<p>We moved across country and our new HS converted my son’s 3.85 GPA (4.0 scale) to a 2.63 on a 6.0 scale! I’m panicking as I need to have his transcripts sent to colleges. Has anyone ever heard of this, or can you explain it? Our son is no dummy, he’s in AP Chemistry and gets A’s in calculus. Thanks ahead</p>
<p>I think I would be calling for an appointment with his GC and politely asking them to explain the math.</p>
<p>Yes go see someone ASAP and sort it out.</p>
<p>I tried posting before and it got lost.</p>
<p>It seems your new school set up the ratio incorrectly.
It should be 3.85/4 = x/6. That would get you 5.82.</p>
<p>What they did was 3.85/6 =x/4 and came up with 2.63.
Go in and have them show you their formula and a copy of the transcript.</p>
<p>As an aside, my S switched HS and the new school only listed the old school’s courses and grades as ‘transfer courses’. Only courses taken at the new school were reflected in the new school GPA; this was stated on the transcript</p>
<p>Va mom probably nailed it. Instead of a formal meeting (which would embarras their mathmaticians), why not a quick e-mail first inquiring about the calculation.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the replies. Actually I did speak with the counselor more than once and suggested the same math mistake. She reiterated that no, she was correct, it IS 3.85 x 4/6. She says it’s because the classes at her school are weighted (it sounds as if they include the AP courses as 6.0 points in the normal grading scale). So to make up for that, they “downgrade” his gpa since he was only taking college prep courses. When I suggested that it wasn’t fair to penalize him for not previously taking AP courses, she said to convert his GPA straight would be unfair to all of the kids that have taken AP courses at this school. It still does not make sense to me, that is just how she explained it. I am trying to get an appt with the principal. Let me know if anyone else has had this happen, and what you did.</p>
<p>Well, I know you do not want to mention this, but the counselor’s formula gets the GPA of 2.57, unless they actually weighted the honors courses, if any.</p>
<p>I would suggest/insist that they let his prior transcript speak for itself and produce a ‘new school’ GPA from new school courses only. Colleges see this all the time. The only reason to include all courses in the GPA is to get rankings. Tell them you’ll be glad to be ‘unranked’</p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>
<p>So according to the GC’s math logic, a student transferring from your new school to your old school with a 5.82/6 GPA should have a 8.73/4 (5.82x6/4) at your old school. 8-)</p>
<p>Innumeracy: it’s not just in classrooms.</p>
<p>Most colleges want grades on a 4 point scale anyway. Our local high school showed the unweighted grade (4 point scale) and the weighted grades separately. </p>
<p>Was the transfer recent? If you cant get any sense out of the GC maybe you can have his old school send a transcript. We did that with our daughter because the school she went to junior and senior year classified their own classes as college level but did not classify the AP classes from her home high school that way. So the college used their own weighting method to up the classes from her j/s year but did not do so with her f/s grades. With the transcript from he first high school they upgraded those also. Made a difference between getting into the honors college and not.</p>
<p>At my Ds school they send out the OLD schools transcript, along with the NEW schools transcript, they don’t BLEND them, as it were</p>
<p>ps- the new school refered to by the OP is whacked…as for “fair” if she is concerned about class rank, which would be the only real reason to bump him down so much, tell them, not officially rank him</p>
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<p>That’s the exact same thing as 3.85/6 = X/4…
3.85/6 = X/4 ----> 3.85 x 4 = 6X ----> (3.85 x 4)/6 = X</p>
<p>If the GC is just trying to compensate for your son’s lack of AP classes, wouldn’t she just change his GPA to 3.85/6?</p>
<p>It sounds like A’s in APs are considered 6.0. I would assume that an A in an honors class would be a 5.0 and an A in a regular college prep course would be a 4.0. So, if your son did not take any honors or AP classes, his GPA should stand at 3.85. If he took any honors classes, it should be calculated higher.</p>
<p>I have always been of the opinion that there should be some national standard for GPAs. That is, that all schools in the nation would use the same grading scale (4.0 or whatever) with the same amount of weighting for honors, AP, and IB courses. It would make life a lot easier (and hopefully, fairer) for everyone.</p>
