<p>Every year, my D, currently a junior, takes ‘the most rigorous’ 5 academic core classes and then adds on at least 2, usually 3, non-weighted electives that match with her extracurricular interests. The thing is, in her school, all these unweighted electives are also factored into the GPA. So even though she gets all A’s in all her core classes as well as electives, her GPA ends up below someone else who may be taking the same core classes and getting the same straight A’s, but does not do any (or as many) electives. It seems that many kids just take a free period rather than an elective, and some use the extra periods to take on more weighted academic classes.</p>
<p>I have always advised her to not worry about this because: a) the electives are very important for her, b) colleges recalculate the GPA anyway, and c) fortunately her high school does not rank. However…</p>
<p>In preparation for next year’s college app season, I’ve started looking at the application supplements and recommendation letter forms for her target schools, and noticed that even when the school doesn’t rank, the rec letters ask all kinds of questions like:</p>
<ul>
<li>is this student in the top 5%? top 10%?</li>
<li>how many other students have the same GPA?</li>
<li>how many other students have a higher GPA?</li>
<li>what is the range of GPA’s in your school?</li>
<li>blah blah blah…</li>
</ul>
<p>So have we been naive all along? Should she have been more strategic and steered clear of unweighted electives?</p>
<p>Your daughter is in the range where weighted GPA’s just get silly. Any admissions representative who spends a little time looking at her transcript should see what’s going on. I’d suggest that she stick to the current approach, since she is no doubt learning more from it. </p>
<p>But just out of curiosity: how many other parents have vicariousparent’s situation, where student A takes six AP’s plus (unweighted) orchestra and student B takes six AP’s plus study hall, they both have an unweighted 4.0, and student B comes out ahead? And does anyone’s school district have a remedy for this?</p>
<p>From what I understand from several of the schools my D applied to, colleges look at GPA without weighting in order to be able to compare apples to apples and then look at how many AP/IB classes are taken on top. So even though they ask the guidance counselor for that information, I’m not sure they really use it.</p>
<p>I believe that from the above list, you should be able to rely on Point A and Point C. I would not put much weight on the ability or willingness for colleges to recalculate the GPA. </p>
<p>The key points are that your school does not rank … meaning that the issue of “ranking” becomes more important in the “dialogue” with the GC. If the electives were important to your daughter, she should be able to tailor some part of her application by discussing it with subtility in an essay or by providing additional material. If that is not convenient or feasible, start working on the recommendations by making sure the professors know about the choices of the electives. For instance, even you decide that the LOR should come from a math teacher, nothing precludes your D to present the information about the electives and ask that math teacher to write a few words about it. </p>
<p>Last but not least, do not agonize over the choices made. For all you know, the lower GPA choices might very well help showcasing an application that is a bit different from others.</p>
<p>QM, ds is in the same situation. Kids take required electives like speech and health online as a pass/fail or at the local cc to get weighted credit and then get PE waivers to avoid getting dinged on those required but non-weighted electives. </p>
<p>Ds signs up for what interests him, including the class that goes with his varsity sport. However, pursuing his interests this year has caused him to be way overextended, IMO. His grades have suffered so he’s no longer a straight-A student. His four cores are all APs as well as two electives. But, truthfully, I’m not sure what I would suggest differently. Drop his language (even though he loves the class and teacher) so he doesn’t have that AP? Not take APES, even though he wants to major in environmental science in college?</p>
<p>I figure what happens, happens. Can’t second guess it all now. HOWEVER, he has a sibling entering HS this year, and I wonder whether we should do things differently with him.</p>
<p>ETA: Unfortunately, ds’s school does rank. :(</p>
<p>vicarious, I’ve found private universities that feature holistic selection do, in fact, recalculate GPAs. In one near-ivy, they take all classes (including PE! to my shock)–unweighted–from grades 9-11. I didn’t have the time/guts to call other adcoms and try to suss out their formulas, as they do keep this rather vague. </p>
