So my kid’s school counselor can submit the midyear transcript to Common App and the EA schools won’t look at it, is that right? Only RD schools and any schools where my kid is deferred or WL will download the midyear transcript? Thanks! This is all so new to us!
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No clue. We sent in transcripts. Not sure how they post to common app.
You should ask the schools but if your checklist is done then that would be my expectation, that they don’t want to see more.
For us Emory and Rice wanted and it was a spot on their checklist.
Not sure where you’ve applied but this school is $5000 a year. Plus room and board I’m assuming.
NC PROMISE
The NC Promise Tuition Plan means students pay tuition expenses of just $500 per semester for in-state students and $2,500 per semester for out-of-state students. This applies to all undergraduate students, online, transfer, freshmen, and currently enrolled students. Student fees, along with room and board costs will not be impacted. NC Promise dramatically reduces the expense of a college education, saving students at least $10,000 over their four years of enrollment.
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Wondering the same. For our daughter her first semester grades are a very big deal for a couple of decent reasons in her case. She has 4 EA schools who have requested the grades and then 5 RD schools that she hasn’t heard from yet. We are asking her counselor to send the grades to all schools even the ones who;ve already accepted her(6 schools). For her eventual top two choices they could act as a back up for a merit appeal.
Kid said its too rural. Sigh. He has 1 likely affordable option right now but he needs the music school admit first.
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Hes academically in at UL-Lafayette so hoping merit goes through as advertised.
U of South Alabama looked financially maybe as well.
Jacksonville U in fl gave enough merit to get tuition down to 7-9k/yr which works. But he knows the school is small.
Fingers crossed!
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Twin 2 got accepted to UT Austin’s PACE program tonight. Still in shock lol. We were fully expecting CAP since he was just shy of auto admit.
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Is it really that different in college? Some colleges make it challenging to get As and others (most) don’t. There’s lots of talk about rampant grade inflation in college too.
I was quite surprised to be told by D18 after graduation that she didn’t feel any of her college classes were that academically challenging, or put another way, it was always easy to get an A if you simply paid attention and turned in all the work (she graduated with ~3.95 and 150+ semester credits in 4 years, her non-As were almost all in early studio ballet classes). Likewise her brother said there were only two college classes in 4 years he wasn’t certain he’d get either an A or A+ in (he ended up with a 4.0 and more A+s than As). On the other hand, I think my undergrad degree was more intellectually challenging than anything I’ve done before or since (including a PhD) and my spouse would say the same.
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I think it depends on the school you went to. My husband has an employee that works for him who told college was a breeze because his highschool was so hard, competitive. Happens to be the same high school my daughter goes to. He said the other college kids he went to school with found college to be extremely hard but they felt that their high school didn’t prepare them well even though they took challenging classes- high schools in the US truly vary regarding level of difficulty.
Our neighbors live where we live 6 months and somewhere in the Midwest 6 months of the year so kids are in two schools (started doing this during pandemic/ but kids essentially grew up in my area). The kids and parents told me that the highschool we go to is 100x times harder, the son could not cut precalculus GT and dropped down to regular at our highschool. When he moved to Midwest for the next 6 months - they said the highschool in the Midwest was way too easy and he was moved to a higher math class. They said both middle and highschool where we currently live is harder but also is better. While the school they go to in the Midwest - is easier, less competitive, and just less stressful. Yet even though it is less stressful, the kids who I’ve known since they were in K all prefer the more challenging school culture and feel that the students are smarter and more prepared where we live.
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Absolutely depends on the school: I know lots of kids who are very bright 99th%ile gifted kids who are challenged to deeply think and analyze in college, yet similar kids who go to different schools who say it is easier(less thinking, lots of multiple choice) than HS, just showing up and doing minimal gets As. Many above average kids find the same colleges to be very easy. Yes the kids who feel challenged by their college do often still get As(unless its a known deflator like MIT but many of them get As too), but they put in many hours a week reading/writing/psets etc. One really has to get to know the intellectual vibe and the true workload and expectations of a college before choosing.
Mine both wanted a demanding intellectual atmosphere and culture so mostly put those on the list except for a couple of backups. It is not really about the time spent on classes, it is more the depth of thinking required, the engagement of peers in discussions in and outside of class, the professors, etc.
