True. we are not looking at IVies but his dream school kind of is UCLA and for UCLA if your GPA is below 3.9 ish Unweighted chances are very low. He understood that even without the B’s UCLA was still very hard but with few B’s chances go down much further so a bit of reality is sinking in.
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We are in similar spot for the next 5 weeks until the sem end we told him to just focus on grades and then we can look at college list/summer plans.
also curios for you does Grades only at the end of year count? For us the semester grades count towards GPA.
for us GPA is calculated with end of year grades only, but of course the semester grades contribute, numeric grades at the end of each semester are each 45% of the final grade and final if given is 10% and then that number grade is converted to the final letter grade.
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For us grades are cumulative and you get a “FAV” final year average grade which is what I think colleges see. But that FAV is four grades averaged out from the year.
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Frustrating for sure!
The UCs are putting a cap on number of OOS admissions so schools like UCLA and UCB are going to approach Ivy League level of admissions % admitted for OOS students.
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At our school colleges only see the final grade for each class. Grades are based on the average of 4 quarters (or in the case of 1 semester classes on 2 quarters).
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Interesting how different school handle. For us the grades from end of each sem are used to calculate the GPA. So the sem grades are important as it is final at that point.
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Thanks I wish we had the same process that would reduce the stress and we would have more time to figure out if someone is struggling in a subject and catch up.
Looks like all 5 who responded have different way the schools calculate :). I wonder how the colleges use all this.
True. We are in State for UC’s but both UCB and UCLA have 10 to 14% acceptance rate for engineering and CS is even harder.
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I have been told that many colleges do their own computation. Some use +/-, some don’t. Some make different adjustments for honors/AP to even out weighting that different schools will use. I think that the way yours does works out for most in the end. if you get a B in the first semester and an A at the end of the second it averages out to a B+ or A- either way.
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The good news with engineering and CS is that you don’t HAVE to go to a “top” school like UCB or UCLA to land a good job out of college…employers tend to care more about what you know/what you can do. Attend any ABET certified program and you’ll be fine.
UCSB has a great college of engineering.
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Our school averages the 4 quarter grades so there is chance of redemption. S24 has been focussing only on his studies and sports. No plans to visit colleges but we may get some in locally during the winter break. As if the stress was not enough he got a call that his friend got Covid so he is testing himself. I am hearing many people falling sick again. Wishing everyone a healthy Fall/Winter.
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Completely agree. CS is so much in demand that one does not need to go to a top school to land a very decent job right out of college. Experience counts a great deal.
I am a doctor and let me tell you, the news is not exagerating, every person who walks into my office has a cold, and not a little one, cough, runny nose, cranky, and that is the adults! No one is testing anymore because it kind of doesnt matter. It is all crazy infectious and everyone is just going about their days.
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Toughest semester for my girl too. Between Fall sport, rigorous classes, clubs and an active social life she is completely run down and catching every virus out there. We are all thankful that Fall sport just ended- she is finally able to rest up a bit. It’s been a rough few months!
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Our school has trimesters. Trimester 1 ended a couple of weeks ago, so we got report cards about a week ago. The official transcript only will reflect final grades at the end of the school year.
So for any given subject, a % of the overall final grade is based on the Trimester 1, 2, and 3 grades. A % of the overall final grade is based on the final exam at the end of the school year. And if it’s an AP class and you take the AP exam (school pays for the AP exam fee), if you get a 3, 4, or 5 on the exam, it boosts your final grade to an A- or A, depending on what your overall grade is going into the AP exam. If you get a 1 or 2 on the exam, it drops your overall grade for the class…the school has a chart that explains it.
All of the AP teachers are required to have students take a mock AP exam on a Saturday in the 2 months leading up to AP exams in May. Then the AP teacher grades all of those practice tests & sits down with each student to recommend whether or not the kid should take the test, also offers suggestions on how to improve one’s score, what to study more on, etc.
The alternate final exam is to take a school-proctored final exam, which is based on prior AP exams for that subject.
So D24 still has a chance to pull her 2 C’s up to B’s or even A’s. We’ll see how the rest of the school year goes. We are not targeting Top 20 or even Top 50 schools, though.
True if he gets a B followed by an A it would end up a better on the avg. Our school does not give +/- in the official transcript.
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Agree on school not mattering so much for CS. He is not yet 100% sure on Major so that is another reason we want to not go to a pure tech/Eng school incase he ends up changing major. We seriously need to start narrowing our criteria for college and the college list.
We were recently told hat if we want LoR’s its better to ask before end of Junior year.
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