I often hear students on CC say that their grades were low early in high school due to immaturity and lack of seriousness, with an upward trend later. Others begin with solid grades but struggle to maintain their GPA as juniors and seniors when academic/ EC demands become steeper. Of course, there are a host of other factors in play as well (unforeseen emotional struggles, teacher conflicts, etc.)
Just curious…Did your children tend to have higher, lower or generally steady GPAs as they moved through high school? I know there’re probably no way to predict the future, but wondering if there are general trends. If a student has started with high grades, has a stable personality and is competent, conscientious, with no LDs (yet not brilliant or extremely driven), how difficult is it to maintain those grades in a high-average public high school? I know there are no absolute answers or a crystal ball, just wondering, generally, if trends tend to be upwards, downwards or steady.
Personal anecdotes and/or general observations are all welcome!
My son struggled in his 9th grade classes - he even made an 80 in an honors science course. Something clicked in 10th grade, and he made high grades the rest of the time. He got into several selective schools.
My other two kids were pretty much “B” students all four years of high school.
My daughter, who has struggled with a mood disorder since she was 15, never struggled in any academic class. She made straight As all through high school and college. Her grade trajectory was flat.
My son, who was battle-scarred after being bullied in 8th grade, took only regular classes his freshman year in high school. He made straight As, so they made him take honors classes his sophomore year. He did make a couple of Bs that year, and then straight As in honors and AP classes his last two years. Considering his easy course load freshman year, I’d say his grade trajectory was upwards. He’s a junior in college and has been pretty consistent, mostly As and a couple of Bs. I think he has a 3.8 GPA at this point.
It is definitely possible to have your GPA head upward as you develop good study habits in high school. My kids, like many others, already had good habits going into high school, and had authority-pleasing personality types, so the learning curve wasn’t as steep.
I, on the other hand, coasted through high school and got horrible grades my first semester in college because I didn’t know how to study. My husband says his grades got progressively worse in college, as the courses became more difficult and many profs then graded on a curve.
Unweighted GPA went down as courses became more difficult but weighted GPA went up as he took more classes that were weighted and challenging. 9th grade (4 Honors classes and 3 Regular) 10th (2 AP, 4 Honors and 1 Regular), 11th (5 AP and 2 Honors) and 12th (1 Post-AP, 5 AP and 1 Regular). Some of the As early on became A-s and B+s as the courses got harder and time management played a bigger role due to ECs. Solid student. Not straight As but always chose things that were challenging.
I never viewed it as a downward trend but if you looked at true unweighted GPAs he did his best freshmen year.
Older son got A’s of one sort or another from the start. He went from an A- to an A+ senior year in English when he decided to do one of the English electives instead of honors or AP. Our weighting is so light, I think that ended up as a plus for him. He took a full load of AP courses and always did very well in them. I’d say grades were steady course work got more demanding.
Younger son got B’s in everything but history freshman year. His grades got better over the years (except for Latin which got worse.) Like his older brother he opted to have fun in English senior year with similar results. Getting a 99 or whatever it was in English was definitely good for his GPA even though it was unweighted! He mostly got A’s in his AP Courses except the AP Calc BC and AP Physics C senior year. I think he had high B’s in those courses, at least by the end of the year, they may have been a tad higher when colleges were looking at them. He didn’t take Latin senior year. Grades got better, course work more demanding.
My son’s grades were on the upward trajectory- improving every year. However, we removed him from his public high school to a private high school after the 6 weeks of his freshman year when it looked like middle school repeat all over again.
JMO, but I’m pretty sure if he had stayed in his public school - the top district in my area just not a good fit for him - he would have never achieved what he did.
My daughter stayed basically the same over her four years. My son had a horrid freshman year but has rebounded very nicely this year. Hoping to continue the upward trajectory.
My oldest was pretty steady (almost all A’s). My son has been all over the place. His grades were good (but not great) freshman year, and then took a big dip sophomore year. He had a medical problem early on in the school year that kept him out for a while, and while he physically recovered after not much time, he had a really hard time mentally coming out of the funk. (Considering he had to see a neurologist for months, I just now realize it may had physical roots. Hmmmm…) This year he started with a clean slate and has his best grades ever with a 4.5 weighted.
My oldest daughter was consistent all the way through her private high school. She is very bright and could have done better, but she coasted and did fine with about 2/3rds A’s and the rest B’s. She did participate in several EC’s and got into a very good college.
