<p>I don’t know how any of this will extrapolate to grades that have been transfered from another school but I can explain how GPA is done in our school. First, I believe ours are still done by hand. It’s really not that difficult. A chart is used that converts each final course grade in to the scaled grade. Ours is 4.0 unweighted and 8.0 weighted. Courses are either AP, Honors, College prep or standard. The only course that can be “standard” is academic support.</p>
<p>Barring any type-o’s that is what our school’s chart is like. In all likelyhood your school has a chart that represents their grade conversions. It should be something that you can obtain. Our guidance department has them. It is also published in our parent/student school handbook. Basically from there you convert each grade, add them up and divide by the total grades. You can not just just do a ratio from one school to another. What you probably will want to find out from your guidance is what level did they assign to each course that came over from the other school. Depending, that may be something that could be debated if they are assigning a course to low an academic level and therefore causing a lower GPA.</p>
<p>Other things to keep in mind are the actual GPA means less than how it stands amongst the other students from the grade. One of the questions asked by colleges to you guidance councilor is not only the student’s GPA but what is the highest GPA of that graduating class. I think it may also ask what is the highest possible GPA possible. Using the weighted scale at out school, the highest possible WGPA at the end of freshman year is a 6.1/8.0, at the end of sophomore year it is 6.05/8.0, at the end of junior year it is 6.72/8.0, and senior year it gets crazy. As you can see, the WGPA are no where near an 8.0 even though the are made up of all 4.0 UGPA. Additionally saying that you have a 6.72 at the end of your junior year doesn’t sound that great out of context. Factors affecting the possible GPA range include what courses are currently allowed in the curriculum. As yet there are no sophomore AP’s and we have only allowed 2 AP’s junior year for 2 years now.</p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind during the application process is schools often calculate their own GPA. When we were at UPenn 4 years ago, they mentioned something about how they don’t look at the GPAs given by the HS. They calculate it themselves using only the courses they feel are pertinent. That is the GPA they use in the admission process.</p>
<p>Anyhow, hope some of this gives you some direction.</p>
<p>Note: That chart lost it’s columns going into the post. Sorry. Makes it hard to read.</p>
<p>All this talk of GPA manipulation makes me happy that our school district doesn’t adjust at all for honors, IB, or AP classes. The highest anyone can get is a 4.0, and you have to look at the actual transcript to gain extra information. Imagine that, a post in which I don’t criticize my kids’ schools. I must be someone else using my account.</p>
<p>We had exactly this problem. My daughter transferred from a famous private school with no APs or honors courses, and at which her 3.6 GPA easily put her into the top quintile of the class, to a large public school with the full gamut of weighted classes that used a 100-point scale that theoretically could go to 120 on a weighted basis, and where the top quintile of the class was at 100 or higher. After much ruminating, they graciously awarded her college-prep credit for all her courses, and gave her about a 93 average, which put her towards the bottom of the second quintile, with a class rank in the 160s. It was very frustrating. I tried to get them to rank her only on classes taken there, or not to rank her at all, or to asterisk her ranking, but no dice.</p>
<p>To add insult to injury, they would not allow her into AP math or science classes in 11th grade (her first year there), and then of course the GC at first refused to say that she had taken challenging courses at all. We got a teacher at the old school to write a letter saying that she had taken an extremely (some would say insanely) challenging courseload there, and negotiated with the principal language he directed the GC to include in his letter (but who knows whether the GC did?) describing both their lack of knowledge about the old school courseload and their role in preventing her from taking more challenging courses in 11th grade. (By 12th grade, she had established herself as among the top students in her class, and the principal had realized that he might have done real damage to her college prospects with his positions the year before. He went to bat for her pretty significantly at that point.)</p>
<p>If it makes you feel better, we discussed the situation with a number of admissions people. They basically gave us the advice you’re getting here: Send both transcripts, don’t rely on the new school’s version of the old school’s transcript. Try to make certain the college understands the old transcript. Try to get the new school to explain how they did the conversion (so that its senselessness will be apparent, one hopes). The Admissions Dean at Wesleyan said that, of course, this problem is something they deal with all the time. In this case, he said “Don’t worry. We know how to read transcripts from both of those schools. Just make certain we get both of them so that we know to pay attention.”</p>
