Does having a 5th year of high school look bad on transcripts?

cptofthehouse
Thu, 05 May 2011 09:38:13 +0000

If you truly can do well that fifth year in high school, yes, it can make a difference. It can open up some more doors than taking that summer school course or comm college courses. But it really depends on the individual situation so much that you have to talk to a counselor about this.

My son’s friend did what is call a Post graduate year at a prep school. He went to a school where he truly did miserably his freshman year and was behind in terms of taking college prep courses in high school. He had gone to a terrible middle school in a dysfunctional family situation, that was resolved his 8th grade year. Unfortunately, he did not do well in 8th grade or 9th. But rallyed his sophomore year and did quite well his junior year. But his courses were all lower level in line with his lack of preparedness from the onset. So by the time he graduated, he was really the equivalent of most college prep juniors. But his stellar grades in some tough courses senior year (though they were not traditonal senior year courses) made it clear that he could have handled a load that a typical college prep good student in a good school takes. So he took the PG year which put him in some AP and honors courses and brought him up to Calculus level and 4th year of a foreign language.

Yes, it made a big difference in his college list and acceptances. For him it was worth while.