<p>A non-weighting policy encourages students to pursue their interests without sacrificing points for rank. When only APs and honor classes are weighted, students who take music, art an language classes often have to "sacrifice" their rank. And sometimes taking "extra" credit class (like forensics) will actually lower the student's GPA, even though he will be taking maximum AP load on top of that.</p>
<p>Being in top 10% of the graduating class can be important not only in the admissions game. Sometimes it is a prerequisite for a scholarship as well.</p>
<p>i just think the whole system is bogus. i don't think any of them should be weighted. sure i think you should be able to take a more advanced class, and i'm sure when the college admissions people are looking at your application and transcript they'll see that you took that class and what grade you got in it. you don't need any brownie points for it. and just like other people have mentioned, when you take extra classes it hurts you. for example, this semester my sister is taking accounting, psychology, sociology, and web design. none of those classes are even available to be weighted... so she's not going to be able to contend with someone who filled their schedule with every AP class in the book... even though she spends tons of hours working on papers and projects for her classes.</p>
<p>basically i just think the whole system is bogus.</p>
<p>I wanted to thank all of you who replied for your input. I did include quotes from this discussion in my findings, which have been forwarded to the board as a whole. It is a very complex issue, and I am afraid that without good and complete information our district may have gone forward without understanding and considering all of the implications of changing the system. </p>
<p>I've always thought that weighting for honors/AP classes was appropriate, given that there is a world of difference in what is expected between them and the standard classes--at least in our school. There also seems to be a difference in how private schools handle weighting; in our school, only major courses (English, History, Math, Sciences, Languages) are weighted, and only majors are used to calculate GPA.</p>
<p>At our school, the administration has decided to weight a max of 4 classes per semester. That gives kids the ability to take band, art, sports, etc. classes without worrying about their GPA being gamed by the system.</p>
<p>Sneaky and WorkerBee have the same classes (weighted and unweighted) and grades, except that Sneaky takes a study hall and WorkerBee takes an extra, unweighted class.</p>
<p>Won't Sneaky have a higher GPA and rank than WorkerBee?</p>
<p>ADad--no system is perfect and immune to gaming (see Blair Hornstine). That is why real live people populate college admissions committees or, in the alternative for schools like the UCs, the GPA is calculated a certain way. In the UC calculation, the UCs tell you which specific classes from your individual school they will weight. Not all honors classes from our school are weighted by the UCs.</p>
<p>I second that weighted grades discourage kids from non-AP courses. Honors Physics brings down my GPA like anything, because my other courses are AP. I might pay the $$ to take PE over the summer just so it won't hurt my senior GPA. </p>
<p>That said, I would never, ever have registered for AP Physics C without knowing that the weight would be there to catch me if I stumble. I'd have stuck with my strengths and taken Sociology or something.</p>
<p>I'm all for weighting.
D's private hs does not weight for the GPA. They DO weight for the decile ranking (top 10%, etc.). D is a senior and has had only 3 courses that are not honors level or AP. (ie. computer skills, health-drugs, sex ed, etc)</p>
<p>The students start with nothing and earn grades. A's in honors level and AP are difficult to earn. D is a solid B student. As a result, she has been excluded from applying for several scholarships due to criteria such as a requirement for a 3.5 or better GPA. There are plenty of kids from her school and the public school that have coasted along in standard classes and are eligible for the very same scholarships. </p>
<p>In cases of merit or scholarship programs with GPA floors, it really doesn't matter if the student had a tough courseload since the GPA disqualifies him/her from applying!</p>
<p>I’m bumping this thread to ask how grades are weighted for difficulty of courses, if at all, at the high school your child attends. My oldest son is in a start-up school, and I’m still wrapping my mind around its grading policies. I don’t know what opinion to have, because in my day in high school kids didn’t take AP courses few students in my high school aspired to highly selective colleges. What is the grading policy you encounter with your high school student(s)? What grading policy do you like? How should a student self-report, to give a made-up example, a 3.5 unweighted average in AP courses that are weighted to 4.5? Should the student indicate a 4.5, or a 3.5, on SAT demographic questionnaires and the like?</p>
<p>The student should probably call the colleges and ask if they want him to use his weighted or unweighted GPA. My guess would be unweighted, because weighting policies are so different between schools, but he should still check.</p>
<p>At my high school, grades were not weighted (we also didn’t rank, except for everyone with straight As being called valedictorian). It was a frequent topic of discussion, because we had five very different magnet programs and the difficulty levels of kids’ classes varied so much. But every time the possibility came up, too many variables came up with it… </p>
<p>For instance, weighting APs might be uncontroversial, but should the kids in the math/science/technology magnet get an equivalent bump-up for their non-AP magnet classes, since those classes are much harder than the standard non-AP classes? But if we bump up the m/s/t magnet classes, shouldn’t we also bump up the magnet classes for the other kids? After all, advanced piano performance from the performing arts magnet or advanced sculpture from the visual arts magnet are arguably as difficult and rigorous as the m/s/t bio/biotech class, just a different field. Wouldn’t that disadvantage the kids from the general academic magnet, as they had no magnet-specific classes? What about the ones who take dual-credit college classes, do they get bumped up too? Do we just have different amounts of bumping up for different sorts of unusual classes, e.g. magnet vs AP vs college?</p>
<p>You can probably see, from the preceding paragraph, why my high school never did agree on a weighting policy. In high school, this bothered me. I took a hard schedule and got a slightly lower GPA, and wanted recognition for it. Then I got into a bunch of top schools and realized that they saw the rigor of my schedule anyway and that weighting was providing redundant info, and it quit bothering me, and I went from supporting weighting to opposing it.</p>
<p>tokenadult,
SAT’s will ask what gpa w is and gpa uw. Colleges ask it the same way. Transcripts will show the weighted amount 4, 5, 6 or pt scale. Pee</p>
<pre><code>Personally I like the wt program for college admissions, and SATs. Accelerated students will push themselves to take advance courses. I think people against the weighted are so because their child may load up their schedule with easier courses.