<p>Did it hurt her college applications in the end? Probably. Hard to tell. The story had a happy ending as far as she was concerned, and it was a result that would have been well within her expectations had she stayed at the old school and applied to the same colleges.</p>
<p>I started reading this thread and decided I need a glass of Yellow Tail to continue! Good god, what a screwed up system! JHS has some great advice. I would also send a school profile for the former school along with the transcripts, if they do not routinely include it (D’s school does).</p>
<p>I hate this weighting/ranking game. At D’s school, max gpa is 4.0, but for ranking (gee, they need to put the kids in some order to march onto the stage to claim their diplomas), an “A” in regular class is 4.0, while a “B” in AP class is 3.7. So from ranking standpoint it makes more sense to get into easier classes to claim perfect As than to risk getting a B in an AP Calc…</p>
<p>does your son have a list of colleges yet? perhaps it would be worthwhile to call your local admissions rep and explain the situation to him or her. after all, then you can see how a college will deal with this situation (and if his school’s screwy gpa has proved any problems in the past) and have someone on your side to lobby for you.</p>
<p>perhaps it would be a good idea to wait a little while though–apparently those college admissions types get pretty busy around acceptance time.</p>
<p>i’m so sorry to hear that about your son, though. he seems like a hardworker that has been thrown to the mercy of a school system. is there anyone above the principal you can talk with? board of trustees, a few teachers, district head…? it seems like it might be worth your while. good luck!</p>
<p>I was going to suggest, like kristin, that you or your kid contact the colleges directly. The common ap also has a space to explain anything not otherwise covered in the application. Use it.</p>
<p>But some schools may immediately discount a student with an especially low GPA, so I think you should be contacting the Admissions Representatives in advance so they can look for the application and highlight the problem so it doesn’t get automatically discarded.</p>
<p>My D had a strange transcript due to 3 years of foreign study (in a language she didn’t initially speak). Her US HS was generous with their translation, but she still had a lower GPA than if she’d studied here all four years. D included an explanation with every application. In hindsight, I wish she had contacted Ad Reps via email in addition, in order to highlight the issue. Actually, she did, but I’m not sure every school “got it” and I wish she would have pushed the issue.</p>
<p>By the way, the situation sounds absolutely ridiculous, and I’m sorry you are having to deal with it. But I feel certain that a couple emails back and forth with colleges will make you feel better.</p>
<p>And I hope the meeting with the principal goes well. And you might consider asking him/her where to go next if you don’t get the answer you want. That is, tell him/her that you are not willling to accept that answer, and would they please give you the contact info for the person who can actually help you get it changed. If you are polite and persistant, they might come to their senses.</p>
<p>Another thought. You might contact your kid’s math teacher for help. Perhaps if someone within the school can point out the error, it might mean more.</p>
<p>I have had the same problem for the past 2 years at my kids school. We moved from a school system that did not weight advance courses for 9th grade. The way their system worked if you took bio and geo in 9th grade by time you get to your sr year that is when you can take AP’s and their only honors option. That said at the new school they are on a 60 for AP 5.0 for honors. Even though my son took bio and geo in 9th, (can’t do it at our new school) they did not give him Honors for it, which brought his class rank and gpa down (also as an incoming soph he was in French III, but they did not give him honors for that, nor his english. Adding insult to injury, they forced him to take another language b/c they didn’t have French IV, but state mandate that he need 3 yrs of foreign language and would not count 8th grade b/c they didn’t offer it) So I can relate, our new option that our gc finally agreed to do was to re-rank him unofficially with the other classes as honors and send a letter with the transcripts to the admissions. I showed her that even College Board for his ACT/SAT had his gpa at a much higher gpa .27 higher for him. Hopefully this might help you and I do know the pain you feel</p>
