My son, a senior in his fall semester submitted an application last week to our congressman for a congressional nomination to a service academy. I received a voicemail from the congressman’s office to call immediately. When I called I was informed that the GPA/class rank letter provided by my son’s high school did not match the GPA and class rank on his transcript that was received in the mail from the school. The congressman’s office also contacted the school which was unaware of the discrepancy. Meanwhile, back at the school, the Registrar called my son to the office and delivered the same devastating news of a miscalculation that happened THREE YEARS ago during his freshman year. She claimed the miscalculation inflated his GPA and class rank. For THREE YEARS NO ONE caught this errors. My son was literally in tears right there in the office.
I’m equally devastated and disgusted that I blindly trusted my son’s high school accurately document his GPA and rank. That was my mistake…trusting a school that has a reputation of excellence as one of the top best high schools in my city. Now, in the fall of my son’s senior year while he is in the midst of applying to college and scholarships we are in a panic. How do we fix this? He could miss out on much needed opportunities! If the error had been in his freshman year, we could have done something about it. Now, what? The school’s original rank/GPA was 1st quartile/4.5 now they’re saying he’s actually in the 3rd quartile/2.7gpa!!! I’m so brain is totally muttled by the confusing formulas, calculations, weights/no weights…my head is spinning and I’m sick to my stomach. My son is totally depressed; he said he thought he was doing really well. Now he feels like he let everyone. I do not understand how for going 4 years my son’s GPA was wrong and no one caught until now the fall semester of his senior year. His teachers, counsellors, and even the principal were all thrilled he was in the top 10 percent. It made sense to everyone. He made good grades a worked hard.
Have you now verified, to your satisfaction, what they are reporting for his GPA? That seems like a huge difference.
I would carefully check:
Were his reported grades correct? (just the calculation wrong?)
Were they giving him weighted credit for classes where it wasn’t warranted?
Did he think he was taking classes that would be weighted (Honors/AP), but they weren’t?
Was there a Withdrawal or Incomplete that factored in as an ‘F’, or something similar?
If the actual reported grades were wrong, or if he received an ‘F’ for a class that he was incorrectly registered in, or dropped and it was never removed from his record, I think you have a case for an appeal to the school.
If the GPA is correct however, I don’t think there is anything you can do to “fix it”. The grades he earned are the grades he earned. While it is certainly troubling that the school’s calculation was incorrect (was he receiving Honor Roll commendations that he didn’t really qualify for?), I find it hard to understand how, over 3 years, a student with a ~‘B’ avg (? mostly B’s, couple A’s, couple C’s) thought he had an ‘A’ avg (mostly A’s, couple B’s). (sorry, if this is the case, I know it is not what you want to hear.)
For anyone reading - make sure you understand how your school calculates GPA, and keep track on your own.
I agree that the difference is way too big. The transcript of an “A” student looks different from the transcript of a C+ student. Does he have mostly A’s, or a lot of B’s and a few C’s too? You need to obtain from the school all the details of their formulas and calculate his GPA yourself. If you don’t feel capable, find someone with a math background to help you. Our high school also miscalculated the GPA of two of my children. In S’s case, the algorithm inputted into their software program was wrong, so his was not the only transcript with the error. S was just the only senior to catch it in time before transcripts went out to colleges. Believe it or not, a very similar mistake was made on my current senior’s transcript. DO NOT TRUST THE SCHOOL. EVER!!! Check it yourself carefully.
It also doesn’t make sense that a mistake freshman year was so big that two years (sophomore and junior) would be dragged down by it. Did he do poorly freshman year? Why did he think his GPA was higher than it was? Agree that you need to verify the actual grades and do your own calculations ASAP.
Yes, that is too wild of a swing to make sense. Did your son get mostly A’s or mostly B-? I would first recalculate the GPA myself to get an idea where it should be. Check that each grade on the transcript is correct. Then I would go into the guidance dept. and have them show you the calculations.
You need to make a spreadsheet and calculate his GPA yourself. There is probably a document provided by the school that describes the grade to GPA conversion (ex - A=4, A-=3.7, B+=3.3, etc).
I agree with others that I don’t know how this big a discrepancy could occur. He’s either getting all A’s, or he’s getting mostly B’s with a couple C’s. If its the latter, you should have realized long ago that something wasn’t right.
If the error had been discovered his freshman year what exactly would you have done about it? Would he have worked harder? Really?
FWIW, I never could get figure out how my younger sons GPA was calculated. I put all the grades in a spread sheet and weighted them the way they said they were weighted. Part of the issue was that only “academic” courses were counted. It was clear that at least some of the orchestra classes were counted, but perhaps not all. The difference between what I got and what they got was small enough I didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about it, except for the fact that it was clear they were counting some music classes that a college that recalculates the GPA doesn’t. The school calculated GPA is important, but do be aware that many colleges will recalculate using their own systems to weight honors or AP courses.
I read this early this morning…and came back because was first reaction was that it seemed improbable to have this kind of error. A 4.5 and it’s obviously weighted still means almost all As…I couldn’t figure out how you could get to a 2.7…that makes no sense to me. OP were you aware of alot of Cs (or lower) on the transcript? If so, I’m wondering how you could believe he had a 4.5? If you’ve not seen his complete transcript I would suggest going into the school (with him) and reviewing his transcript with your own eyes. Even all Bs with a smattering of As and Cs might not get him as low as 2.7…that is more like a B- or C+ average.