Finally, it is still possible to be top 10% with an easy schedule compared to the ap, but that is why most if not all comp. colleges ask for both gpa’s and transcripts. They want to see if it is a non-weighted school how does the student truly comp?
</code></pre>
<p>I’m mostly for weighting, but do think there should be some way to make sure that kids who choose to do orchestra or art don’t get dinged. You can only weight academic courses, or not count any courses beyond a minimum. I don’t think every school needs to weight. My prep school didn’t bother. There just wasn’t that much difference in the difficulty of the courses offered. Even the AP courses were not noticeably more difficult than other classes.</p>
<p>I don’t know what my kids have reported as their grades on SAT questionnaires. We have a 1-100 scale. Slow classes have no weight, regular (Regents level) are weight 1.05 and both honors and APs are weighted 1.10. I’d like to have seen more weighting for the AP classes - probably would have benefited my son. I tend to think that you should assume you report unweighted unless 4.0+ is one of the choices.</p>
<p>Our town H.S. just began designating the concert choir class an honors level. It’s demanding, tough to gain a spot, wildly successful in competitions, and the repertoire is rigorous. Now those artsy kids aren’t penalized for following their talent & love of great music. I think it’s great. Another new positive is the decision to make sitting for the AP exam mandatory. (The town will pay for the exams.) No more non-serious students dragging the classes down because they could skip the exam, yet gain weighted advantage in their GPAs.</p>
<p>D’s Catholic h.s. weights, but does not rank. Honor role is based on unweighted GPA (100 point scale.) Weighted & unweighted are reported on report card & transcripts. NHS membership requires a weighted 92 avg. Weighted GPA is calculated with these multipliers: College prep courses - 1.00; Honors - 1.03; High Honors - 1.06; AP - 1.07. I was told by the GC that when a college asks for rank, only a decile is reported, and if the student falls below the 2nd decile, the question is left blank.</p>
<p>We have +0.5 weight for honors classes and +1.0 for AP classes. There is no weighting for acceleration in areas such as math, nor is there any weighting for taking a completely full schedule. I am annually dismayed that students who audition into honors musical groups (designated “honors”) are not weighted. </p>
<p>I guess the system is okay because it does reward kids for stretching themselves. Aside from the slight to fine arts, my only complaint is that the neighboring district offers +1 for honors and +2 for AP, so direct comparison is meaningless. So, my son’s 4.0/4.6 might have been a 4.0/5.6 next door. OTOH, it’s not fair to compare his 4.0 with all AP classes to the kid who with a 4.0 who took all easy courses. It is so arbitrary! I don’t know what the right answer is!</p>
<p>jess,
Your school eing a magnet already tells the colleges where you stand at, thus no need for weighting…all of the courses would be considered at least AP, so the std. course is not typical to the rest of the high schools in ths US and Admissions know it too
Congrats on being in a magnet</p>
<p>Are you sure about this? We were just looking at the SAT demographic questionnaire this weekend, and I don’t recall that question. I’m having trouble finding that page right now in College Board’s new-and-improved site design, so a pointer to a general URL for updating the student profile would also be much appreciated.</p>
<p>I believe the students fill this out at the exam, or the school puts the info in when they put the school code in. I know on his score sheet it says his gpa on the report</p>
In high school, this bothered me. I took a hard schedule and got a slightly lower GPA, and wanted recognition for it. Then I got into a bunch of top schools and realized that they saw the rigor of my schedule anyway and that weighting was providing redundant info, and it quit bothering me, and I went from supporting weighting to opposing it.</p>