<p>Hi all,<br>
Can you tell me about the approach you took with GPA when your children were applying? We went to the school's meeting about applying for colleges next year...daughter is a junior. Did you really use their GPA's as criteria for when you were working on your lists of schools to apply to?</p>
<p>I was very unhappy to see that her school does not weight their GPA's for honors or AP classes. They also do not rank! Her unweighted GPA is 3.6 and weighted it would be nearer to 4.1 due to the rigor of her schedule. As for the "rank", they send a bell curve graph of the class' GPA...again, unweighted. So, in theory, a child who got straight A's in college prep classes would be in the top percent of the bell curve graph and my child will be graphed somewhere in the middle (with heavy honors and AP classes)...not sure I am making this clear, but I am concerned about her representation in applications, as well as her formation of the "list" of schools. </p>
<p>more info:
PSATS 201
SAT's W 740
CR 670
M 710
Great and unusual EC's (over 1000 hours community service already as a ski coach for kids with disabilities)</p>
<p>Interested in biomedical engineering as a major. We will not be eligible for FA, but will be hoping (dreaming and praying) for some merit money!</p>
<p>Not exactly your situation, but may be helpful…</p>
<p>DS: School does not rank as of this year. Before that became official, he had a rank of about 7%. UW GPA (9-11) 3.71, W 4.28. This was spun different ways, depending on which classes colleges counted (a-g) and which semesters they were looking at. Came out to a 4.05 UC GPA or a 4.5 W 10-11 GPA. So pretty much tough courses, not always As. Never Cs.</p>
<p>PSAT was 201. June of 10th grade he took ACT and scored 34. Opted not to take the SAT. SAT 2s were 700 or more.</p>
<p>Great and unusual ECs also.</p>
<p>So here’s where we ended up: Denied EA Stanford. Accepted everywhere else (top tier UCs, USC, other coastal CA colleges). A little (1/4) merit money from USC, a carrot from Berkeley only to be revealed after signing the SIR (which won’t happen).</p>
<p>A broader net would have gleaned more merit money. S had very narrow perimeters, we will encourage the next child to think outside the “tier 1” box.</p>
<p>We have sort of the opposite problem with my younger son. Our school weights (but AP and honors are weighted exactly the same) and ranks (however the rank is a big secret that I can’t get them to reveal to me - we’ll find out in October of senior year as I recall.) The problem is that they weight both of his orchestra classes and include it in the GPA. This makes it look like he’s a better student than he is, and I worry about overreaching. He’s a smart kid - but he gets at least 2 B’s every quarter (English and Latin) and has gotten plenty of other B’s too. The top colleges care about rank if they are given that information, but they care even more about the actual courses. They’ll look carefully at the transcript. Without those tough courses your daughter wouldn’t be in consideration for those selective colleges. Just make sure that the transcript course names are decipherable and that if the GPA is reported that it’s very clear that it’s an unweighted GPA. Hopefully your GC’s recommendation will also talk about the rigor of her courseload.</p>
<p>What you wrote sounds clear to me. You or your d needs to ask the guidance counselor if the “most demanding curriculum” box will be checked for your d’s Common Application. (If your daughter is applying to top colleges, this is important.) Would it be checked for students who take the “college prep” versions of courses? Also check what your school’s profile is (that is sent out with guidance counselor information with applications). Does the profile adequately explain the courses and grading? </p>
<p>My son had to make some last-minute (month before senior year started) adjustments to his course schedule in order to get that “most demanding curriculum” box checked on his Common Application. (The interim guidance counselor had given him incorrect information in junior year.) I believe that without that “most demanding curriculum” box checked that he wouldn’t have had the admissions results that he had (now affording those wonderful admissions results is not turning out the way we expected…).</p>
<p>harvardmum, lots and lots of schools don’t rank, and lots of schools don’t report a weighted GPA, the selective schools will make adjustments for that. The one place where you may lose a bit is when schools go straight by the numbers - this happens more for big state U’s and some scholarships.</p>
<p>Harvardmum, my kids’ school does not weight, nor rank, that does not seem to make any difference since the kids get into very selective colleges.