<p>I forgot to state the real reason I was angry about not weighting these courses, my s has all AP and honors, but due that fact he still has a lower class rank then the kids who got 4.0 in gym, teen living, art and earth and environmental sciencs, compared to his schedule for that yr of bio, geo,french, lit. That’s how our system works. I have met many children who will graduate with a higher class rank and gpa, b/c they took the easy classes and get A’s in all of them, where even now with my daughter gets A & B’ s in her honors (only core courses = 5.), but electives are 4.0 and I do not allow fluff (french I and II this year are not honors, French III will be considered honors) She is terrified that she is going to get a C in geo h, which will pull her gpa down, compared to someone who got a b in geo(s). Now she fights with me that she wants to take standard courses to pull up for rank.</p>
<p>Oh dear. Sad to say bulletandpima, she might be right. I’m convinced that D got deferred at Barnard for one C+ in AP calc. I’m sure she was in early because adcom called D’s GC for first quarter grades. One C? Deferred. When she pulled that up to a B she was accepted RD after a lot of extra angst.</p>
<p>Sometimes you have to play the game given to you. Get tutoring for geo to keep it in the B range. I know it sounds crass, but from our experience, the adcoms don’t want to see C’s.</p>
<p>^^ My d’s high school does honor roll on the basis of unweighted grades, but GPA on the basis of weighted grades. And, to avoid the issue of people taking “fluff” to increase their rank, or trying to distinguish between students to the hundredths of a point, they got rid of rank all together, for which I for one am thankful.</p>
<p>She actually goes for tutoring at the school. Unfortunately I would say it is the teacher…her teaching method is to give 45 problems as classwork and it is homework if you don’t finish it. The class average is 75 and dd has an 85 b4 finals, which is the cutoff for a B, we’re on a 7 pt. scale. We’ll also go through the process of transferring again…this time doing the opposite, I already checked, they are on a 10 pt scale, which puts her as a solid B and since she took advance classes, she will be put in the IB/AP program. So for everyone out there it works both ways</p>
<p>I think my experience with DS, has made me be proactive. I was reactive in his situation, and have spent more hours on the phone with his GC for the last 6 months. We were fortunate his old GC retired, she was the one adamant that there was nothing she could do. Don’t get me wrong ds is in the top 15%, but to her that was good enough. </p>
<p>Here is my favorite classic, along with the foreign language incident. (at least he has 2 languages on his transcipt, Latin 1 & 2 —they don’t offer 3) Our school only requires Earth & Environment Science, Physical Sci, and Bio to graduate. The 1st two are pre-reqs for Bio. Since DS was in advance classes he took the 1st two in middle school where they are prereqs also. The GC realized after the 1st few weeks of school that he didn’t have physical science (after being in the school for over 2 yrs) and since he did it in middle school he can’t transfer the credit in for graduation. So now he has to take it with freshman, son did Physics last year and now he has to give up an AP class to take a 9th grade class…again he is now giving up a 6.0 course for a 5.0 honors…can we say lower the gpa and ranking?</p>
<p>bandp: My goodness. You make me realize how lucky we are, in terms of grading policies, GC’s etc. However, when we go to apply to college (NY’ers) no matter how good our vitas, no one wants us! “Because we are so many” as Hardy would say, (Jude the Obscure. Don’t ask.) </p>
<p>My two are through, so those worries are over. But of course, there are always new worries.</p>
<p>I had the same thing happen to me in 06.
I transferred from top 10% at a local public school (top 100 in the country) to a prep school andd my GPA dropped from… 3.8-9 (weighted 4.2-3) to a 3.3. I was furious. Still am. But I’ve been able to pull it up abit.</p>
<p>Did you go from a 10 pt scale to a 7, b/c that will do it. Our you could be in our s’s situation and come from a school that did not offer honors, but blended the gifted child into the reg. class. When he was a freshman there were only 2 or 3 in a class of 25+ sophomores, yet our new school would not honor it as an honors course b/c the last school did not have honors. They had std. for the underclass and if you took the class early you would be eligible for AP/IB as an upperclassmen.</p>
<p>Can you get the old school to write a letter explaining their GPA calculations and mentioning class rank? If the GC at the new school does the same and you send a letter explaining performance at both schools you should be ok for schools that don’t just sort quickly by GPA.</p>
<p>We did that for our son…hopefully we won’t have to do that for our daughter! Just don’t know how admissions will rate it. Luckily he had a 1370/1600 (schools didn’t ask for writing) and a 33 ACT, so we are hoping that the overall pic shows that it was the new school transfer as the problem. One has said they were concerned about the rank, and that is why the gc got involved to explain he is in NHS at their school and his gpa/rank would be higher if he went through his hs career within this system.</p>