<p>I was stunned to discover, just this morning, that every AP and IB course taught at my son's high school was graded on the wrong scale! </p>
<p>The district has a very tough grading system in place--with all standard courses being graded as: 93%-100%= A, 86%-92%= B, 79%-85%=C. My son's school graded all courses by this standard. In the district school monthly parent paper delivered this morning, an article mentioned (in passing, the bulk of the article is about something else) that "college credit courses, including AP and IB will continue to use the adjusted grading scale-- A=90%-100%, B= 80%-89%" etc. Somehow my son's school didn't know this!</p>
<p>Son is a current freshman at American University, the sole weak point on his application was GPA. He received 5 grades of "B", based on a 91% or 92% grade and one grade of "C" in a class based on a year end (12th grade) final average of 85.5%. It is quite possible that these grades made the difference in his being waitlisted, then extended waitlist and then ultimately rejected from Harvard. It may also have affected the amount of merit money he received from the schools that accepted him.....Sigh. Too damn late now....</p>
<p>BUT, here is my question: Will my son ever use his HS transcript again? Is it worth taking it up with the school and attempting to have his (and potentially other students possibly affected) recalculated?</p>
<p>Stop fretting. It is highly unlikely that your son will use his HS transcript again. BUT I will tell you…we had a very similar happening with DS. The “old folks” here will remember this tale. DS had taken a number of honors and AP courses. Oddly, I noticed (after his acceptance into college) that his weighted GPA was LOWER than his unweighted. Clearly that should not have been the case. It didn’t matter with DS as he was a music major…but it DID matter with DD who wasn’t. I launched an aggressive campaign with the High School to review this. They initially told me I was WRONG. I sent my DD’s grades and transcript to a number of other high school GC’s who I know and ALL calculated her weighted GPA to be higher than her unweighted…our high school had it lower. Clearly there was something wrong. I did not relent and took it to the superintendent of schools who also initially told me I was WRONG. I persisted, and asked them for their formula to compute the weighted GPAs. It was the ODDEST thing…used some multiplier or something…very strange. Well…months later, I got a call from the head GC telling me I was right and that they were recomputing ALL gpa’s for my daughters class and younger (DD was a junior by the time this was resolved). </p>
<p>It did answer one big question for us. DS got accepted to Boston University but didn’t get accepted to UMDCP. We figure that the first “cut” was looking at the strength of courseload…and with a LOWER weighted GPA, it looked like DS was taking a bunch of easy courses for the easy grade…which was NOT the case. We are thinking that UMD just put his ap in the NO pile based on that. He was initially waitlisted and then rejected…GPA was 3.3 weighted (according to the wrong calculation) and 3.5 unweighted…CR/Math SAT combined at 1320. WELL within the range of accepted students at UMDCP. </p>
<p>I personally think you SHOULD take this issue up with your school as it is affecting others. Make sure you have ample support for your position. Show them the data. And then be prepared to be told you are wrong…but be persistent!!</p>
<p>Our high school now calculates weighted GPA very similarly to other schools in the area…and they also do not rank below the top 20 students. After that, they are ranked by decile only.</p>
<p>And one other thing…don’t read too much into your son’s non-acceptance to Harvard. My understanding is that Harvard recalculates GPA based on their OWN formula. So that is a non-issue with that school. Also remember that 90% of the students applying to Harvard are NOT accepted and may of those rejected have excellent stats.</p>
<p>Of course, there is no way to know about Harvard (and son was not that enthusiastic about attending), but son’s high school does not submit grade percentage at all, only letter grades on the transcript. So, in my son’s case, his transcript at time of application contained 4 "B"s that should have been "A"s. He was waitlisted by Harvard, then extended waitlisted. His final transcript included an additiona “B” that should have been an “A” and a “C” that should have been a “B”. As GPA was the only weakness in an otherwise strong application, I have to think it made a difference.</p>
<p>Beyond the Harvard thing, I think a higher GPA may have resulted in more merit money from 2 schools he rejected based on cost (NYU which offered him Honor’s program but only 7.5k and Brandies which offerred no merit money at all). </p>
<p>I know perfectly well that nothing can be done about any of that now…And, if he won’t use his transcript again there may be no point for him, but I do think I need to write a polite letter to the school to be sure they correct it for current and future students.</p>
<p>I think it’s great that you’re going to write a letter to help current and future students.</p>
<p>If it’s any comfort at all, NYU is known for not giving much merit aid and once the ecomony fell apart Brandies pulled a lot of merit money and put it into need-based aid.</p>
<p>American is a great university and I wish your son the very best of luck there.</p>
<p>Also recognize that a newspaper is just that - journalists are human and can make mistakes. Don’t take it as gospel just because the school district published it. I would first confirm the article is indeed stating the facts.</p>
<p>I put in a call to friend with kids at the local magnet high school right after I read it and she confirmed that at that school (same district), AP and IB kids get an “A” for 90 and above…
American is a good school and he chose it-- although, it is possible he may have chosen differently had more merit money been offered elsewhere (we gave him a total “budget” of what we could afford to contribute of $150k, anything beyond that he would have to manage --either through loans, work, early graduation with AP/IB credits, merit money).</p>
<p>I feel badly that somehow both the school and, myself as the parent, blew this.</p>
<p>Diedre,If it makes you feel any better, the only grades D had below an A was a B+ in Algebra (taken in middle school for HS credit). She got A’s or A+ (98% and up) in everything else.All of her courses (and she took several AP’s and all Honors offered) required a 93% for an A. She was not offered Honors at NYU (I called and asked about this) nor was she offered a dime of merit money. So consider yourself fortunate.</p>
<p>Don’t feel bad about this at this point. If he was the only one in his high school whose GPA was miscalculated, then I would be upset. But since his entire school handled GPAs this way, then the colleges would be aware of this high school having a tough grading policy.</p>
<p>Thanks for letting me vent, all.