Colleges can not look at ranking, and not look at rigor of classes; while their Reps tell kids to challenge themselves in HS.</p>
<p>I think the OP’s daughter can definitely be hurt by the approach her school takes – unless her HS is very well known by the schools said D is applying to. </p>
<p>I think our local HS puts kids who challenge themselves at a disadvantage by only minimally rewarding those who choose AP and Honors courses over the basic NYS Regents college prep courses (where the stated goal is that EVERY student can/should/will pass). A kid who gets a 90 in an AP class is given equal rank to a kid who gets a 92 in a Regents class.</p>
<p>This was what my high school was like too…and it was actually a blessing! Most selective colleges, IME, don’t care about weighted grades, because the different weighting systems are so different. They have their own weighting systems that they will apply to everyone’s grades. When I’ve responded to chance threads here, I’ve had to explain to people that their weighted GPA is utterly meaningless outside their own school system and they need to provide the unweighted one.</p>
<p>The lack of rank was a blessing because it reduced the level of inane competition and grade-grubbing at my high school. The lack of grade-weighting was a blessing because it left people without delusions about their GPAs. Too often, I’ve seen kids not realize or admit that their grades are mediocre, because their schools’ weighting systems conceal it.</p>
<p>“The lack of rank was a blessing because it reduced the level of inane competition and grade-grubbing at my high school.”</p>
<p>Amen. Grade grubbing is rampant in the public schools in this area. Much better IMO to rank students by decile if you have to do that thing at all.</p>
<p>Our IB magnet within an urban public high school calculates weighted grades but does not use the weighted grades for class rank. It should come as no surprise that many students do not take the more difficult IB classes for fear of lower grades/rank. At last evening’s parent/school meeting, the principal said that she would at least try to have the class rank using weighted averages added to the transcripts along with the “normal” class rank.</p>
<p>GFG: Some schools looked at 9-11, some only 10-11. Some counted all courses, some didn’t count PE. But who knows how they actually crunch the numbers? You report the class, the grade and the honors/AP status. UCs don’t even request a transcript until you finish 12th grade (confirming self-reported grades and that senior year went okay).</p>
<p>Most of the academically competitive schools in our area stopped ranking a few years back. Ours just got on board this year.</p>
<p>I haven’t read all the replies yet… but harvardmum the regional admissions people will know your school. They will know it is a top school in your state. If your school has naviance, use that to see what the admissions decisions look like at schools your D is considering. You mentioned the gpa distribution graph distributed I assume with the school profile, but have you seen the complete school profile? The school my Ds attend, which also does not rank or weight grades, provides the distribution for individual courses taken by juniors, or in some cases groups them, for example I think all art electives are grouped together and not separate lines. You will find the lack of weighting and rank to be common in schools similar to yours.</p>
<p>“Grade-grubbing” is what other people’s kids do, when it’s your own it called working hard.
Perhaps if the top students got one bit of recognition for their academic accomplishments during high school they wouldn’t be so eager to get those top class ranks. Just a thought.</p>
<p>I’ve always wondered how kids are impacted in scenarios where the number 0-100 is translated to an A,B,C which is translated into a 4.0, 3.7 etc. with no mention of the 0-100 on the transcript. In our school 93-100 is an A. Kids might receive a 92 which is translated to a B+ with no mention of the 92 only the 4.0 scale comparable which is 3.3. etc. What happens to schools that unpack and recalibrate these kids vs. kids where schools have 90 as an A reported on the transcript as an A of a 3.7 or 4.0?</p>
<p>I’d like to know, too. Our school also has the 93-100 = A grading scale, and many students and their families have perceived a distinct disadvantage in the GPA as a college admissions factor scenario - especially with colleges that only consider unweighted GPA’s. In this case, a mid-high B student at our school is equal to an A student at other schools, but our students’ GPA’s are lower.</p>
<p>Our school currently has a grade scale like that ( A is 93 and above), etc. We went through a big battle this winter to change to a 10 point scale and that will happen next year. I predict that the grades won’t change much. Some of the teachers have already said they will grade to the scale ( i.e. if they formerly would have given a 92, they will now give an 89 for the same work). Every year about 10 % of the senior class graduates with a 4.0 or above ( weighting for AP and A+ grades for 98 and above) and the "average " GPA is 3.0 ( when I was in school a C was average). Personally I would like to have seen the letter grades go away and just give numerical values.</p>
<p>I am very concerned with the fact that so many colleges and scholarship committees unweight GPA’s. The latter, at least, has definitely led to inequities at our high school as the good student taking all regular classes can look stronger on paper than the truly superior student taking all AP’s. Therefore, we’ve seen some academic awards go to the wrong people.</p>
<p>As for college, I guess they have to do this in order to compensate for scale differences between 4.0 max schools, 4.5, and 5.0 max schools. However, it upsets me to know that if D had taken just the academic level classes she’d have all A’s. Her UW GPA doesn’t do her justice and since our school doesn’t report rank, the difference between her and that kid who took easy classes won’t reveal itself there either. Sure, the elite colleges do look at what courses were taken, but other schools determine so much just on GPA and SAT’s.</p>
<p>Our school puts only the number grades on the transcripts. 90-94 is an A-, and 95-100 is an A, but you have to read the fine print to find that out.</p>