Good for your D @RW1
Iām glad the schedule doesnāt matter so much. Iām sure my kid is not alone in pushing some of the ārequiredā stuff (like gym) to senior year in order to get all the honors and AP classes in core subjects on the transcript by end of Junior year. Iām worried enough that her midyear report will have āgymā on it. Ugh. (although it IS good for her to get some regular outdoor exercise 
)
@suzyQ7 ā¦THANK YOU!! I just didnāt want it to hurt him because we have literally ran out of upper level classes to take his senior year. When he graduates high school he will have 27 dual credit hours of college already. Hoping that gives him some wiggle room in college.
I will chime in here about schedule. My D15, who made NMF and was a NMS, did not have a super rigorous senior year in respect to the number of classes she took. She did take advanced classes and DE classes, but she was not over full with coursework. She always had a study hall block and an early out. She had no Cās on her transcript and ended up with more credits than the school district required for graduation. I do not think that you need to stress about whether you child has 8 classes if 8 slots are open vs. 7 classes and a study hall. This year S17, who is also a likely NMSF, is not filling every slot on his schedule with classes, but I am not concerned that this will affect his potential advancement to NMF if he makes the cut. So please donāt worry if you kid has gym vs. AP something. I think the grades matter more than the over-rigor.
Utah is a tough place in the public school system. Iām sure your son will go free any place in Utah! Looking east and west Stanford and Ivys. Being in IB program or 10+ APs was major issue on sport sideā¦ Dual credit was unexciting to them ( per the coaches my daughter worked with) . D will have 12 Aps( several are offered on line) after this year 3.992 unweighted. Weighting done by all big Uās on their own with there own criteria.
Iāve been lurking here to see what the Texas cutoff will be, my D is class of 2018 so Iām just being proactive ;).
@Tgirlfriend, I was one of two NMF from a small Texas school, no AP, no honors classes. I have cousins, kids of friends, etc. all make NMF from 3A schools. The only one I know who didnāt progress had failed Spanish. Hard to believe, but I think quite a few students donāt bother if they believe the NMF designation wonāt help them get into an Ivy.
My D is going to take 3 AP classes next year, and Iām not going to encourage DE. I imagine her schedule next year will look pretty weak, but I really donāt think it matters.
AP English
AP Physics
AP Govāt/Econ
Band
Jazz Band or ? (essentially study hall for UIL)
Spanish 5
Welding?
Early Release
Hi @Ollie113 you arenāt the only 2018 parent checking out this thread!
@ollie113 ā¦glad to see you being proactive. :"> My S wanted to take Spanish IV however it didnāt apparently fit in his schedule. Being a smaller school options can me limited. Keep lurking on this site because I hope we will know the Texas cutoff really soon. Fingers, toes and everything crossed that we come in above the cutoff. That will make a huge difference in his choices. We are looking for a good education with no DEBT! Thank you for all the great information on NMFā¦so far my S is straight āAāsā and no conduct issues. Just have to make the cutoff and stay clean until then. @-)
Can someone explain how GPAs are looked at by colleges? It seems that thereās as many scales as there are schools. In Sās case, he has a 4.22 GPA (weighted) ā he has a 3.74 unweighted. If he had received straight As, his GPA would be 4.49 (weighted). Some scales (weighted) seem to go up to 5.00, even beyond 5.
Also ā his grade from 7th grade Algebra and Latin (both A-) are on his high school transcript and we canāt seem to get these expunged. (Kind of weird that 7th grade classes have to be on the high school transcript. His 8th grade Geometry and Spanish classes are also on the transcript) Can anyone share their wisdom on this? Thanks in advance.
GPAs will vary by school. There will be some process to normalize the different scales used by different high schools. So a kid with a 4.5 out of 5 will not be viewed as being as strong as a kid with a 4.0 out of 4. Weighted versus unweighted will vary as well. Some colleges calculate their own GPA using core classes they deem most significant.
My kids had classes they took before high school on their high school transcripts (and included in their high school GPAs). It was based on whether the class was a high school level class. Didnāt matter when you took the class but what it was. May be what is happening with your son.
I disagree that a 4.5 out of 5.0 wonāt be viewed the same as a 4 out of 4. It depends on the school. Some schools care about weighted more than unweighted. So if the 4.5 is weighted (most likely) some schools will prefer that to a 4.0 with no rigor.
Saying the 4.5 is weighted in my example is something you added that wasnāt there. Of course rigor matters. I didnāt suggest otherwise.
@saillakeerie you missed my point. In the 4.5 out of 5 example you gave, the 4.5 is usually a weighted GPA.
D3ās high school doesnāt compute unweighted GPA so I compute that on a spreadsheet. I also compute ācoreā (Math/Science/English/Soc. Studies) as well as ācore and foreign languageā unweighted GPAās. Just helpful to know.
I agree with @saillakeerie. If the 4.0 is of equal rigor to the 4.5 weighted (which is how I interpret his posts), the 4.0 is the stronger GPA.
Most schools recalculate according to their own formula incorporating only the subjects/courses that they want to include.
FWIW, I think the rise of the SRAR is to remove the necessity of that part of the process. Students enter their information and I assume that the schools can control how GPA is calculated according to their individual formulas.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Again, I think it depends. Letās take an example: Student A has all Aās and has taken 5 AP courses and the rest honors, but school doesnāt weight, so Student A has a 4.0. Student B has all Aās and has taken 5 AP courses and the rest honors but school weights in such a way that student has 4.5 out of 5 (e.g., 5 is only for AP). College isnāt going to see the 4.0 as a stronger GPA, because the 5.0 would only be possible if the student took all AP courses for all 3 years. The GPAās in this case would be viewed the same.
Takeaway, there are too many different ways that schools calculate GPAās to make the statement that was made that I responded to.
double posted
@VABogart , Alg I and foreign lang count as high school even though can be taken starting in 6th grade in our district.
At the risk of beating a dead horse:
Every college admissions office basically un-weights your GPA and then re-weights it using itās own criteria (usually based on what they know about the high school and the rigor of the particular course in question).
Furthermore, be careful about equating ālack of weightingā to ālack of rigorā. There are lots of schools out there that donāt even offer the AP curriculum because their standard college-prep offerings are sufficiently rigorous. (There is at least one such school in our area). Those kids often take the AP tests and do quite well.
@Mamelot, you just gave the definition of the high school my kids attend(ed). They may take any AP test they choose, but no class is specifically geared towards the AP curriculum. This has never affected making NMSF or NMF. Only poor grades or discipline issues have stopped the designation.