Blackeyedsusan, there were only a very small handful of students applying to selective schools-- this is a mediocre, public in Kentucky. Not the kind of school that gets on a college’s radar screen with regard to grading policy. There would have been perhaps a total of 50 kids taking one or more AP or IB class at the school, with only 9 pursueing the full IB diploma. My son probably had the biggest effect (because of the large number of grades right on the edge of the scale and his disinterest in grades), but thinking it over, I suspect at least two others in his class may have had merit money/acceptances affected.</p>
<p>I felt great about the decisions my son made before I found this out, I need to just remind myself that he is in a great city at a school he chose, receiving very generous merit aid.</p>
<p>Do colleges just see the letter grade on the high school transcript or do they see the actual percentage points, ie. 92.7%? I’m curious because a B at one school could very well be an A at another school even though the kids have the same percentage points. How do colleges know?</p>
<p>Colleges see your percentages. Most colleges don’t take the one give from the school. THey take the ones from your transcript and recalculate it. </p>
<p>^Unless the high school puts the percentages on the transcript, instead of just the letter grades, how will the college see the percentages?</p>
<p>This is an interesting way to “weight” AP courses. At our school, AP and honors courses are weighted with an A being worth 5 points, B = 4, etc. instead of an A being worth 4 points. The grade itself doesn’t change.</p>
<p>I wonder if the school profile talks about how the classes are weighted or if the GCs talk about it in their secondary school report.</p>
<p>I’m surprised that no one in the school administration and none of the students or parents knew of this. Did you think that AP classes were unweighted or if you thought they were weighted, how did you think they were weighted?</p>
<p>If the system was in place and the teachers knew about it, they would adjust their grading to give A’s to A-level work. I get many 89 or 90 grades on assignments, but if the threshold was changed teachers would give 93 and 92 instead.</p>
<p>^Isn’t that grade inflation. A 92 is a 92. The letter grade it correlates to shouldn’t matter. And if a 92 in a school is a B, then an assignment that earns a grade of 92 is B level work. Not A level.</p>
<p>Weighting–grade inflation–call it what you like, high schools often give bonuses to kids who take AP classes, which are often seen as more rigorous in the material covered and are harder to get an A in since these classes are mostly populated by those who would be usually at the top of the curve at any “regular” class at the school.</p>
No, it isn’t inflation. If they changed the threshold to 88 then teachers would give 87 and 88. If the GPA is based on letter grades, percentages are only meaningful to average all of the assignments together in a course and determine the final letter grade. It has no objective meaning, but everyone knows what an A is.</p>
<p>I see what lockn is saying-- that teachers decide the product is “A” work or “B” work and adjust the percentage grade to the scale being used. Possible.
In son’s school, only a minute amount of the grade is based on exams (for example the final cannot be more than 3.5% of the total grade), but huge amounts (40%) are based on homework (son’s persistently weakest area).</p>
<p>As to the transcript, all that it contains is student’s school is the final letter grade for each class- no plusses, no minuses, no percentages.</p>
<p>Our HS transcript is like post #14: letter A+, A, A- etc (no numeric on a 100 scale). Numeric grades from honors, non honors, AP and IB are all “translated” the same by teachers in terms of the letter grade (I’m not sure what the exact equivalents are)…but a teacher can bump up a grade for classroom participation etc. But they don’t bump up a grade because it’s an AP class.</p>
<p>When GPA is calculated on our HS transcript, it includes a bump of a full grade (I think) for Honors, AP etc. So…for GPA calculation…on a 5 point scale, A+ in a regular class becomes a 4, but a 5 in an AP class.</p>
<p>Our transcripts always state in the course title if it’s IB, AP, Honors, College Prep or Gen Ed.</p>
<p>However, most of the GPA calculation on the transcript is moot for the elite colleges, because almost all of them recalcuate GPA (Some weight AP/IB, some don’t. Some don’t use 9th grade. Some only use core academic courses, etc.) So, unless your HS’s explanation of grades that went with the transcript said the grade “bump” would be in the courses, or they just didn’t calculate it for your son’s transcript (but calculated it for all others in AP classes), it isn’t likely it affected his elite school application. </p>
<p>GPA calculation is NOT moot for other purposes, though (like local scholarships, some national scholarship, and colleges that don’t recalculate the GPA.)</p>