Ok @hoopsorsoccer …what we did on Showcase forms for our 93 average was put down 3.8/4.0. Maybe we miscalculated?
Here is one calculator from gpacalculator.net
Ah, but then there’s this one on college board:
https://pages.collegeboard.org/how-to-convert-gpa-4.0-scale
@Golfgr8 which is why I emailed because I didn’t know which was accurate. Did you average the 100 scale grades and then convert to the 4.0 scale OR convert every grade to a 4.0 scale and then average the 4.0 scale grades?
Heres the thing - the cc office gave me a third GPA to put down that I think was “school adjusted” because the school is notoriously difficult?? So they didn’t tell me HOW to calculate the GPA going forward which I must say is quite annoying since I will need to do this many times a year for the next three years, they just said “put down X as her GPA” and have her come see us.
You convert by course first, and then average (assuming each course carries equal credit)
Ignore that - everyone else will. There is no such thing in the real world as “school-adjusted GPA.” LOL
@hoopsorsoccer - what did you mean by the CC office giving you a school adjusted score because your school is “notoriously difficult”? Do different schools use different conversions?
Our school does not give bumps for AP or Honors. Every class is equal. I do think it’s tough on our kids when they post their GPA’s on these forms that only allow for a 4.0 type scales - back home peers are posting 4.8 & 5.2 GPA’s. One college did tell a teammate that 3.75 is their academic cut-off. That is tough when coming from a rigorous BS where grades don’t usually go north of a 89.
If your school is known for hard grading, admissions know that and they’ll do the “adjusting” themselves. I would worry that they would be suspect of a puffed up GPA regardless of why it’s done.
I realize that at a camp, coaches may not be making all these adjustments but they generally know the lay of the land.
You misunderstand me. Clearly if there are several different methods for converting 100 scale grades to a 4.0 scale a school can choose which they use. (Certainly colleges can recalculate based on their conversion). I think the school used a more generous conversion scale. I certainly don’t need to “ignore it.”
Yes, different schools use different conversions. Our schools also gives no bump for honor or AP and it is hard when my daughter hears of poor students at the public school pulling all A’s but that’s exactly why she chose to leave.
@cinnamon1212 Don’t know about soccer. But in some sports like track, if a kid has good times and knows they want to attend a school, they’ll contact the college coach. May not go full recruitment but they might. Indecision, happens all the time according to the head of BS athletics who I am inclined to believe. Said it happens especially Freshman year when the student finds that they want to do other things/not commit to the travel etc. And kids also use sports to leverage admissions.
Personally, I was surprised. But after hearing this don’t think it is uncommon.
And as a data point of one, I sat next to the mom of a Senior at a finals event Sunday. ( I know one data point isn’t fact). Told me where her kid was attending and said her kid was able to run at college but was on the fence about actually running in college. I didn’t ask if kid was recruited but I would guess they were since there is another runner there from last year and one from the year before ( tiny college).
Will a kid use their status as an athlete to get into a single digit school? My guess is yes.
Maybe, I’m putting recruited in the same category as using a sport to tilt admissions. I know they are very different. But given the recruiting process, it is going to vary by sport and by a number of other factors. We are not a sports family per se. But all of the BS coaches talk about recruiting and so so the kids. I know kids are getting recruited who are not the top players in the sports my kid plays. My inclination is DivII and III is more of a tilt than a commitment.
I know everyone says this but in the examples I have had from parents it is not the case. Just yesterday was having lunch, parent mentioned that a coach (east coast well know LAC should know the BS) said to her kid “how is your sat so high and your gpa so low? that’s so strange.” Ok, so not at our school. This kid’s scores and GPA were very normal - high high sat 3.6/3.7 gpa. That GPA is still in the high category for our school. So coach clearly had no idea. I have heard several other stories that are similar. I have also been told by college counseling that this is a problem faced by athletes from our school. So the whole “colleges know” thing is, IMO, an overblown CC rumor and not as true as all the parents would like it to be.
@one1ofeach, that’s a good reason to ask for an admissions pre-read. The coach may not know the rigor of a particular school but it’s more than likely admissions does.
@Happytimes2001, @cinnamon1212, one of my kids was in that situation. Was sole captain of her sport and was being recruited but wasn’t 100% sure she wanted to play in college. Ended up applying ED to a school where she was a legacy therefore decided not to go the recruiting route. Didn’t want to take the slot from someone sure they wanted to play. The school was extremely competitive in the sport and her times would have put her right in the mix so I’m sure it was a tip. She decided not to play and was happy with that decision. One of her BS teammates who ended up at the same college quit after freshman year because the commitment was too intense. Liked the coach and teammates but just didn’t have sufficient love of the sport to continue.
I agree. I think it might be overstating to imagine that a coach knows each and every boarding school. Some of these schools have really tough standards an A- is an honors grade and tough to get at some schools. And other schools ( IMO) have over the top high grading for every kid. So, not all schools are the same and coaches are not going to know every school. The schools can/will provide a map of the grade distributions so colleges will be able to see what the “average” grade is. I saw one graph that even broke it out by class. So they can see that AP Chem is a class where most kids get a B. This is only going to help if the coach digs deep. Frankly, some are going to be more impressed by a kid with a 5.0 and lower SAT scores, sadly.
