<p>D received mail from WUSTL, too. She tok the PSAT and ACT last year.</p>
<p>She is really having a hard time keeping up with homework and sports. She was up until 3:30 A.M. and said she didn’t finish all of her assignments. I think it’s time for me to step in and help her figure her schedule out. It won’t be pretty. She can get pretty defensive and I will have to be patient.</p>
<p>lilmom - I am so sorry to hear that your D was up until 3:30 am doing homework. It definitely sounds like it is time to step in. It is tough for student athletes especially those like you D who not only play their sport for school, but continue to play year round. I hope you can get her GC to change her schedule so it is more manageable.</p>
<p>Ahhh… the frustrations of a teenage boy!!! I’m in the same boat with you guys Pinot and Geo. My S reports daily that I am a helicopter parent. His dad laughed and said, " she may be a helicopter but she will find a college for you." I just laugh and know that left to his own devices it wouldn’t be pretty. Boys act like they need you the least but actually need you the most. Wise wisdom from a mom of 5 BOYS!!!</p>
<p>Anyway, one of things that kind of got my DS geared up this year WAS looking at a few colleges last Spring. I had to practically pull him by the hair to get there, but when he got there he really liked the whole thing and saw what college was all about and was super excited. It kind of got the wheels turning in his head. Tonight, we are going to our first college info session at a hotel by our town. I gave him the info on the schools that were going to be there and told him to do a little research… there are going to be 4 LAC’s there, and see if he liked one of the schools enough to go visit. He came back and said he really liked Carleton and wanted to go tonight. I almost fell off my chair. I think he knows what type of school he wants now and is going in that direction. Like Geogirl’s S he also wants to go on to Med School and be a Rural ER Dr. He also wants to volunteer with Doctor’s without borders or work in an underdeveloped country for awhile. I think any LAC with a good science dept. should foot the bill there. </p>
<p>As far as the SAT he is scheduled for the Nov. date. Our GC is against taking it this early but his tutor says it shouldn’t be a problem. He will also take the PSAT this Oct. Right now he is working on getting the best grades possible this year… the past 2 haven’t been brilliant.:-((</p>
<p>D1 did not take PSAT her sophomore year, but she did take two AP’s and two SAT subject tests last year. Is that how WUSTL got her name?</p>
<p>PCP - those tests your D took probably are how WUSTL got her name. I’m trying to figure out how to get the free, quick applications that so many kids get from colleges. My older son only got one of those, but with this son, I’d like his name on whatever list generates the free applications! Does anybody know how that works? Is there a box you can check on your SAT form about sending info to colleges? </p>
<p>5boys and geogirl - I think my usually extremely confident son is nervous about college - either applying and getting judged, or about going away to college. Every time I try to talk with him about it he gets uptight. I’ll have to proceed gently and try to make him feel confident and comfortable with all the change coming up. It’s like every other transition time in our kids’ lives - he looks so big and strong and confident, and then sometimes you see a glimpse of a little boy who doesn’t seem so sure of himself!</p>
<p>I have a kind of dumb question - how does the conversion to the 1-4 scale work for the 0-100 average scale? In other words, if a gpa is 100 is that a 4.0? Then is a 90 a 3.0? I thought 3.0 was a “B” which I’ve always equated to an 80-85.</p>
<p>It was irrelevant for my older daughter as she was basically a 4.0/100 gpa, second in her class, etc. My younger daughter is low to mid 90’s and I can’t figure out what that translates to. </p>
<p>I hope I’ve been clear and someone can explain. Thanks!</p>
<p>AMTC, I am afraid that you have asked a bit of a trick question because the answer is, it depends. A lot of schools use 80 - 89 as a B and 90 - 100 as an A. Our state uses 85 - 92 as a B and 93-100 as an A. Basically you need to find out the scale that the school in question uses and then convert each class to a letter grade. Once you have the letter grade A=4.0, B=3.0, etc. Figure out each classes grade, add the numbers and divide by the number of calsses and you have the overall average.</p>
<p>So to make a long story short it depends on each class grade and the scale used by the school.</p>
<p>We are also in a 1 to 100 % district. I’ve looked into this and basically what I found is that your child’s GPA is so school dependant, that it is really only meaningful to use to compare your child to other children in his/her school. You can also look at specific colleges and how they calculate GPA. Every college looks at it differently too. Every school is so different, it almost becomes silly to compare. Between “weighted” and “unweighted” and then what classes “count” and what classes don’t count is different for every school. Some schools “count” gym. Others do not. Some count art others don’t. Every school weights classes differently as well. It is kind of a mess. </p>
<p>Having said that, I have converted my DS’s GPA from the 100 scale to a 4.0 scale using the following scale:</p>
<p>94-100 = 4.0
90-93 = 3.7
84-89= 3.3
80-83 = 3.0</p>
<p>I didn’t count gym, but did count his other classes. I also calculated a weighted and an unweighted GPA. Personally, I think an unweighted GPA using the 5 “core” courses is really the most realistic view of how your child is doing.</p>
<p>Here’s my question about figuring out the GPA for core classes. Do you count any academic courses, or just the 5 - Eng, Math, Soc Sci, For Lang, Science. My son is taking those plus things like AP Stats and full weighted tech classes like “Intro to Engineering” and “Digital Electronics.” Would you think the colleges will count those as “core” classes? Others that my son isn’t taking, but would be similar are AP Psych, Computer Science, Accounting, etc.</p>