<p>Many admissions offices, like the U I questioned at length, also have a formula which determines a point value for the rigor of coursework–based in part on the number of AP/IB etc courses chosen from those offered, and also assessing the sending HS. In other words, the path your D has taken will most likely help her. Not only will she be viewed as at the very least, the equal of those who didn’t take electives, she’ll have taken more classes for credit and also have more to write about in her essays. In turn, it would be helpful if her GC would address this the LOR, pointing out how she didn’t care about GPA when putting together her schedule in favor of the learning experiences and challenge.</p>
<p>Our school does not weigh. We were told that colleges recalculate GPA anyway. At least, that seemed the rationale for not weighing. </p>
<p>If the electives are important to your D, then chances are she will be applying to colleges that value her interests and will take into account the electives that she’s been taking. I also think it’s really important that students value knowledge for its own sake and enjoy acquiring it.</p>
<p>Our HS does not weight AP and honors classes. An A is an A, whether or not you earned it in AP Bio, honors bio, or regular bio. We regularly have 10 to 15 valedictorians in a given year; the rigorousness (what a word!) of a valedictorian’s schedule has varied from very rigorous to ‘not so much’. I understand our GCs sort it out in their recommendation letters and provide an unofficial ranking and explanation to colleges for the top students who are aiming at top schools. OP, perhaps your GCs do the same?</p>
<p>I wish my son’s school would do away with ranking. Perhaps if they did, he would be ok with taking an unweighted elective that he could enjoy instead of playing into the silly arms race for class rank that goes on routinely. As a sophomore next year, he is taking 5 honors classes and two AP’s …no breather classes. He feels he must do this to compete because he took music this year as his mandatory fine arts elective and not debate, where the kids who compete in outside competitions are given extra, honors weighting! OY.</p>
<p>^^ That sounds like a very smart way to encourage people to take more classes. I notice you said to the grade point sum, not to the average…depending on the details, half a point may not be enough to offset the handicap. But a step in the right direction, for sure.</p>
<p>To directly answer your question, yes, I believe you were naive. Most top colleges rank kids whose high schools don’t rank using those questions and historical data from the high school. Rank matters a lot. Note how many top schools tell us how many vals and sals are in each class.</p>
<p>It’s too bad because kids should be able to take the electives they like but it’s just another part of this bizarre game.</p>
<p>Students can be funny. Our school system did away with ranking last year and also changed to an 8 period day to allow students to have room for those electives they had no room to take. Guess what? Most of the top students chose to take 2 extra APs. GPA is nice, but in the end, SAT/ACT, SAT IIs, and scores in AP tests (which many students are starting to take since 9th grade) have a lot to say about rigor, no matter how holistic the AdComs might say they are.</p>
<p>This is a great question! I have seen the fallout first hand of that top 10% cut off at our top state univeristy.</p>
<p>At our public high school an Advanced Class is weighted as a +.5 , where as an Honors or AP course is weighted as a + 1.0. So---- if you got an “A” in an Advanced class, you got a 4.5 weighted. If you got a B in an honors or AP course, you got a 4.0 wieghted in the course. It effects the class rank, no question. An elective is unweighted.</p>
<p>We were told by UVA, our state flagship, that a “B” in an Honors or AP is better than an “A” in Advanced. HOWEVER- only the top 10% get into UVA from our school. This year especially, they followed the formula. Students who took all Honors level courses, and may have recieved more “B”'s were penalized. Also, those kids who do electives, such as Band, Yearbook and Art, would only get a 4.0 for those unweighted electives. Sad news is that parents have figured this out. There are many kids who do a study hall, no electives and take easier AP’s, such as Art History and AP Psych to get the weighted “A”. My feeling on it is look at where your daugher will be applying. Big publics use formulas. Smaller LACs and private colleges really look at the transcripts to see the rigourous courseload. It was true in my S’s case where he took the hardest courses and got a few too many "B"s. Does he regret it?- no way. He has become a much better student and feels so much more prepared for college. And he loved his debate class!</p>
<p>Ironically, each year UVA counselors come to our school and tell us they look at each application “holistically”. They had 22,000 applications- is that even possible to have that many holistic readers? This year, I know some top students ,(IMO), who took the hardest AP’s did not get into UVA- whereas kids who took some Advanced courses did. Good news is that these kids who pushed themselves did get into William and Mary and some great private colleges who recognized their hard work. I am a firm believer in pursuing your true interests, regardless of class rank. It’s a game that you can never be sure you are winning.</p>
