<p>MSUDad, my 3.7 kid IS a B+ student....perhaps even a B student when the extra weight is taken away for those 11 AP and numerous pre-AP classes. </p>
<p>This is my oldest child and from 6th grade on we parents were shown the high school grade weighting chart and told that our kids needed to take as many AP classes as possible. It wasn't until we were making college visits over the summer that I heard for the very first time that quite a few schools ignore the weighting and recompute the GPA. </p>
<p>So that 88 in AP World History actually is a B+ rather than the 100.5 reflected in the school's version of the GPA calculations. I'm hoping that the 3.7 is at least a 3.0 when the schools recompute the GPA. If they also take out all the 100s in choir, it probably won't be.</p>
<p>MSUDad - the reason that people in texas fret over being i the top 10% is that the top 10% students are guaranteed admission to the state school of their choice. and if one does not make top 10, then they are pretty much excluded from university of texas at austin and possible excluded from texas a&m (those are the two places that mst texas kids want to go.)</p>
<p>so, it is a goal of many texas kids to be in the top 10%. not the top 10% + 1.</p>
<p>I guess it just highlights the stress people feel about college admissions. My son has a great GPA (haven't calculated it UW), but because of the nature of his selective high school, he's not even in the top 20%. I hope he stays in the top quarter so he can be an auto admit to A&M, even though he doesn't want to go there and it wouldn't be my first choice either. He's better than a B+ student when you look at grades, but when you factor in other things, like class rank, he's not.</p>
<p>missypie - i was at a meeting last night and someone said they had read an article that said something to the effect that schools in texas might (or would) stop doing weighted grades.</p>
<p>you can recalculate the GPA yourself, you know, so you won't be in the dark as to what this means.</p>
<p>they told us upon starting high school that many colleges do NOT use the weighted GPA, but they still recommended kids take the most difficult classes they could handle.</p>
<p>kind of doesn't make a lot of sense, but i trust that someone knows what they are talking about.</p>
<p>youdon'tsay - my D is in the same boat with your son. i think she is in the top 20% now. i think she will still be in the top 25%, but she has to work to stay there. </p>
<p>to increase their rank, they need to add upper level electives and take as many upper level classes as possible (and make good grades in those classes.)</p>
<p>my D is interested in a&m, but i am looking for other schools for her to look at as well (smaller schools.) her high school is 4000 kids, so i don't think she would go for a college that is smaller than her high school.</p>
<p>Mike, I'm sure I could, but I don't want to know just yet. He's a junior and nothing can be done about it now, so I'm in denial. I didn't know going into it that colleges recalculate GPA, but I'm kind of glad. He's taking rigorous classes he wants to take and doing great in some, well enough in others and just having a great HS experience. I spend a lot of time on here but try to shield him from my anxieties about it all. </p>
<p>And he knows he'll have to earn scholarships to go to a private school like he wants. I think he'll have a good shot, partly because he's a URM.</p>
<p>Mike, the folks at your HS are more honest than the folks at ours. My cynical view is that our school is so obsessed with being in the Newsweek Top 100 that they don't give the whole story on AP classes/weighting, etc. for fear that fewer students will take the classes.</p>
<p>The current proposal in Texas is to still give weight to AP classes, but not to pre-AP or honors classes and not to count grades in band, choir, etc., toward the GPA.</p>
<p>her weighted is 6.08
her unweighted is 3.42</p>
<p>regarding the change in the way grades are handled, i think that our kids (mine is a junior now) might not be effected by a change in the rules at this point.</p>
<p>mine takes a couple of AP classes and the rest honors (except band and some electives. gets all As and Bs.</p>
<p>My son did very well on the ACT. I used that to look for schools where he was at or above their 50% middle range. I'm hoping they'll overlook his GPA 3.7w 3.0uw and come through ith some merit aid. Thank goodness our school no longer ranks!</p>
<p>For each of the eight schools on Son's list, his SATs are above the 75th percentile (if I'm expressing it correctly - if the middle 50% is 540-660, he's at 690). When he got his scores for the March SAT, I told him that now his scores were too good for this GPA (makes him look like a slacker.) Son's favorite school, Southwestern, thankfully looks at weighted GPAs only. But Trinity, for example, only looks at unweighted GPAs.</p>
<p>We're in PA. Here's where he's applying. According to Naviance for our school, he should get accepted to: Pitt, UMD, American, Drew, Syracuse, and Tulane. Reaches GW, NYU, JHU. I'm hoping for merit/honors at Pitt, honors at UMD, merit/honors at Tulane, merit at Drew and merit(hopefully) at American. He's taken several APs and Honors.</p>
<p>Some insight from a parent who went through it last year:</p>
<p>Basically, don't worry so much. "AP/Honors/IB/Regents/Whatever you want to call it" is really a shell game. The basic message we got when we toured schools was that the student should take the most rigorous schedule they can handle and still "do well". I believe this means "get at least a B+". I think Adcom committees know all the gamesmanship and grade inflation issues that are played and can understand if the student has challenged themselves and succeeded academically and within their community. I guess it is a problem if you are dealing with larger very competitive state univeristy systems that are just crunching the numbers. There are some smaller private LACs that do offer merit aid even for B+ students making them comparable to the State school pricetag.</p>
<p>DS was a B+/A- student, gpa 3.5 (school did not weight), SATs were 680-700, SATII 700-780, and AP's 5. His HS only offered AP classes taken junior and senior year and these were definitely college level. He took most rigorous level in all areas. He was only top 20-25%. Had great recs and serious outside interests.</p>
<p>Applied to LAC predominantly and was accepted to URichmond, Skidmore, Denison, SUNY Geneseo, HWS, UVM; waitlisted at Colby, Bates, and Bucknell. Great Merit Aid from Denison and HWS. </p>
<p>Point is, B+ students will do fine in the college process, as long as you have realistic expectations. Be sure to get academic and financial safeties your child will be happy to attend. It is however, very important to spend time on applications and make them cohesive and meaningful. They will not get into HPY or maybe super selective state schools, but will get in to schools that value these students who maybe aren't as "intellectually aggressive" as the HPY types, but have a lot of potential.</p>
<p>Sorry, I was a little confused. I checked out the site. My son's school stopped ranking several years ago. There were so many outstanding students it was unfair to rank. There was little or no opposition as I recall. I hope I'm not being too optimistic with our expectations. My s has a strong application so we'll just have to wait and see.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info vtmt...it doesn't exactly make me feel better, but it's good information to have.</p>
<p>The idea of spending time on the applicaitons to make them "cohesive and meaningful" is a bit troubling, given the "check the box" nature of some of the electronic app forms. Pair that with a counselor recommendation from a GC who has been at the school for all of six weeks, and I'm rather worried.</p>