The colleges will look at the actual grades on the transcript. And the core classes (and within that, those most related to his major) will matter most. I don’t even know if the academies look at freshman year (or how they truly weight that year.) So it kinda feels like you’re focused on the numerical gpa, while it’s the individual rigor and grades that matter more.
But I know you mention the concern is scholarships that have a gpa bar. Yes, unfortunately, you need to go back and calculate on your own, to try to verify the school’s new number.
(Is the 2.7 for all 3 years or the new figure for freshman year?)
Once a year we get a transcript with GPA and class ranking, and I have to admit I have no idea how it’s calculated. There is a formula in the student handbook, but then some dual enrollment classes are counted differently. I just compare year to year and figure they are right. So far it’s seemed about right.
On the transcript are all her grades, which correspond with every report card that’s been sent home (I keep them all in her files). They all match up.
Is it possible they are wrong about the miscalculation? That it really is a 4.5 and not a 2.7? I would very carefully compare every grade on that transcript with what you’ve been sent home over the years. Make them re-calculate it using the grades that have been sent home every year, and make sure they match the transcript.
@mathmom I make excel spreadsheets too in order to track GPA. To be accurate, in addition to the weighting you need to factor in credits. So a class like music for example, may be graded, but it may count as half a credit vs 1 credit for a class like bio. And you have to factor the credits in correctly from year to year- if 9th grade has 5.5 credits and 10th has 6.5 credits, to get to the cumulative gpa you have to do a weighted avg between the years. And little things like, is the A- a 3.7 or a 3.67 make a difference too.
I’d triple check this school’s full transcript as something really is off with the GPA calculations if the difference is that large.
Educrats and teachers have made similar mind-boggling level mistakes.
While my personal experience with this was not as extreme in scope/magnitude, it was similar as one HS class exam which was initially graded a -D and negatively affected my first marking period grade turned out to actually be an -A because the grading tool used to grade the exam turned out to be defective.
Ended up receiving a personal apology and a note to be included with the first marking period report card to notify my parents that the low grade in the case was due to grading error on her/grading tool’s part.
Even if there were a couple of failed classes that weren’t added in, the gap seems to be too great.
It’s possible that he might have been told that something wouldn’t count for GPA, and that it in fact wasn’t counted until somebody looked at it again senior year. If that’s what happened, you might have an argument that the school should stick with what they originally said.
OP, the last statement you have mentioned that “he made good grades”. Did he make mostly As?
Make an appointment with the GC, school officials, Get all the grade reports you have from his previous years for the meeting. They need to explain where, when and how the deviation started. They will also be able to explain how the courses are weighed etc to arrive at a figure of 2.7.
I agree with many other posters who have pointed out that the GPA step down from 4.5 to 2.7 can not be explained just mathematically.
I had one meeting with officials who explained the error as follows : during my son’s freshman year, a grade for a course taken in another school district was put into the Chancery system manually by the resgistrar. Unfortunately, she put the grade in the “GPA” field instead of the “grade” field. This inflated the GPA points. The error was not apparent in the transcript. For 3 years. My son monitored his GPA via Naviance. Naviance has a weighted approximation of the GPA. I just learned after the meeting that Naviance isn’t always accurate! Furthermore, I learned Naviance uploads it’s data from Chancery which is where the error originated. Hence, unless we had been manually calculating his GPA the error went unnoticed since freshman year. The school district does not do yearly GPA audits. GPAs are only c alculated in the senior year which I think is absurd. This district has a poorly communicated informal policy that puts all the responsibility on the student and parent to calculate and monitor GPAs from year to year…assuming we know how to do it, assuming we understand all the variables such as weights for AP, dual credit, etc., and providing no parent training. They had a parent training meeting on FAFSA so why can’t the have one on GPA calculation and monitoring? When the registrar ran the GPA report she didn’t even verify it for accuracy. So when the transcript was requested from our congressman’s office it was mailed. The congressman office noticed the descrepency between the GPA/rank on the transcript a nd the GPA/rank in thalassemia rank letter that was provided at the beginning of the school. The congressman’s office alerted the school. The registrar researched and found the error made by her predecessor that dated back 3 years! So, now my son has to earn straight As the semester and can only hope that at best he can earn a 2.9! I regret not manually calculating his GPA each year and relying on Naviance for accurate GPA. We are in the age of information technological advances where software programs are supposed to be more accurate than archaic manual calculations. I regret that the district doesn’t see the value of doing annual GPA audits like some districts do. Furthermore, the Chancery computer program should have a safeguard that doesn’t allow for a digits higher than grade point to be entered.
Wow, my kids school doesn’t have Naviance of whatever system you are talking about so I can’t relate to that piece of it, but surely your son knew he didn’t have a 4.0? That’s the piece of the mystery that escapes me because a 2.0 is a C average, a 3.0 a B average and a 4.0 an A average. Such a big difference between what you/he thought and the reality. Generally you can just glance at the final grades and make a pretty good estimate of GPA. He had to have thought something was amiss.