<p>I think the new school’s process for transferring the old to the new GPA is very unfair to the student as a whole.</p>
<p>They should not be considering his old school grades/gpa in the mix at all - especially since they compute on a different scale. They should be - as colleges do!!! - be starting him as a blank slate and figure his gpa at the end of the semester/year. Both sets of transcripts will be submitted to colleges who will re-weigh everything anyways.</p>
<p>But - the new school’s math is wrong.</p>
<p>An afterthought - did the old school offer AP classes?? - Is there a reason why the students was not in AP’s in the past - just curious. If they were not offered - then the student should not be penalized for that - colleges don’t - so the new school can’t.</p>
<p>They will not separate the previous school grades from his current grades (I asked). Even though she admits this converted GPA includes no current grades, because this advanced school still calculates them all by hand (maybe that is the issue!). Geez, even in our small Ohio town it was all automated! She did agree to send the straight average (total points divided by number of grades) which comes out to 88.6 which is at least better than her conversion. And an explanation from her to the colleges on the conversion. I pounded her for the formula but she says she has a “Chart” which converts the 4.0 to the 6.0. She’s not sure about the math used. It’s a chart. A hand-held chart. Just to muddy it up even more, I read the original email wrong. He has a 3.95 on a 6.0 scale, and a 2.63 on a 4.0 scale at this school. However, at the old school it was 3.85 on their 4.0 scale. Oh hell, I have a headache.</p>
<p>SILKAT - what grade is your student in?? </p>
<p>We had a similar situation with my guy - he went to a very progressive private high school for a while - they ONLY rank their classes as college prep (tho they are pretty much the level of AP classes - let alone honors!!! uuggh) - sooooooo - when he changed schools - the new school would only give him rank credit for the ‘‘college level’’ equivalents at their school - not even the honors level - which ranked him way down the ladder - in the 50% range for whole class!!! uuugghhh again. They even questioned his ability to take the honors level classes - so of course he registered - at our support 
- into many AP classes - and pretty much aced them all - which of course brought his GPA up big time. The levels of classes at the new school start at tech level - general level - college level - honors level then AP’s - so as you can see - it made a HUGE difference for him. </p>
<p>The fight with the school tho was frustrating to say the least - uugghhhhh LOL. Please keep in mind tho that your student will have the opportunity to explain this weird change of his standing - and it will be very apparent when all transcripts are submitted to colleges - AND that colleges themselves will re-rank his GPA by their own standards - so there is a silver lining in this eventually :)</p>
<p>She has to write to recalculate your S’s GPA from his old school. Obtain a copy of his transcript from his old school and send that it yourself or have the school send it in. Her logic is not sound. The college can see for itself what courses he has taken; they don’t need grading to reflect this.</p>
<p>maybe she has the right, but HOW she does it makes him look like he got Ds and Cs in his classes and even F’s…</p>
<p>I agree with Mythmom and JeepMom…Obtain the transcript from the old school, and even ask them to write a note that the new school has included these results in his final GPA even though they were not calculated on the same basis. The colleges will be able to recalculate. I honestly do not understand adults who mess with kid’s lives because “this is the way it’s always been done”. I especially have a problem with a school who is using a handheld chart, and cannot even explain it. It’s not like trying to explain a computer program, which could probably still be understood by a great number of adults, if not their children!</p>
<p>That’s absurd math. At the very least, your son’s GPA should be 3.85, just as if he had taken all normal courses at the new school. There is absolutely no justification for the calculation method your new GC is using.</p>
<p>The approach that they should be taking is to simply not take any of your son’s previous grades into account when calculating GPA this way.</p>
<p>I’m a little torn on how to deal with this. Given that most colleges recalculate GPA to remove weighting anyways, your son might be all right if you can get the GC to back off of the RIDICULOUS 4/6 multiplication factor. I don’t know what to suggest if the GC is persistent about continuing with that calculation method - it’s really very stupid, and I’m not sure how you could best deal with that.</p>