@havenoidea Colleges with holistic admissions deal with grade inflation by looking at the school profile. If the top 10 percent of kids all have a 4.0 unweighted, there’s your grade inflation.
Colleges use admissions software and consultants to manage this stuff. I haven’t seen or played around with the software, but from what I’ve been told it scrapes the transcript and computes the GPA the way the college likes and lists AP/IB classes. The software also can tell them estimated financial need, likely hood of graduating, rigor, success of admits from specific HS or similar HS, etc.
Colleges lean on this stuff hard to manage the class and hit their numbers.
Forgive me, since D18 never applied to a highly selective school, but I have never understood the GC designation of most rigorous or all this information AOs are supposed to see on the school profile. Our profile doesn’t list how many people have 4.0s it just explains our grading scale, our median SAT/ACT, pass rate of AP and our courses offered. We order our transcripts electronically through the county- no GC required. The only rigor question on our transcript is for math. We eliminated our GC from the entire process, so I’m always confused about the most rigor thing people mention.
The ‘level of rigor’ box is part of what the GC selects whey they complete their portion of the Common App for every student. They will also typically have a ‘letter’ that describes the student. In private schools I think this can be quite tailored and specific. In public schools where a GC has between 250 and 500 kids it’s more boiler plate, and colleges expect that.
For my D18 we got a survey from the GC to talk about our kid and their strengths and I think they pulled from that for the letter.
I’ve been told GC letters don’t count for much – they mainly want to know the level of rigor and that the student is ‘in good standing.’
Does that answer your question?
Apparently, the TO Gods were reading CC today and saw my plea. S21 plans on applying to Pitt’s Dietrich School. So as of today, my hasn’t-tested-yet kid can officially go all TO if that’s what it comes to.
Yes, colleges look at their historical data about students from particular high schools or maybe districts to help them assess rigor and predicted ability to be successful. At highly selective schools I think they gets LOTS of kids who pass that bar, so it’s more of a ‘check’ and then they start looking at the kid in a more holistic way.
I also think that there are some applicants from less well known places (rural Alaska or something) who get put into some special ‘pile’ for consideration b/c there’s just not a lot of data to rely on. Those are probably some of the interesting admissions discussions that come into play.
They are also trying to figure out how likely that kid is to accept an admit based on data. This is where you get some colleges denying high stats kids b/c their data says that kid is unlikely to accept an offer, esp. if they haven’t demonstrated interest.
This piece is even more critical for less selective colleges where it’s really important to hit enrollment targets.
My daughter and I have been working with a college consultant who was an Ivy Dean. She taught us how to recalculate GPA, and coached corse selections based on this re-calcuation as well. She says that the vast majority of selective and highly selective schools do two things: They count the number of APs/IB classes and Honors classes. That number is pulled out and clearly marked. Then the GPA is recalculated based only on the 5 core classes end of course grades (not semester/qtr)- English/History/Math/Science/Foreign Language. Ideally the student has all 5 cores, all 4 years of HS (gold standard). This is also noted. If a class was taken at the AP/IB level but not a core (AP Psych, AP Econ…) they will also be factored into the GPA calculation. No other electives or honors classes go into the GPA no matter how well they are regarded at the school. For this reason, we decided to keep FL Sr year and not take a science elective (Forensic Chem) which would have netted her nothing, but add a second AP Math (Statistics). She said most Admissions Offices have jr staff /interns who pull and calculate these numbers.
The GPA listed on the CDS is not the same. They want that as high as possible.
I have heard this as well. All five cores for all four years. For us, that only leaves one elective each semester. Last year and this year, that is Yearbook for D. I’ve also heard that, for the top schools, hitting the AP level in all cores is important.
@Rue4 Thank you! That is super helpful. Still not sure what I’m comparing the final number to, but that recalculation is kinda what I figured, except for the end-of-course part. Would they use the spring semester grade for a “final” grade? Do they use +/- if the high school reports it, or no?
@InfiniteWaves – Great news! Tks for sharing!
I’ve been doing similar daily watch for Wisconsin. They have a message up they are ‘monitoring the situation’ but have not gone TO yet.
Meanwhile my S takes the ACT tomorrow in a rural county with rising COVID stats. He practiced wearing a mask last weekend and did fine – it was one of those light surgical masks.
Just praying most the kids near him wear a mask, but I’ll fully expect some/many won’t. Makes my heart beat faster just thinking about 4 hours in a room with 10 or so young people some of whom aren’t wearing masks, but he’s prepped so he’s going to go through with it. Fingers crossed we don’t regret this decision. Stupid COVID.
Meanwhile, in late breaking news our schools are now 100% online for the first quarter and then will, hopefully, move to hybrid. They’re also moving to a block schedule which I think will be good given the online format.
@Rue4 What about dual credit courses taken at a college? Are those pulled out along with the AP/IB classes?