My youngest is now a junior in a good, but not excellent public H.S. She’s currently ranked 9th/420 in her class. She has made straight A’s since 7th grade, but she had to work her butt off during 9th and 10th grade (5-7 hours of homework/night - she pushed herself, not us). She took all honors with one AP course (APES) during her first two years. This year, for some reason, she’s still making straight A’s but is spending about 1/4 the amount of time on homework and she has two AP classes (Bio, Stats), English honors, pre-calc, and then a couple of standard level courses (including history because we didn’t think she could handle AP reading/writing intensive courses due to how long it took her to do her homework in 9th/10th grades - she is NOT a reader). She has only one time consuming EC, a winter sport.
I seriously don’t know what to make of this - or how to plan for her senior year when honors courses aren’t offered - only regular vs. AP’s. I mean, is this year a fluke, with a lot of easy teachers, or has she become more efficient and academically competent? I’m thinking she’s becoming more competent - but still worry about her having a full load of AP courses next year. I wish her school offered honors in 12th but they don’t.
My oldest had flat grades with steadily increasing course rigor. Freshman year she had mostly A’s (one 89) in mostly regular classes with one honors class. By senior year she had mostly A’s (one 88) in mostly AP and a few honors classes. Thus her weighted GPA had a steady up trend even though unweighted GPA was almost precisely flat. She had to work a lot harder her last two years.
My youngest went to a high school that did not have any APs, and had flat grades all A’s (one B+ on an interim progress report which I think probably wasn’t on her final transcript). She was the top student in a very small school.
Both got into their top choice universities. Neither had any interest in any Ivy League or equivalent school.
For parents whose kids have not yet reached senior year, note that in senior year kids have what is in terms of effort essentially an “extra” class, researching and applying for universities. My oldest daughter’s school required her to take a really easy class senior year that was a gym class that was almost free time. We complained mildly, they insisted, and they were right (and I told the principle that he was right about half way through the year).
@LeastComplicated generally my kids liked their AP classes and teachers better than the even their honors classes from previous years. Unlike many I hear about on CC, there wasn’t a lot of busy work, though the AP Bio teacher had probably a foot high stack of handouts, maybe more.
There is a huge amount of variation. I know kids that intentionally started taking school more seriously in 10th grade due being a key year for the CA system. And I also know many kids that had “senioritis.” However, I’d expect most on here received excellent grades throughout high school.
When I was in HS, if a subject interested me and had objective grading; I’d generally do well. If this criteria was not met, I’d often not do as well. I had more control to choose courses that interested me in upperclassmen years, and I also had the opportunity to take classes that were at a more challenging level at a nearby university; so my grades improved overall, but still closely followed subject (math/science/CS/… = higher grade, English/language/… = lower grade). When entering college, again I had more control to select subjects and fields that I was passionate about found more challenging, so again my grades improved overall, but still were notably correlated with subject.
@Mathmom I just afraid that it will vary depending on subject and teacher. She has done fine in her science and stats AP’s but we had to pull her out of AP World History last year because she wasn’t getting to bed until 1:30am - it did involve WAY too much busy work - practically paraphrasing a whole chapter every two days (with a text font of about 8!). We found out too late that the teacher was well known for being difficult. Since she’ll be a senior next year, maybe she’ll be able to talk to some students and teachers to get a feel for how difficult the AP courses would be. She wasn’t savvy enough I don’t think at the end of her freshman year in selecting her sophomore schedule.
That worked well for her this year as her current AP Stats teacher was her Honors Algebra II teacher and she had a talk with her and got her opinion on whether she could do well in the class. She was confident in taking AP Bio as she does very well in Science courses.
Her reading ability is a problem. She really doesn’t read at all except for her school textbooks and required school reading. It’s getting better, but I was helping her a few weeks ago with an English annotation assignment where the class had to annotate the Declaration of Independence and Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty” speech, and she didn’t even know what “idle” meant! She absorbs material like a sponge though - I was telling her that I didn’t think the Bible ever mentioned that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” was a God given right, and she told me, “Mom, I think that’s a reference from John Locke.” So she was obviously paying attention and learning in World History last year, but I worry about how she’d fare in AP Lit and AP USGov’t next year with all the reading and writing - along with AP Calc (no regular calc- or does she even need calc if she’s already taken four math courses?), AP Chem (she made the highest score on the 10th grade Chem SOL test last year and really wants to take this course), and then she still needs to take physics also (but regular physics is offered - whew!). That’s a crazy courseload isn’t it for a kid who’s only taken three AP’s in the prior three years?
She is not aiming for highly ranked schools at all, but our state publics are pretty competitive and I do want her to go to college as prepared as possible. What do you think??
He didn’t take Latin senior year. Grades got better, course work more demanding.