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Yes there are seemingly three types of high schools and colleges (though it may differ by subject within a single college):
- easy classes, easy As
- hard classes, easy As
- hard classes, hard As (rare nowadays)
It’s a challenge getting into college from a type 3 high school, but doing well in college is much more difficult if you go to a type 1 high school and attend a type 2 or especially a type 3 college.
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It’s great to have options! Big or small, he’ll find his place. Congrats! 
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Not from Texas – what is PACE? and CAP? sounds like good news though!
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PACE is different from CAP. It’s only offered to around 100 freshman applicants, so very selective. You co-enroll in classes at Austin Community College and UT Austin at the same time, then fully transition to full time UT classes sophomore year. You’re a Longhorn from Day 1, live in the dorms, eligible for clubs and orgs and sporting events tickets etc. The ACC classes are for PACE students only so it’s a small cohort. You are assigned 3 advisors: One ACC, one UT and a dedicated PACE mentor.
The caveat is it’s limited to College of Liberal Arts, Moody College of Communications and College of Social Work. You cannot apply for any majors outside of those 3 colleges. With CAP, you start out at another system school, are guaranteed a major in COLA but have the option of applying as an external to other impacted majors.
Twin 2 applied for Econ (1st) and Govt (2nd) so PACE is actually an excellent deal for him. He spent a week at UT last summer for Boys State and loved every second of it. This could be a game changer!
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My son is in engineering and definitely getting his butt kicked. He was a hs stud.
He’s a 3.6 with a 3.2 in major and two WDs. Maybe the non engineering are easy for him. He said in the intro geography class, the b school students were complaining about the one hr homework per week. But certain kids are more adept at certain subjects and it could be that too.
My daughter has the 3.95. She’s always working. Whether the grades are a gimme or not, I know she’s working, in the library . But she claims others coast, party all the time. Who really knows.
One can look at grad rates but then theres other reasons besides difficulty one doesn’t graduate.
I suppose schools feel pressured to give good grades for jobs that require them and grad school.
My 3.1 college gpa was higher than my 2.8 in hs. I’m sure I had to earn it all. Miraculously my mba was a 3.6 but that was years later. My cryptonite was stats - regressions - b4 they used a computer to do it.
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Maturity could also have a lot to do with improving grades and better performance later. I was a mediocre student in HS (good but not great grades b/c it was easy and I didn’t work hard b/c of laziness and fear of failure - ie somehow in my mind it was better to do no work and get a B+ than to study and possibly not get better than A- or something that made sense to a 16 year old). My first two years in college I had like a 3.0 as well - same issue, minimum amount of work – getting a B was easy, but to get an A was hard, so I did the easy thing. Then I met my wife and she was studious so if I wanted to hang out with her, I had to study as well… and shockingly, my GPA my last two years was a 3.9 – it was also in major classes and more interesting, but a lot had to do with just being better at studying.
Same thing with grad school in engineering - I was working full time, had two kids with a third on the way – I had a specific goal in mind, and I was way more disciplined about everything, so I did all the work right when it was assigned after class. Asked specific questions, etc… just being a better student that for me came with age and maturity.
Now, I think there was an interesting dynamic in undergrad and grad school. I think it was pretty easy to pass and even get a B or at least a B-. Based on the grade distribution I knew about, but it was very hard to get an A. So it wasn’t exactly a bell curve, the distribution was skewed heavily around C+/B-… but there did seem to be some grade inflation to that point.
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There have been two demonstrable eras of grade inflation in post-WWII college education: the late 60s/early 70s, and the late 90s/early 00s.
The former is widely (though not universally) thought to have been the result of pressure to keep students in college so they wouldn’t be subject to the draft; explanations for the latter are much more disparate.
Over the past 20 years or so, though? Looking across higher education as a whole, there hasn’t been any measurable grade inflation. However, it is clear that even with those two bursts of grade inflation, what is easier is passing (and further, passing with a grade above a D—that’s by far the rarest grade given in college courses). Getting mainly As, though? Not so much.
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re: engineering and grad school: do grades even matter? do employers look at that like they often do for undergrad?
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I’m not sure, I already had a job at the time, so it certainly didn’t matter for me. I was more remarking on how I became a better student as I got older – I don’t necessarily think my better grades were because of grade inflation but because I actually developed good habits that came with age and maturity.
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