<p>Again, this is so child specific and college specific. A parent of an “artsy” child, would of course put merit into art and theater grades. A parent of a math/science child would not. It really depends so much on who your child is and what he is aiming for. To answer your question specifically, I would count AP stats (that is a math class, even if it’s not your child’s only math class). Intro to Engineering - well, in our school that is a great class that both of my children took b/c they were interested in finding out about engineering. However, it is filled with many non-honors kids and there is no homework and most of the grade is based on completing a project and participating in it. It definitely makes my kids GPA’s higher! It will be included in my kids’ “GPA as reported to colleges”. Do I think it should count? No. But it does. Then you have to look at what is the purpse of the whole GPA. It is used by colleges to determine if your child fits into their campus. Ivy league schools don’t care about your grade in “Culture through foods” course. A second tier LAC would. </p>
<p>It’s my opinion that a GPA is good for determining class rank and for parents to “drop” at neighborhood barbeques. Other than that, colleges are looking at grades in difficult courses. The GPA just lets them quickly cull through the applications they don’t have to look at twice. Ok, maybe that is really an uneducated opinion, but the diversity in GPA is too large for it to be used for much else.</p>
<p>We found the school specific GPA (whatever the scale) to be primarily useful for looking in Naviance to predict D1’s chances at her schools of interest. Naviance compares students from that specific HS, who got into that specific college. Therefore the different scales, and the differences in rigor of the HS, do not impact Naviance results.</p>
<p>D announced last night that she wanted to sign up for driver’s ed. So we got that done today and she can begin doing her online training this weekend. I think she was feeling some pressure from her friends who go their licenses right when they turned 16. I told D that I am glad she is going to do this and get some experience driving, but it does not mean she has to be driving on her own everywhere as soon as she gets her license.</p>
<p>collegeboard conversion chart</p>
<p>[How</a> to Convert Your GPA to a 4.0 Scale](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>How to Convert (Calculate) Your GPA to a 4.0 Scale – BigFuture) </p>
<p>Princeton Review conversion chart</p>
<p>[GPA</a> Conversion Chart](<a href=“http://inquiry.princetonreview.com/leadgentemplate/GPA_popup.asp]GPA”>Calculate Your GPA With Our GPA Scale | The Princeton Review)</p>
<p>The College Board’s conversion chart is the one that most of the public high schools north of Westchester County use (at least the ones I am familiar with in the Hudson Valley, Capitol District and Central NY). </p>
<p>geogirl1 – I agree with most all of what you have said but would take exception to this statement: “Ivy league schools don’t care about your grade in “Culture through foods” course. A second tier LAC would.”</p>
<p>If, by “second tier” you mean LACs ranked between 50 and 100+ by USNWR, it has been my experience that most of those schools are also only interested in the five academic cores. Electives may be looked at to help admissions staff understand more about a students’ interests, but they look at the cores to determine the rigor of their curriculum and relative academic achievement.</p>
<p>1012moom - Thanks for pointing out the GPA use for naviance. It does help families determine reaches and matches. Very useful!</p>
<p>Kelibo - Thanks for the chart - I was doing it from memory and definitely made a mistake. </p>
<p>HV51 - I thought first tier LAC’s were the top 100 LACs. My mistake. I didn’t mean to sound so off hand about grouping schools. I spend some time with people who are “3.8 this and 4.2 that” and I just don’t know how to respond b/c GPA seems relative to me. </p>
<p>Have a great weekend everyone!</p>
<p>geogirl1 – You are actually closer to the truth in viewing the top 100+ LACs are first tier. They are. The problem is USNWR no longer has a catagory called “tier 2.” Used to be the schools ranked 51 to 120 or so would be considered tier 2 but that catagory has disappeared. – HV51</p>
<p>My S’s school had its first graduating class (47 members) last year. There is no Naviance data base available and I’m guessing there will not be for some time given the fact that it would, in many cases, be obvious who the individuals are. Does Naviance have another way to map the data, e.g. clusters of similar schools. His school is a charter school offering solely an honors curriculum.</p>
<p>geogirl1 - All colleges are interested in every class your child takes, especially electives, as it helps create a picture of who he or she is. A student who is a math and science brain yet takes Knitting or Tap Dancing as electives says something important about that child, as does your “Culture Through Foods” example. Taking exclusively math and science electives also says something about that student, and not as positive to colleges in my opinion.</p>
<p>My D finally gets to take an elective next year. The core, math, lit, history, science, foreign language, and a required course in art or religion, take up all blocks. I am beginning to think her HS is way too structured.</p>
<p>Iglooo, I kind of agree with you. I know most high schools are like that, but ours (rural, public, great in some dept., mediocre in others) has a wide range of electives and it has made a huge difference to D and I think to the school. Kids are very serious about their music or art electives, or AP art history or gov’t…so many things. And the sense of meaning carries over into the rest of their education. They’re so restless at this age and anxious to get into the world and do what they love…and why not encourage that? </p>
<p>D did drop French this year, having finished French 3 with the terrible French teacher. She replaced it with a music independent study-- a structured class requiring lots of practice, essays, etc. It will be interesting to see how colleges view that. But I couldn’t in good conscience say-- ‘Spend your time on this class where you’re not learning anything, so you’ll get into a better college.’</p>