’s and I have no reason to think he won’t continue on the same academic track as his siblings.
I see nothing “ridiculous” about expecting my children to get all A’s. I also find it strange that you insinuate that students that make good grades don’t enjoy their time in high school I would think that students that struggle academically would have a less enjoyable time.
D20 is actually taking 3 elective classes this year - 2 band classes and a leadership class. She feels strongly about participating in these classes, so we are happy to let her do it. She is a very music-centric kid and her leadership classes (this year and last year) have helped her mature by leaps and bounds. She also feels very “connected” to her school by being in the band and helping run school activities (leadership), which we think is so important for kids in high school. She’s taking her foreign language and science class at the junior college so she gets all of her UC a-g courses taken (we are in CA). We have no idea how this will all play out with her GPA - we are just helping her focus on her interests and staying happy in high school. She has always been a straight A student, so we are thinking that her GPA will probably remain competitive for selective colleges.
@3scoutsmom, I too expect my daughter to make all A’s, but I told myself long ago that as long as I see the effort on her end, I’ll never reprimand her for a B - there are all kinds of circumstances, and teachers with biases or unreasonable expectations, etc. Yes, like all the parents I want my daughter to get into the college of her dreams, whatever it may end up being, but high school should be so much more than just a step to college - it prepares kids for college and for life, gives them skills to handle heavy workload and to allocate limited resources and to focus on what’s important.
My biggest pride at the moment - my daughter’s PE class. She is not an athletic kid - I’d say she isn’t comfortable in her own body and feels like she still has no 100% control over it. Since she was a baby, she hated running. However, this year she is really making an effort in PE - they are running almost daily, and D is improving slightly. I doubt that by the end of the year she’d catch up to the “middle of the pack” - though one never knows, right? - but if she overcomes her dislike for physical activity, I would consider it a great win. Of course, it also helps that the teacher grades on effort and not results so she has an A+ currently (just keeps her motivated to work hard), but what I’m most proud of is her attitude and her willingness to push herself beyond her comfort zone.
I’m also proud that my daughter currently has an A- in her Honors English class (yes, she’s shooting for an A), which has a stellar teacher - tough as nails, but very knowledgeable and very dedicated. The teacher doesn’t accept late assignments period, demands 150% effort on every assignment, takes off grade points for kids talking in class, etc. Whatever grade my daughter earns in her class, she’ll learn tenfold more than her friend who has the same class with another teacher - and i’ll still tell my daughter she did a great job.
I didn’t find VickiSoCal condescending at all. Achieving a 4.0 unweighted GPA is certainly possible, and in some schools it is easier than in others, and for some students it is easier than for others. I totally agree with Vicki that it is ridiculous to focus solely on GPA in high school as opposed to rigor and challenges of the curriculum, EC’s, etc. IMHO, there was no suggestion that kids who get all A’s have no fun in high school, only a personal opinion that kids and their parents shouldn’t just focus on maximizing GPA.
One person graduating in our high school had an unweighted gpa of 4.0 out of 750 seniors last year. At our school, with my kids’ schedules, it is not a realistic goal. And oldest did have a 4.0 in middle school and works incredibly hard. But it wasn’t happening in high school in IB. She puts enough pressure on herself without me doing it too.
It sounds like trying to get accepted UT-Austin creates a pressure-cooker environment. Other than A&M, I don’t know too much about the other public options in TX. Here in CA, at our flagships UCLA & UC Berkeley, even the top 7% wouldn’t be an assurance of getting in. I know a lot of high schoolers who have given up on the idea of getting into UCLA or UCB, even with stellar GPAs. We are lucky to have other great options in the UC system, though, and good CSU campuses (esp. SLO).