I am a homeschool parent to a senior who is mostly finished with submitting applications (one to go). I am devastated and embarrassed to admit that I made an error on her transcript, and am looking for advice moving forward.
I worked on it forever, had a paid advisor look at it, etc. but appears I just accidentally deleted the name of a 10th grade course. I think I just worked so hard on it for so long that my eyes played tricks on me. Basically, the column is missing “Civics Honors” but there is a grade listed in the next column and the credits earned total is correct for that grade. Her GPA and total credits, separated by subject area are all correct. She has plenty of social studies credits (9). My biggest concern is that it may look like she only took seven courses that year, even though there are 8 credits counted.
She has several acceptances in hand; all but one with good merit. I’ve made the correction to the Mid-year report transcript, submitted an optional report and sent emails to all schools explaining the situation and attaching the corrected transcript
My question is: do you think this error could have impacted merit? There were two schools where we hoped for more; one we thought she had potential for the full ride scholarship weekend. I don’t suspect this was so big of a deal that it would impact that, but my conscience is freaking out. Is it worth reaching out to these few schools to ask for merit reconsideration?
My biggest fear in this whole process was that I would screw something up for her, after she’s worked her butt off for years. And here we are…
And a statement: not one school asked me about it. It makes you wonder just how closely they look?
I doubt it had anything to do with your merit award.
My child’s school only has six course periods per semester. A load of seven courses is not going to look light in terms of rigor. If she otherwise has enough social studies and other core courses, then this class would probably be viewed as an elective anyway.
So then — what is the difference in GPA if you disregard the unnamed course altogether? If it leaves GPA virtually unchanged (an UW 4.0 is still a 4.0), the schools probably concluded it didn’t matter what the course was or even if there were no additional course at all.
I don’t think this transcript issue played a role in aid. Congrats on the acceptances!
You explained it and they clearly accepted your explanation, if they didn’t believe you they would have given her nothing, and probably not accepted her. Don’t beat yourself up.
You CAN ask for merit awards to be reconsidered. Typically this works best when she has offers in hand from similar colleges. You can say X college awarded X money. She prefers your colleg and will attend if you can increase your offer.” They can say no, or they might give more. This strategy won’t work though if you don’t compare the same kind of apples to apples. For example, if she got into both Hofstra university and American U, and Hofstra offered a big award but AU didn’t, you’re highly unlikely to get extra money from AU.
A higher ranked college than AU who offered merit might entice AU into offering more though. Or you can just email and try your luck by asking for a bit more. “ She loves this school, but please offer more so it’s affordable.” Nothing venture, nothing gained.
Thanks for your response. It didn’t have much effect on her GPA. She has a 4.0 UW and if it were factored out of the weighted it only changes it by 0.02.
I too think that merit, particularly at the schools in question, is more holistic especially after a student reaches a certain threshold. But it helps to hear it from others :).