@evergreen My understanding is that in your case, the first and second semester would be averaged into an end of course grade, if one was not provided on the transcript. There is no weighting in the recalculated GPA, so I believe the “yardstick” is a 4.0 scale. This is the only way they can compare apples and oranges, 4.0 / 5.0 / 6.0 / 100pt scales that all these varied transcripts come in. And yes to +/-, though an A= 4.0 and A+= 4.0.
@homerdog Yes, the expectation is that if a course is available as an AP, that to get the box checked “highest rigor” the student would have to have taken the AP, or highest level available. If there is regular Biology, Honors Biology and AP Biology, the counselor can only check Highest Rigor for Bio if AP was taken. The admissions counselor taught us that the course selection/transcript is the most important part of the application and the part we pretty much have the most control over (course selection). We have forgone electives to hit the 5/4 all AP objective. My second daughter is not shooting for the top selective schools like D’21, so she stopped Spanish after level 4 Sophomore year and will not have APs in the majority of her classes, favoring DE instead.
@jeneric I am similar in not understanding the GC commenting on rigor.
If student doesn’t apply through the common app, then does anyone comment on the student/rigor from the Hs other than if LORs are submitted? One counselor mentioned at a informational meeting that students should use the state flagship’s app instead of common app, even though state flagship is listed on common app. This is what she was told by the university. So, it makes me wonder if this is true of all universities…better to use their app than common app. So when would one use the common app. It sounds simpler unless the university prefers their app.
@1Lotus I’m no expert, but we were told by the Admissions counselor we are using that the HS GC has the option to fill out the rigor check boxes. Some schools/ school systems opt not to do it for any of their students. She advised us to ask our GC (our school does). If so, it is the goal to get the highest rigor box checked in as many core subjects as possible. Think of it as another comparative tool. It levels the playing field, because it is specific to your school only. Within the offered courses at your school that you could have taken, did you take the most rigorous options available in the 5 cores? If there was a scheduling conflict and you wanted to take an AP class, but it could not work, the GC MUST note this in their rec letter. Being that not all schools provide rigor, seems it could help your student if they had highest rigor and could have that info provided. If they did not, and you can use a school specific application and avoid having that sent, that may be helpful. Kind of like choosing to not send AP scores that are not 5s.
No, they are not. They are noted in the tally of higher level courses, but do not count for recalculated GPA.
Thank you, @Rue4 . For yardstick, I was wondering what the grade range, or average, might be for a particular college, if the CDS is not relevant.
(I am assuming that averaging semester grades would look something like B+ and A- is (3.33 + 3.67)/2 = 3.5)
Dual credit classes are not seen as having more rigor. I’ve heard more than one AO say that. I can see why. We know a lot of kids who take calc here at our community college over a summer because it’s way easier than taking it at places like Purdue and Illinois. They are usually engineers who only need a few math classes. They just transfer the credit.
@Rue4 , what if kids are not able to take the 5 cores all 4 years? In our school district, they let the kids take LOTE (FL) in 7th and 8th grade as electives. My daughter finished 4 levels of Spanish by 9th grade , 4th level being the AP Spanish language and culture, which she managed to get a 5. And she completed her AP Calc BC this year (also 5), but after a conversation with the AOs from WUSTL and Rice (when they still came to schools earlier this year) she decided that she was not going to do AP Stats. As the AOs told her that they will not transfer AP stats if she is interested in any engineering major. She will not be able to take all 5 cores next year, as a matter of fact, she has not done all 5 in the same year since sophomore year. But all her courses are either AP, honors or DC courses except the Orchestra class (credit 9th &10th, Pass/fail 11th & 12th). Also, Econ is a required 1/2 year course senior year in TX, so she is taking AP Macro Econ in Spring of her Sr. year. How will all this impact her?
She has around 40 credits from dual credit and college courses (she has taken in school and in summer for the past 3 years) and if she transfers some of the AP courses that she has done so far, she will have (more than) enough credits to get an AA/AS this fall. what are the advantages/disadvantages of getting an AA/AS ? She asked the AOs from a couple of schools she is interested in, if she will be considered a transfer student, they all said “no, not if you graduate before your high school graduation”. I think the prospect of getting a college diploma before she does her high school is really appealing to her. She does not attend an early college high school. I would really appreciate any advise.
That is silly, IMO. So if a kid starts high school at, say, AP Calc BC and then goes on to take MV Calc and other dual credit courses for math in 10th - 12th, that somehow works out less favorably than if the kid had taken AP Calc AB, AP Calc BC, and AP Stats? I don’t get why dual credit courses in core subjects aren’t given the same weight as AP classes. Or what about the kid who takes a language that doesn’t have a corresponding AP course?
Our school AP and DC courses are have the same weight a 5.0. Kids take them interchangeably depending on what they can fit in their schedule.