Hello CC, I am a sophomore in High School and I am currently debating about a few classes and how they would impact my GPA. I’ve been in the district Orchestra for two years and plan to also do it for Junior and Senior year as well. Additionally, I plan to take Academic Mentor next year (I’ll tutor other High schoolers).
However, the AP has informed me that he has concerns that I will leave the Academic Mentoring Program due to the fact that it is a regular course and will take away from the potential 5.0 W GPA Junior and Senior Year.
I told him that I will consider whether or not I want the course along with Orchestra officially stated on my transcript which could reduce my W GPA by quite a bit.’
I am currently rank 1 out of 482 students and wish to remain that way until the end of High School.
Should I ask to have these courses unlisted on my transcript to boost my W GPA? And, what would you do?
I doubt any HS would give a student the option of which courses to include/exclude from a GPA. Regardless, a couple of unweighted classes in a 4 year program will not significantly move the GPA needle. Yes, you won’t has a perfect 5.0, but nobody other that you or your parents cares about that. Anyway, you are a sophomore, so an A- in the next 2.5 years in a weighted class will also blow any chance for a perfect GPA.
At our school they let the kids exempt one class off of the their GPA, so a lot of kids drop language, shop class, etc because they are not honors classes and you can not get higher than a 4.0. So even getting an A in language usually drops your GPA. Colleges will still see the grade on your transcript, it’s just the school does not calculate it when determining GPA and class rank. It’s kind of a hack, and people have figured it out and have started using it to their advantage. Hopefully our school stops ranking soon, and this nonsense ends.
Right now, I do not have any A-, even in the college classes. So, I should be ok in that regard. If colleges don’t care, however, I will keep the UW classes. However, I am worried that my Rank would move and I know that colleges care about Class rank.
I’ll ask my counselor because I do want to get credit for doing Orchestra and Academic Mentor but not at a great cost of GPA and of Class Rank. I guess I would have to weigh my options.
Check your student handbook to see if the school has a policy of exempting a class, that’s how we found out. They buried the info in the handbook. Also, check with your counselor. Good luck.
Yeah, honestly the ranking system is ridiculous. At least, they should rank based off of UW GPA because colleges can determine whether or not your classes are difficult based off of the transcript.
Ranking by UW GPA is not ideal either as you can get a val who has taken all lower level classes just to get the A’s. Makes me glad our HS doesn’t rank!
Ranking 1/482 vs. 4/482 will make absolutely no difference to pretty much any college, IMO. You should also be aware that more than half of US high schools do not provide a cardinal rank; deciles are about as detailed as they get. So while a college can look at a GPA and guess where it is in a decile band, they won’t be able to figure out if it’s 2 or 6, unless both 2 and 6 applied to the same college.
Ok, I’ve made a decision. I’ll tell my counselor today that I wish to keep Orchestra and Academic Mentor as Classes next year along with the rest of my classes. And, it feels a little wrong, morally, at least to hide your classes just because you care about your GPA. Anyhow, Thank you to all who’ve helped!