<p>QM - I was just wondering, since your D’s school lumps all classes together on the h.s. transcript, how it shows “upward” or “downward” trends in grades. Also, for schools like Princeton, which say they don’t count grades from 9th grade (and presumably from middle school), how they would remove those grades from the transcript.</p>
<p>They list classes by subject, so all the Math is lumped together as is English. Within that subjects they are listed by year with no notation that 2007 happened to be 8th grade. You can see upward and downward trends within a subject easily, but it takes some work to do it across grade levels. You can also figure out what year the classes were taken if you look at the years, but it is not in an easy format.</p>
<p>QM, it might be something to bring up, possibly through the PTA. It’s not too late for them to change the format if it’s confusing. I don’t think it’s usual. Our middle school classes that are HS level show up on the transcript and I’m fine with that, but the transcript is set up so that you can tell which grade a class was taken in. It looks like this:</p>
<p>Class…Grade…Level</p>
<p>GRADE 7
Math A…98…2</p>
<p>GRADE 8
Math A/B…100…3
Regent Living Env…90…2</p>
<p>GRADE 9
English …80…2
Global…90…2
etc.
(Level 2 being Regents, and 3 being honors, 1 is “sheltered”)</p>
<p>A speaker is coming to Junior College Night tomorrow and he sent out a little quiz for all the juniors to take–it’s online, too, so I thought I’d post it here. If you give your email address (you can use a spam one, and opt out of the mailing list) you’ll get an overall score plus pretty detailed breakdowns.</p>
<p>[The</a> Admission Game - College Planning Quiz™](<a href=“Errors error404 - Best College Fit”>Pages display - Best College Fit)</p>
<p>I got an 88/100–not an A, alas, but decent!</p>
<p>the posts about the wifi at the national parks cracked me up. Our family did a cross country trip a few years ago, H gets a six week sabbatical from his job every four years, and I took a short leave of absence. Bought a used popup camper and sold it afterwards, both on craigslist. Forty day trip- there were three hotel stays along the way to get sanity, but I don’t think we connected to the internet during them, we did get to watch a little TV. Laptop was brought along only to download photos. I think the trip was so awesome because we were truly able to disconnect from the everyday bustle. Of course kids played their video games more than they should have and didn’t gaze at the scenery the whole drive, but they do appreciate the trip and wish they had taken advantage of more things on it. We did have stops at Yellowstone (that one was after an 11 hour drive, and delayed for momma bear and cubs on the entrance road) and at the Grand Canyon (north rim, D1 got caught in a hail storm in July when she went to use the bathroom when we first got there, not familiar with the campground layout yet, and again it was night when we arrived to setup)</p>
<p>On the grades- one thing I found out recently is that our trimester grades are also on the transcript, not just the year end grades. Good to know, and glad my D2 knows it now in her freshman year.</p>
<p>Thanks for the quiz Keilexandra. I got one wrong I think (94%), “which is the most important year” and I disagree with their answer.</p>
<p>One of two of the early questions I went back and revised my answers based on the tone of the quiz. When do you have your info session? Look forward to hearing a report!</p>
<p>We have a session coming up in April with a panel of admissions people and I think they have us look over sample applications and make admissions decisions…</p>
<p>We have a college night coming up later in the spring - not sure exactly when, and not sure which colleges will be visiting.</p>
<p>K - thanks for posting the quiz. Sounds interesting.</p>
<p>Looking forward to hearing what you think of your Junior College Night. </p>
<p>Jackief - your trip sounds like it was fabulous - something you and your kids will remember forever.</p>
<p>mathmom - our transcript is quite similar to yours.</p>
<p>I have to talk to D’s counselor again next week. I will bring up the transcript issue.</p>
<p>FAP:</p>
<p>I absolutely plan on writing a letter to the Principal, cc the school board on his behalf - he has been excellent.</p>
<p>Mathmom:</p>
<p>Our district just has the name of the class from middle school along with a pass/fail designation. That grade does not factor into the high school gpa. For my older DD, it counted towards “required” classes (i.e. 8th grade Physical Science Honors could count as 1 of the 3 required HS science classes) and towards the required number of classes for the County Honors diploma. For my younger DD, they are changing the requirements starting with her graduating class. The classes will still be listed on the transcript with a pass/fail designation, and the classes will count towards the total # of honors classes for the honors diploma, however they will not count towards the “required” number of classes for any given HS subject. The kids who have already taken 2 years of HS math in MS are fit to be tied, to say the least!</p>
<p>For the HS classes, they are listed on the transcript per year, so it’s easy to see if there has been an upward or downward trend.</p>
<p>RobD:</p>
<p>So what does that mean for the kids that have taken 2 years of HS math in MS? My S did so but they would have counted. However, he’s a math whiz so he went through HS trig and AP Calc, and is now on Linear Algebra and MV Calc next year. I can’t imagine just because a student is on fast track math in MS that they’d want to do what my S is doing. There are costs and logistics involved in doing this that are beyond the norm expected for HS.</p>
<p>Junior College Night is tomorrow (Wed), which will be quite busy for me as I have a club meeting, a clarinet lesson, and then quickly home for dinner before it’s back to school for the session. Thankfully I do have late arrival the next morning due to DSTPs, but it will be hectic.</p>
<p>FindAPlace:
Per our school handbook for the rising 9th graders: “Students must earn four credits in math in high school. Math courses taken in middle school will serve to accelerate a students level of math but will not substitute for the four years required in high school. Students must take Algebra I, Geometry or Tech Geometry, Algebra II, and one course beyond the Algebra II level.”</p>
