<p>So we just sent two transcripts to colleges. We're a little giddy. The school district in SF gave them to us for free. Which was awesome. Question though. So my son before the end of the year got pulled into the counselors office and was told that he is #10 out of 535 students, ie top 5%. But that is no were on the transcript. How would I go about getting this information to the admissions office?</p>
<p>The transcript was very lacking information wise. No weight GPA, no class rank, didn't do a very good job differentiating Honors and AP classes.</p>
<p>I also noticed on some applications that they would accept a transcript that had SAT ACT scores on them. I don't even see a box to get that done. Just wondering.</p>
<p>Still figuring out which schools we're going to apply too. We've already sent in our app to Alabama though ^^</p>
<p>Most high schools have “sanitized” transcripts for college purposes. The reason is that there is often info in the “real” transcript that can hurt more students, than help. There can be internal notations, comments, exam grades, quarter grades that might be too much information. The situation for colleges now is to give as little general information as possible.</p>
<p>That unfortunately hurts those who are on the tip top of the school hierarchy. When schools don’t rank or give favorable information, it forces colleges to guess, and rely on other info.</p>
<p>Did you send the transcripts, or did the school send them? Most colleges want the transcripts sent by the school, not by you. Often a transcript given to you will be an unofficial copy, and it might not even have the exact same information as the one sent to the colleges.</p>
<p>Yes, some colleges accept transcripts with SAT/ACT on them. That doesn’t mean your school is required to report it on your transcript. That just means that if you school does, the college won’t require you to have official scores sent, saving you some money.</p>
<p>These are unofficial copies of your school’s transcript. The colleges will most likely still request the official transcript which is signed/sealed by your school or uploaded to the common app from your school. </p>
<p>What will usually happen is that your school counselor or college counselor will send to colleges:</p>
<p>the student transcript (some schools have rank on the transcript but many do not)</p>
<p>the school profile which usually has the demographic information about your school including SAT/ACT range, graduation rate, what percentage of your students go on to attend 2/4 year colleges, the types of schools they attend, grading and ranking at your school (whether grades are weighted, unweighted) if your school offers AP/Honors/IB/dual enrollment, etc.</p>
<p>The student evaluation either from the common app or a school specific student evaluation form </p>
<p>This is usually written by the counselor- counselor will write as to whether your child has taken the most rigorous program your school offers, how he ranks in context to his peers at your school, any challenges that he may have had to overcome, awards, how he works with his peers, teachers and administration, make-up of the home.</p>
<p>I concur with sybbie. We met with our students’ counselor to understand the transript. We had a list of items that we wanted to be sure that colleges saw that were not included in the “standard” transcript. She was excited about our list since it made it easier for her to write her letter.</p>
<p>FWIW, she also said that transcripts include minimal information for the reason cpt indicated. Extra information hurts far more kids than it helps. For example, if they include class rank, it helps one student (valedictorian) and hurts every other student who inevitably wish their rank was higher.</p>
<p>Not putting rank on the transcript also helps because there are too many ways to calculate rank. The high school I attended back in the 80’s did away with rank, because they didn’t want to use a weighted average, but also didn’t want to punish the kids who took a more rigorous classload. They reported an estimated decile, and colleges seemed to be OK with that. We also did not have a valedictorian - again, because how do you calculate in a fair way?</p>
<p>I recall in the early 90’s a situation where two students in the high school where we then lived were involved in just a such a situation, where in theory the calculation was fair, but ended up rewarding the student who took a lighter load, because the extra class the other student took was at a regular academic level, and even with a perfect grade, it dropped her GPA lower than the other student who instead had a study hall. Both had an unweighted 4.0, but his ended up as a higher weighted GPA because he took fewer classes.</p>
<p>Talk with the school to find out what is on the official transcript, and how they can report anything else that would be of benefit.</p>