<p> Happy Tuesday to all ☼☼☼
Just wanted to wish everyone a wonderful day :D</p>
<p>fog watching my diet here thanks for the motivation :)</p>
<p>Brakes are on here as well and D is not happy. She met with GC yesterday - she wanted to request a transcript and tell him that she’s going to submit a priority app this week. Apparently, he hasn’t heard of priority apps and told her that he can’t think of college stuff yet, with the school year just starting!!</p>
<p>D came home fuming. Calmed her down - she needs the GC to be on her side! Patience has never been her strong suit - when she wants something done, she wants it done now!! Hopefully, GC will cooperate and send out the stuff that’s needed to complete the priority app - she’s hoping she will hear a decision mid october if she sends it in this week.</p>
<p>EmmyBet - about the essays, D is not going to be happy. She played around with a couple of different prompts, decided she liked this one the best and wrote the essay (a pretty good one too). If I tell her now that she needs a couple of other different ones, she is going to be unhappy. Perhaps she can take one of the older ones she wrote and try a rewrite…</p>
<p>Folks familiar with the common app - is it possible to submit one essay to some schools and a different essay to other schools? I realize that this subverting the “common” app - but I think she really likes the essay she has now and would like to use it for schools that don’t ask for a supplemental essay about her major. Thanks!</p>
<p>Yes, after you submit at least one app, you can create different versions for different schools. It is in the directions.</p>
<p>First day of school yesterday, and all the teachers were mentioning rec letters. D1 is set. One of her letter writers did a rec for her for a summer program and will be able to pretty much use that letter.</p>
<p>My concern is the school profile, which needs to be updated. I did some samples for the GC last year, and she liked them. Now to hear from her that she’s got the data in hand for this year so we can finish that up in time for the kids who are applying ED/EA.</p>
<p>^ re the hs school profile for colleges…</p>
<p>If the listed GPA’s, deciles, quarters—what have you–are the graduating class’ full transcript (yes) - then how do colleges approximate where a kid will end up if there are 6 APs in the sr schedule…
kwim?</p>
<p>There are srs at our hs who take light loads, etc …and then there are those that take a ton of APs… the top 10% changes from yr to yr</p>
<p>^^ Hmm. It’s a very good question. </p>
<p>My feeling is that colleges don’t care about weighted GPA that much, they look at the rigor of the schedule and the UW GPA. And rank, if provided.</p>
<p>And some kids are homeschooled or go to schools that don’t award grades, so there is no GPA at all…</p>
<p>fog^2, that’s going to vary from high school to high school. The high school profile can (should?) lay out how they determine ranking: is it based on straight GPA through 11th grade, is the GPA weighted or unweighted, etc. The profile can also include info on the number of AP courses offered, the number of AP tests taken, the number of tests which received a 3 (or 4) or greater, any restrictions on AP enrollment (e.g. not until junior year, or open to all, etc). Those descriptions, combined with the GC’s recommendation, should give the adcom a good picture of where a student stands. </p>
<p>You can always volunteer to help tune up the profile, of course. Makes the school look better! :)</p>
<p>In other news, D1 reports that some of her classes have in excess of 50 students. :eek:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ve shared this before but it bears repeating. When my son was applying to schools, here is how GPA was considered by three very similar LACs in the same geographic region:</p>
<p>School A: looked at unweighted GPA for all purposes</p>
<p>School B: looked at weighted GPA for all purposes</p>
<p>Schools C: looked at weighted GPA for admissions and unweighted for merit aid</p>
<p>^^ How do they compare weighted GPAs from different high schools, if schools don’t give the same weight to honor/AP classes?</p>
<p>I think they would admit that it is rough justice.</p>
<p>It was interesting to find this all out. We had previously chatted with the parents of a student who had received a much high offer from School A than School B, while our own son had a much higher offer from School B than School A. The other kid obviously had a higher unweighted average (lots of As in “regular” classes) and ours had a higher weighted (lower grades but in APs.)</p>
<p>^^great question; ask University of Michigan that question; they changed policies last year to only count whatever the transcript reads…</p>
<p>and what if the applicant applies with an UW GPA and they only count weighted? (rhetorical q btw)</p>
<p>Yes, everything is rhetorical, because there are yet more options:</p>
<p>School D: weights based on its own system</p>
<p>School E: removes all non-academic classes, then uses UW GPA for academics</p>
<p>School F: removes all non-academic classes, then weights academics based on its own system</p>
<p>Schools G-L: remove 9th grade and apply any and all of the above</p>
<p>Etc., etc.</p>
<p>I figure there’s nothing we can do about it, so we’ll just see what happens.</p>
<p>My D has widely varied GPAs, based on weighted/unweighted, and based on removal/inclusion of non-academics. Oh, well! They’ll just have to figure it out. Our HS itself does not weight any grades - the schools will only see what she actually got.</p>