<p>S1 dropped Spanish after level III to take journalism. Wanted to improve his writing. GC had a cow. Was one of the best decisions he made in HS – the opportunities he got from journalism opened a whole new world of interests, definitely improved his writing/editing and gave him a chance to do some serious programming on the paper’s website. Win-win.</p>
<p>Interestingly, every college interviewer wanted to hear about his time on newspaper staff. We surmised that journalism was an unusual/non-stereotypical EC for a heavily math/CS guy. </p>
<p>S1 and S2 have taken the electives and courses that interested them and not worried so much about the weighting. Sometimes those wound up being AP classes, sometimes regular classes taught by a really good teacher. For the most part, they have not been burned by this decision. (There was one class S1 had high hopes for, and it wound up being a big disappointment, and consequently he tuned out and it affected his grade. He still has to learn to gut out the things one doesn’t like in this world.)</p>
<p>Kids should take the courses that interest them – and if they aren’t weighted, so be it. These are the activities that make our kids happy, proud and passionate. I do hear the concerns about top 10% for flagships, though. Our school system does not rank, though the school profile provides info as to what % of the class has a 3.5+, 3.01-3.5, etc., so it is not too hard to discern. As the parent of two kids who are outside the top 10% but in highly competitive programs, it’s frustrating, but so far, S1’s colleges really did look at course difficulty and factored that into their decisionmaking.</p>
<p>The other thing to ask your school is how the counselor determines ‘most rigorous’ when deciding which box to check. At our high schools taking the customary 5 academic classes would not get you ‘most rigorous’ as many kids were doubling up on math languages and science so you needed 6 or 7 non electives to get the top box checked which many parents didn’t understand.</p>
<p>Vicariousparent – We have the same issue at our school. Our AP classes get weighed a full point higher than regular or honors classes. In the race to have the highest GPA, some kids take required unweighted classes (foreign language, for example) outside of school so that it doesn’t get factored into their GPA. </p>
<p>S2 has taken 8 academic courses both freshman and sophomore years (we have block scheduling so its easy to do), and his GPA and class rank (based on weighted GPA) is lower than kids who have taken less classes, but the same number of APs, because he has a larger number of unweighed classes. </p>
<p>I would hope colleges will recognize that S2 will have more credits than other kids. However, S2 is delaying taking 2 unweighted required electives (computers and fine arts) till senior year, so that they don’t affect his GPA/class rank when he applies to colleges. Class rank is important in California because the top 4% at public HS are are UC-eligible.</p>
<p>My DD had that situation. She was in a performing arts magnet and required to take a performing arts class each semester – unweighted. Kids in the same school in the science magnets were using the extra course to take weighted courses. Consequently, even with a plethora of APs and straight As, she was ranked 13th in her class and we were a bit concerned that might hurt her as she applied to a number of super-reach schools. She was accepted to more top colleges than anyone in her class and I’m pretty sure that her sustained interest in the performing arts was one of the reasons why. I just don’t think the ranking mattered much once we were talking about such high-performing kids. What mattered was the she took a lot of challenging courses and did well while sustaining a very time-consuming EC. Also, that EC provided a lot of fodder for compelling essays. And it made high school enjoyable, which it should be.</p>
<p>^^ Thank you mimk6, for that encouraging post. I am glad to know that it worked out for your D. Just curious, was she rank 13th in a class of more than 130? It appears that the key is to be in the top 10%ile.</p>
<p>Even if she could do it all over again, I doubt that my D would choose a different combination of courses. Each of her electives/e.c’s (writing, debate, choir) has brought her a lot of enjoyment and recognition and will no doubt form the basis of her essays. I think the counselors and her teachers recognize how much time and energy these activities take and they seem to be impressed that she can still maintain her grades. And more than likely she is still near the top of her class with respect to her GPA, so hopefully her elective choices won’t hurt her.</p>