High School Transfer Students Grades Don't Count

toledo · 06-12-2012, 11:36 AM

How can this be? A high school is refusing to take the previous grades and will "give credit but not use any of the grades". Is this fair?

joszacem · 06-12-2012, 11:41 AM

Hard to tell. What year is the student in, type of school transferring from and to, classes, .... I would certainly think the new school would accept at least part of the students previous grade record (the parts that lineup with similar courses at the new school) and not just the credits. I do know that some college will accept credits for transfer but not use the transferring gpa but most high schools certainly accept most incoming gpas and credits.

Sikorsky · 06-12-2012, 11:45 AM

No, it's not fair. But it wouldn't be fair the other way around, either.

The student who worked hard and gets high grades, then transfers schools and gets only "credit" for her previous grades really has lost something. But presumably, a capable and hard working student will continue to earn high grades in her new school. So she won't be damaged terribly.

Consider the alternative. Consider a student who transfers in from an inferior school. In her old school, she's been able to accumulate good grades with very little work, and she's learned very little. Is it fair to the scores of students in the new school to let her bring in two years' worth of worthless A's, when the students in the new school may have been busting their backsides for A-'s and B+'s from which they've actually learned something?

It's very common for schools to give credit for classes completed in other schools, but not to use those grades for purposes of calculating GPA or class rank. I think it's the less bad alternative, too. When this system creates unfairness, one person is adversely affected. If a school did just allow students to transfer in with the grades from their previous school, when that system created unfairness, lots of kids would be affected.

Erin's Dad · 06-12-2012, 12:28 PM

That happened to me many years ago. The grades and previous class schedule were used to place me in different classes. I think including grades or not from prior schools depends on the policies of the HS.

swimcatsmom · 06-12-2012, 12:33 PM

I don't think it is unusual - I believe many colleges also do the same thing with transfer students. One thing my daughter had to do when she went to college was have the original transcript from the HS she went to for the first two years sent to her college. They calculated her GPA for scholarship and honors college purposes based on her transcript from her first HS and the transcript from her 2nd HS.

I think it is fairly reasonable at both the HS and College level for the reasons Sikorsky mentioned. I know that our flagship state Us do count the transferred GPAs for students transferring from CCs so that can have a huge impact on departmental scholarships, honor stuff like cum laude designations etc. I can see how students that have taken the harder classes from day 1 (they are harder at the flagship U - I have done classes at both) might think this is a little unfair (if they are aware of it).

mamabear1234 · 06-12-2012, 12:34 PM

There doesn't seem to be a fair way to do it. Our HS doesn't include grades from a former school. A couple of years ago, the Val of the class had transferred in junior year, taken almost all AP classes, and had a much higher GPA because freshman and sophomores took few if any AP's and their grades included all 4 years of less weighted classes.

MyLB · 06-12-2012, 12:37 PM

I'm not sure what the problem is. The grades will count. The student will have to submit two hs transcripts with college applications.

Hanna · 06-12-2012, 12:43 PM

Yes, this is what colleges do with transfer students as well. So do law schools. It's not a perfect solution, but it is the best one out there.

toledo · 06-12-2012, 01:21 PM

We'll just have to try requesting transcripts from both high schools and HOPE the colleges will recalculate the GPA. I just spoke to one college admissions officer who said, "We don't normally do that".

So, not using previous grades is wonderful for the students with low grades, but unfortunately, in our case, my student's good grades won't be used. I would think that more students with bad grades tend to transfer, so this "fresh start" benefits the most students.

axw · 06-12-2012, 01:43 PM

Assuming the same rigor of classes at both schools, wouldn't you expect a student transferring with a 3.5 GPA (which is ignored) to earn about 3.5 at the new school anyway? There is somewhat of an advantage to a student who is improving each semester, but not a huge advantage, IMO.

Rob1995 · 06-12-2012, 02:00 PM

Well I think the problem is when trying to decide whether or not to transfer grades you can't really assume that two classes taught by different schools have the same difficulty. Each school seems to have their own idea on what grade is deserved for such and such amount of achievement and effort. Even if the course name is the same at both schools (e.g., Honors Chemistry), the teachers might have different ideas of what "honors" even means and how rigorous the course should be.

Heck, even some teachers within the same school can't even agree, lol. At our high school, there are two 10th grade English teachers. One gives out A's to 90% of the students like it's candy, and the other hasn't given out a grade higher than a B+ in more than a decade.

Nevertheless, it's kind of a toughie to figure out how to do handle this like everyone else has said, because only using half of somebody's transcript to calculate GPA and class rank will prove unfairly advantageous for some and disadvantageous for others.

Sikorsky · 06-12-2012, 05:01 PM

Quote:

So, not using previous grades is wonderful for the students with low grades, but unfortunately, in our case, my student's good grades won't be used. I would think that more students with bad grades tend to transfer, so this "fresh start" benefits the most students.

Really, don't personalize this. It may kind of work out to your daughter's disadvantage, but it really isn't about her. In a perfect world, students would finish at the school where they started, and perhaps all schools would be comparable. But this simply isn't a perfect world.

This is the way it is for students who transfer. But the good news is, students transfer all the time. No college that your daughter applies to will be unable to evaluate her application fairly just because she transferred schools during high school.

Rob1995 · 06-12-2012, 11:02 PM

^ This person is right: students will absolutely not be discriminated against for transferring high schools - it's not their fault. My friend's brother went to 3 different high schools after moving twice in high school - one school freshman, one school sophomore & junior, one school senior year. He was admitted into HYP no problem. Heck, one of the schools he went to wasn't even in this country, lol.

MyLB · 06-13-2012, 07:44 AM

I still don't get it. No grades are ignored. Transcripts from all high schools a student attended have to be submitted. The college application isn't considered complete until they've all been received.

Sikorsky · 06-13-2012, 08:05 AM

Well, there's something to get.

For example, some schools exclude transfer students from class rankings or don't consider them eligible for valedictorian. Those are usually indicators of high academic that make students attractive to a lot of colleges. But since colleges really can evaluate the applications of students who have transferred between high schools--and do it many times over, every single year--most of the losses that do occur are on the high-school level, and not the college level.