<p>She’s taken as much rigor as our HS can offer - not offered in every subject, but when it was there, she took it. And I’m convinced they absolutely notice if the “courses currently taking” lists APs (or at least significant academics) or a bunch of gut classes, whether or not they find out any grades before making a decision. They know they can rescind if the semester or year-end transcript shows the kid blew it off. They must care - otherwise why would most apps ask in detail about current classes and less about past classes?</p>
<p>We’ve been trying to be careful about how the transcript lists the classes, but we don’t have much control. For example, in our Science Dept (about the only Dept that has leveled classes), there is regular Biology, “CP” Biology, and AP Biology. “CP” at our school stands for “College Prep,” which means Honors. At my old high school, “College Prep” meant “basic.” So our GC’s letter is going to be important for explaining this to schools who could see it the wrong way.</p>
<p>Too many variables, in my opinion, to worry about it. My D doesn’t have a 4.0, and most of her schools say their admitted applicants have some kind of 3.X GPA. We’ll just have to hope that they like her grades. That’s about it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think some schools don’t have current classes on the transcript in the first semester, that’s why colleges want them on the application.</p>
<p>But you are all right, let’s not agonize about things that are out of our control.</p>
<p>Yes - that’s my point. They do want to know what you are taking, even if they don’t know the grades yet. The grades will be important eventually, but many schools have app deadlines before 1st semester ends. </p>
<p>I’d also say that my D’s choice of courses this year has really defined who she is in many ways. She could have taken easier courses, and fewer academics (or more, honestly …). Whether or not colleges understand, she is totally invested in school, just as much as in her ECs and other interests. I think a different list of courses, no matter how she did in them, would present a very different person. This one does reflect who she is and what her priorities are, for better and for worse. </p>
<p>Oh, yeah, beyond our control … I have worked very hard to be OK with her first two difficult-adjustment years. She did all right, but some of the grades were real teeth clenchers for us, and they still rankle. She knows now, with her current maturity, that she could have done a different job. But it was a process she had to go through, and it wasn’t abnormal nor surprising, even to most adcoms. Her transcript shows the journey she’s taken: it’s clear that she’s moved forward, and that she never let herself truly crash. How colleges want to interpret that in what kind of student she’d be there is their business. </p>
<p>That’s also where the essay will be very important, about who she is now, and how she got there. I just wish she’d write it! But I’ll clench my teeth on that one for a bit longer …</p>
<p>Our hs’s new profile isn’t ready yet–</p>
<p>It does however have the APs listed–and egernally the whole curriculum.</p>
<p>I haven’t gotten confirmation from anyone at the school about where the GPA etc on the profile and the breakdown of it come sfrom–Is it completed 4 yr transcripts? etc etc…</p>
<p>And having a hard time getting them to tell me where kiddo is in the class right now–I dont even know how many are IN the class…</p>
<p>Wonder why its not as transparent as it could be…hmmm</p>
<p>One answer to your questions about all of the different weighting and grading systems - many/most colleges read apps from one high school at a time. For example. they would not compare a kid from a small rural public hs with an unweighted transcript to a kid from a large wealthy suburban private school who had a weighted transcript. That would not be fair. Most colleges use a system of regional reps. If the rep is responsible for NJ and NY - he has to be somewhat familiar with the different hs that send apps to his college and their grading scale and their course offerings. He gathers this info by reading the hs Profile and by visiting the hs and speaking with the GC. If he has 5 apps from the small rural public hs - he will read those as a group and make his notations. Then he moves on to the next hs.</p>
<p>I’m not saying it works exactly this way at every single college, but this is a general idea of how it goes. Many colleges - particularly the smaller ones - don’t pay much attention to the GPA calculated by the hs anyway - they look at the courses and grades - and then recalculate a GPA using their own system - so that comparisons are more valid.</p>
<p>We’re using class rank and GPA from the end of Junior year - our HS will recalculate after first semester for end-of-the-year awards, etc. I don’t know what the semester report looks like that they send to colleges she applies to - possibly it will have the new overall GPA and rank on it, but the report card we get doesn’t, just the GPA for that semester.</p>
<p>They won’t use the final semester for anything; it’s legendary how some top students actually leave with much lower GPAs than their awards reflect. Colleges will want to see that last report card, so obviously it still matters, but our HS at least never actually adds those grades into GPA or rank.</p>
<p>At ShawD’s HS, they don’t calculate class ranks or give any awards because they don’t want to make it more competitive (I guess they are all special). I think this disadvantages the best kids, but it’s a private school that is pretty hard to get into, so maybe they feel that is enough. The profile they send to colleges gives the distribution of grades for each department.</p>
<p>Bittersweet evening. Went to S’s last Open House at school. I remember the Kindergarten one so well. Where has the time gone?</p>