DS goes to a K-8 charter school which exposes all kids to both Chinese and Spanish from K until 4. In 5th the kids choose which language they want to focus on. DS did not begin at this school until 6th grade and he chose Spanish. As it is a small school, he and 6 other new students were placed in the same Spanish class as the other experienced kids but given easier/different assignments. In order to catch up he did Duolingo every morning and about half way through the year he was included into the regular class.
Early in the year, my wife speaks several languages and she was rather unhappy with the teacher’s program and went to speak with her and the conversation did not go well. The school grades on a 4 point scale with 4’s being very rare, 3’s being the norm, 2’s occur but infrequently. On his quarter end report card, my son received several 2’s in Spanish for homework, effort and one quarter an overall 2. (The report card breaks down the components I mentioned.) He has never received a 2 on anything else in his report card and he is not the type to not turn in his homework and when questioned said he always turned everything in. I told him not to worry about it as the grades in 6th and 7th did not really matter and if it continued in 8th I would speak to her and/or the principal.
Each year his school participates in an exam called the National Spanish Exam and at the end of 7th grade, he was one of 3 students in the class to receive a gold medal; the other two kids with golds are from families where one parent speaks Spanish whereas neither my wife nor I speak Spanish. Also, all of the other kids that started late are still segregated in Spanish and receive a lower level of instruction. So he did very well and we were proud. The teacher somewhat changed her tune so I felt all was fine.
We have recently decided to apply to a boarding school and his 7th grade report card will show the 2 which I think is a bit unfair to him given his performance. The grade is final so I do not think I can change anything. I could ensure he writes about the achievement of going from the bottom of the class to one of the top scorers, do nothing at all, or speak to the principal to see if the report can at least not show the breakdowns of homework and effort which would show only one 2 vs five 2’s. Any thoughts? Will these 2s really make any difference in his application?
He is very accelerated in math and he speaks, reads and writes Russian pretty well. Overall a bit of a spike with math but pretty well rounded. Thanks for your thoughts.
This is what I would do. First, I don’t know why the transcript would show the “breakdowns” instead of just the final grades for each semester/term, which is typical, but one 2 certainly looks better than 5 2’s. Second, put a “positive spin” and tell the story somewhere in the application how he managed to move up from one of the bottom students in Spanish class to one of the gold medalist in the National Spanish Exam. I would not mention the exchange between the parent and the teacher. And as a side note, in boarding school or any other schools, you will see and work with different kinds of teachers. I am not saying that there’s not a difference of quality in teachers among schools, but be sure to expect that things don’t work “in our favor” all the time…
This is what I would not do. Teachers as a group seldom like any of them being criticized on the holy right of grading. So I would hold about how the bad grade might have been unfair of the teacher. Instead, I would focus on what @panpacific suggested.
This is a grade marking from 5th grade, correct, when your child was 10 or 11? I certainly would not spend any time discussing it for these reasons: (1) it isn’t relevant because it is not a middle school grade and no one cares, such that you drawing attention to it would seem strange, and potentially neurotic; (2) the only time you could really “discuss” it is in an interview and the AO is very unlikely to have looked at any of your materials before you walk in the door even if you have already reported scores and filed your application* and you should be using that time for MUCH different (positive) purposes; and (3) there is very limited space and limited opportunity (because you are responding to specific questions) in the written application and you would not want to waste it on one grade from 4 years earlier.
*My DD sat for 5 interviews, all of which occurred after her SSAT had been reported and 1 after her application had been filed. No one had looked at any of this material and several AOs said that they don’t want to prejudge kids ahead of the interviews and that they purposefully don’t look at it. Caveat: legacies and recruited athletes do very different prep before they interview.
@Kthor626 So kids who believe they might be recruited athletes, or who are legacies should assume that AO’s have reviewed any application materials that were submitted within a reasonable time prior to the interview?
Legacies and recruited athletes can reach out to the school ahead of the interview about their status. This is different than merely scheduling the interview, which is what most applicants do. But I wasn’t attempting to suggest that they could also request that academic materials be reviewed. Instead, we noticed alums (and their kids) receiving special greetings from personnel upon arrival and interviews with Admissions Directors (as opposed to AOs), as well as recruited athletes being taken off to meet with coaches. (That doesn’t mean that they are all getting in and your kid isn’t, so don’t worry about it.) As to URMs, I think that status is likely evident from the basic info given when the interview is scheduled or at the interview.
Sorry if not clear, the grades are from the second and third quarters of last year, seventh grade. I think it will be relevant but hopefully easily overcome by commenting on starting out at the bottom and ending with the medal as others suggested. thanks.
I think the private bs would be great for son but my wife and I would love to have DS around for a few more years,in any case the application will be a great experience.
What does “reaching out to a school ahead of the interview about their status” with regard to legacies and recruited athletes even mean? What’s the “very different prep” for an interview? Let’s not make people paranoid about these kids being treated differently in some meaningful way when it comes to the interview process. My kids applied to schools at which they were legacies and the interviews were no different than the schools where they were not a legacy.
I interpreted “reaching out to a school ahead of the interview” as simply letting the admissions office know that the child is a legacy or an athlete or has some other special talent when the interview appointment is being made. I think that it did put us on their radar but it is hard to say if ultimately it made any difference. I don’t know what the “very different prep” is.
With regard to the OP, it seems like an anomaly that can be easily enough explained and given that schools take a holistic view of the application, it’s relatively insignificant.
I would not spend time explaining a bad grade if it’s not a major negative in the application, but rather an anomaly in an otherwise strong application. My child had some bad grades in middle school (as I recently said in another post, I do not supervise homework or help negotiate with teachers) due to not turning in homework. I think most schools want to know whether the student can do the work required at the school and whether there is some serious motivation issue or reason that there is a big mismatch between the student’s performance on exams and grades. I felt that our student clearly demonstrated that doing the work wasn’t an issue and the poor grades were limited, early in middle school and then corrected, and there was enough positive to talk about in the application that was better to focus on the positive. We also felt that any school who would not accept this student on the basis of a bad grade with so many other positive factors wasn’t a school that interested us much. For whatever it is worth, the student applied to 4 schools, was admitted to 3 and waitlisted at 1, so it didn’t seem to be an issue.