<p>So for those kids who have already taken Algebra I in MS (like my DD) they will take Geometry, Algebra II and 2 other math classes (in our case probably pre-calc and AP Statistics) For those who have 2 years in MS (Algebra I and Geometry or Algebra II) they have the option to also take one of the Calculus classes and/or the IB math classes. There are a few “lower” math options, but obviously if you’re taking those 2 math classes in MS, you’re not interested in taking ACT review math. I heard a lot of parents grumbling about “if I had known they were going to have to take 4 years in HS, I wouldn’t have had them start the program in 7th grade.” They really dumped all these changes on the kids during this past summer (they took Physical Science Honors for HS credit away from the 8th graders after school was out for the year and they had already registered) and then announced the new HS requirements right before Christmas break.</p>
<p>Ours count both towards required classes and are part of the high school GPA. We don’t have silly rules that you have to take four years of math in high school. Instead you have to take math through a certain level and pass a certain number of statewide math exams in order to graduate. (I’d tell you what level, but they change the course names and number of exams every few years! It’s basically the equivalent of Algebra 2 though.)</p>
<p>MS classes show up on DD’s transcripts with a CR for credit. I assume that they would not be there at all if she had not passed them but I don’t know for sure. Just like after school sports which also get a CR, they count towards units for graduation but not towards GPA. Most importantly, they get you to the next level - e.g. DD got to start with French 2 and Geometry as a Freshman rather than French 1 and Algebra.</p>
<p>I hate it when they change the rules in mid flight. It really isn’t “fair” as students will make plans based upon a different set of information.</p>
<p>Ours is like RobD’s. Taking Alg I in 8th will get them bumped up to take higher maths but it isn’t counted in the required number of math units for hs graduation. They will still need to take at least 3 years in hs. </p>
<p>That is not the case for Speech and Health which can also be taken in 8th. Those will be counted in requirements for graduation but will not be calculated into hs gpa. </p>
<p>I look at it as getting a couple requirements out of the way and it’s insurance if class schedules don’t work later.</p>
<p>Once again CA, home to some of the best high tech firms in the world and some of the best university science and math departments, falls by the wayside. The CA High School Exit Exam only requires a modest knowledge of Algebra 1. A Regents exam is it not!</p>
<p>Our public MS doesn’t encourage math acceleration, nor will they thwart you if your child is leaning that way. Happily, the MS and HS are located next to each other, so MS students accelerated to Algebra 2, offered only in the HS, can still take the class. It does require a schedule juggle since MS is on block scheduling and HS is regular schedule. None of this seemed to phase my S or the three other 8th graders who did this.</p>
<p>We’re fortunate at the HS that the honors and AP math teachers are pretty good. Unfortunately, our HS science department is struggling.</p>
<p>I’m at a math/science charter school that draws from all over the state, so we don’t get middle school credit for anything–instead, we test (“challenge”) into various levels of math and science classes as well as for honors (“phase”) placement. I accelerated two years in MS but tested only into Integrated 2–taking Calc AB this year as a junior because AB-BC is a full two-year sequence (although some people opt out of BC in favor of stat or discrete). I didn’t accelerate at all in science; no tests were offered for English, which is a pity because English 9 was pretty much a waste of my time. The school requires 4 years of math and 5 years of science, as well as 4 years English and 3 years social science and the usual state mandates of PE/Health/computing. The extra required science “elective” is really restricting my schedule choices for next year, since I’m set on Band (otherwise no All-State).</p>
<p>It is the undisputed best public school in the state and possibly the best school even including privates; still, it’s annoying to see humanities so consistently get short shrift. For instance, I wasn’t allowed to take AP World instead of World History last year–though this year APUSH is offered in place of US History, doing me no good because I hate US history (the AP teacher is also insanely hard, whereas the honors teacher has actually gotten me interested in the subject somewhat).</p>
<p>HS classes taken in MS count in the HS GPA and for four math credits for graduation. It’s a catch-22 – S2 needed to be accelerated in math and FL to even apply for the IB program here, but because he took those HS classes and got Bs, it nails his GPA. Makes a full 1/10 difference on UW and 2/10 on W. In a program that pulls in top students from around the county and those kids constitute 20% of the junior class, that difference is pretty deadly, even when the schools don’t rank. </p>
<p>The reality is that for kids applying to competitive schools from this area, Alg I in 7th grade or earlier is increasingly expected, so a number of kids will have six credits or more (2 MS + 4 HS, including at least one year of calc). </p>
<p>Alg II is a state requirement, but S1 never got credit for it. Whoops! :)</p>
<p>Well, thankfully my S quickly moved pass the HS (or shall I say I prior school board) decision that his Linear Algebra and, next year, MV Calc classes will NOT be weighted like an AP class. He stands at class rank 3 and I have a sneaking feeling this may make the difference. </p>
<p>I’m breathing not a word to him nor will I investigate it. Not worth a fight, we move on. The LA class and the A will appear on his transcript, as will the work in progress for the MV Calc class, and likely that’s what will catch the eye of the Ad Comm, he hopes. There’s probably marginal difference if a student is in the top 1% out of 520 and then the eye will go towards rigor.</p>