<p>My son is entering his senior year in H.S. and has nearly all the requirements for the Scholar Designation, except the advanced math. Trying to determine his schedule for next year and would like to know people’s opinion about this designation. Do you think it helped with college admissions to receive it? </p>
<p>What is “Scholar Designation”? Not that it matters but it seems to be a title for the top students. The title itself is not meaningful (e.g. like does he really need to say he’s been on the Honor Roll for seven semesters?). Colleges will be able to discern his achievement and potential by one glance at his transcript. That’s the larger point to make, not this local designation/award/title.</p>
<p>The main point may be whether that class and by the by designation makes a difference in the guidance counselor recommendation. ‘most rigorous classes’ taken, and all. </p>
<p>@becrisier: Are you referring to the AP Scholar awards?: <a href=“View Your AP Scores – AP Students | College Board”>View Your AP Scores – AP Students | College Board. Or, are you referring to something else?</p>
<p>No it’s a new designation signed by Gov. Scott in 2013. There is a reg. H.S. diploma and now a H.S. diploma with a Scholar designation or a merit designation. Information is here: “There is still one high school diploma, but your student can now get a Merit designation or Scholar designation on their diploma. For example, your child can get a Merit designation if they take an industry certification or a Scholar designation if they take certain advance courses.” <a href=“http://www.foundationforfloridasfuture.org/pages/Agenda_2013/Graduation_Requirements_Preparing_for_Success.aspx”>http://www.foundationforfloridasfuture.org/pages/Agenda_2013/Graduation_Requirements_Preparing_for_Success.aspx</a></p>
<p>I called FSU and tried to ask the general admissions officer about it but no one had even heard of it. They finally forwarded me to someone and he wasn’t familiar with it either. Really?? But he did tell me that they wouldn’t even look at the designation, but would instead look at the courses he took and the difficulty of courses. The only thing my son was missing to have the scholar designation was statistics. The admissions officer at FSU said they don’t consider statistics to be an advanced math to begin with. So, what’s the point! My son would rather take advance Algebra with financial applications instead. </p>
<p>@becrisler</p>
<p>Don’t worry about the designation. None of the Florida Universities would “consider” it as part of admissions. At this point, it’s just a “nice to have” as a personal achievement. Your son should take the classes he wants and not worry about statistics.</p>
<p>In fact, they are still playing with the law, and will be making more changes…the law was really about making it easier to get a high school diploma (as “Merit”) but they added in “Scholar” without thinking it through…in the future they may do something like making “Scholar” an auto qualifier for Bright Futures…or some such thing. </p>
<p>We had something like that in North Carolina, and I was unaware of it being put on my diploma until it happened…I doubt this will be an issue or advantage/disadvantage. </p>
<p>One of the problems is that Florida h.s. students apply to Florida college in Oct and Nov of their senior year, and they haven’t earned the designation yet. I’m sure as the years go by there will be a new box on the application asking if you are on track to become a ‘merit’ or ‘scholar’ but for right now the colleges don’t even know about it.</p>
<p>My daughter is graduating this year and was offered the opportunity to get the designation. Problem is she would have had to go back and take the EOCs for classes she either didn’t take or took in another state, like she didn’t take US History because she took APUSH, and she took Algebra and Geo in another state without EOC. Many of her classmates took algebra in 8th grade and they would have to go back and take the EOCs. Ridiculous. This class of 2014 would also have had to take an online classe (required for 2015 and beyond). It was just way too much trouble with little reward.</p>