I can agree with @Happytimes2001 comment. Had that experience recently where a coach from a well known Midwestern university had no knowledge of our school. Had no experience with BS’s. Not in the wheelhouse. This coach goes trolling in familiar waters. Mentioned BS and coach asked if my kid had LD or behavioral problems. Nice!
Keep your sense of humor, folks!
Like @Happytimes2001, I am also wondering if APChem is worth the dip in GPA - it’s one of the toughest courses at our school (maybe yours, as well). I think these AO’s and coaches want GPA. I had one school summer program tell us the cut off for GPA was 3.75 - well, that’s pretty tough to maintain at most of the BS’s on here - especially if your kid is taking Honors & AP classes. I don’t think the AO’s or coach will dig deep. A BS student’s 3.8 looks low on the recruiting sites where other kids are boasting 5.2 GPA from their public high school.
I’m having a different experience than all of you with GPA’s etc. My son’s got a good GPA, but not a 4.0 by any means, and his grades are fine for any school that wants to recruit him according to his college advisor, and seemingly from the schools that are seriously recruiting him. High academic schools know his boarding school.
@cinnamon1212 Well, that is great. I think you don’t actually know what the impact of GPA is until results come in, however. The guidance dept talks broadly, IMO, since they have to speak for all of the students. Parents have asked lots of questions at event for example that don’t apply to my kid. For parents of kids who want one thing, it might be fine. But not in all cases. For some schools, the GPA can knock you out of the running. This is particularly true of the most competitive schools with sub-10% acceptance rates. Of course, no one actually knows until acceptances are sent out.
I wanted to believe that GPA was just part of the package but it seems to be more important than other factors.
May I offer a dissenting opinion? I have a BS senior who is a recruited college athlete. I am also intimately familiar with the recruitment experience of her close friends, who also will be playing in college. Colleges to which they were recruited are Ivies, NESCAC schools, and a couple other LACs. In this collective experience, BS-type GPA (on the low side compared to public HS) was never the issue. Test scores were - for some. Athletic abilities - for others. You get coach’s attention with athletic abilities, not with GPA. The academic fitness is then determined by the Admissions Office, not by the coach. A coach may not know much about your school but the AO does - or will know once they get your school’s profile along with your transcript for pre-read. If BS kids apply to colleges where they are athletically competitive, BS GPA is not going to hold them back - unless these are hard-cutoff schools like Alabama in which the majority of BS students are not interested anyway.
@GoatMama 's experience mirrors what I have seen. I can also think of a kid whom a coach really loved yet who was turned down during the pre-read. (He ended up at another school in the same conference that was TO.) iow, oaches will make a move on the players they want and let admissions make the call. And a reasonable GPA from a tough BS is unlikely to be a show stopper. I have heard of kids being given a test score threshold by coaches.
@gardenstategal - yes we also hear of test score and GPA thresholds. Can you explain about pre-reads??.
So… if a recruit is top choice for a college, the coach will arrange for a pre-read, usually during the summer before senior year. A pre-read is done by admissions (which is why is matters not a whit if the coach understands your grading scale). It is a preliminary review of your application by the folks who make the admissions decisions – not athletic staff… If it is positive, it essentially means that with the coach’s support, you are good to go. This is important because if you are a recruit, you’ll be expected to apply ED, so you don’t want to squander that on a place that won’t take you. (This is also why so many athletes are accepted in the ED round - they were the ones that had already gotten a thumbs up. Unlike other ED applicants, even ones with hooks.)
If the pre-read isn’t good, and this happens, you can move on. And this DOES happen. At some level, admissions would prefer that athletics not be “picking the class”, so this is the governor on that. Coaches can say who they want but the ultimate say is admissions.
Of course, a coach could arrange for a pre-read and it could be good and then he could find another player he liked better, so you need to keep dancing right up to the end, but most coaches don’t arrange pre-reads for athletes they aren’t serious about.
I’m sure @GoatMama and others can offer perspective on this, and I have written this from a D3 vantage point.
Test score/GPA thresholds are mostly for merit aid/non-athletic scholarships at schools that offer those - and some/many don’t. Ivies have Academic Index, and in our experience coaches interested in BS athletes may give an SAT/ACT threshold, and it’s not earth-shattering.
What @GoatMama and @gardenstategal described is consistent with our experience and advice from DS’s club coach (for D3 recruiting). We are in the midst of it…but not the end, so we’ll see how it all works out! Of course, if the kid is a higher ranking recruit, the coach will push harder and use that leverage with a kid whose grades/scores are below the school’s acceptable range. We have also heard repeatedly that for certain schools (e.g., NESCACs) one C on the transcript can be a deal-killer, regardless of GPA. A prep school kid we know (a 2020 and the school’s top recruit of the class) encountered this and he and the coaches had to work very hard to explain a C from 9th grade (from public school), even though he was generally an A- student. I also know that some schools are more rigid about when they can make “firm” D3 offers, which are hardly firm until you are actually accepted. And yes, you have to keep your options open till the end, because things change, coaches are constantly scouting, and recruiting coordinators can be poor communicators and leave kids hanging. Another note on ED is to ask whether an ED applicant (recruit) will be considered for merit aid — some schools will and many won’t, so it’s an important consideration.
Of course, this is all based solely on our experience with one kid, one sport, his specific coaches, schools he’s pursuing, and some anecdotes.