<p>Thanks for the replies 
What frustrated me the most was that other schools in our district are allowed to do it. But, I do see the point about succeeding in the courses at D’s own school. I actually think our district is behind. When talking to our assistant director of curriculum today I found out that it can be difficult for students to move into the high school from other accredited districts because of the way that our district evaluates credit. So don’t move here!lol</p>
<p>Just wondering if my D should list the orthodontist and dermatologist as ecs on her college apps…so tired of how much time they take up!</p>
<p>Our school does not allow online/correspondent courses. I would hope that colleges would do their own analysis on the the gpa’s and may even strip out correspondent courses. Maybe it will make your HS stronger since they are not allowing students to grade manipulate. It is probably a good thing.</p>
<p>The more I read on CC the more I am convinced that gpa is not the best marker. How can we compare gpa’s across schools with different curriculums, approaches, and scales? Even different materials. It seems education varies widely by state/town/public/private, etc… </p>
<p>Even looking locally- My D attends a highly selective public honors high school. Her GPA is a bit less than 3.5, but her courses are entirely AP IB or Honors. If she attended the local High School, or one in a nearby town, her GPA would probably be closer to a 4.0. The GPA thing has me most concerned at this point. My D is taking the hardest classes she can and her GPA reflects it. She has enough credits to graduate regular hs this June. I just hope colleges take this into consideration. </p>
<p>I fear that the larger institutions are just playing the numbers game to get through applications…Things to keep you up at night.</p>
<p>Hello! I’ve been reading this website for a while now. It’s time that I face reality–my DS will graduate in May, 2013…and (gasp) leave the home! He is leaning towards mechanical engineering since he likes to build things and work with his hands. His current gpa is around 3.93 and this quarter that just ended he got a 4.0 :)). He will be taking the ACT in APril. This was postponed because basketball season got in the way…but that’s another story.</p>
<p>He wants to go out of state to college. I want to keep him here. I just finished chatting with an admission rep from our state flag school (it was at an online college fair) and she said that if he keeps his grades up and makes at least a 30 on the ACT he could qualify to get 4 years of tuition for free…this is a great thing!</p>
<p>SO…here’s my dilemma. DO I try to force him to go to the state school or should I let him go to the oos schools…Money is definitely an object as I am a single mom and a teacher so I don’t make nearly enough money (that is also another story)</p>
<p>There are great deals out of state for top students - especially in the south. If he wants to go out of state and you can handle it, he may want to consider University of Alabama, University of Mississippi and other schools mentioned in the merit aid threads.</p>
<p>Too far! I’m trying to keep him in the western US no further away than Colorado (just happends to be the oos school he wants to go to)</p>
<p>Nellieh~ I agree, GPA is so hard to compare. We don’t have the IB program at our hs, and don’t have near as many AP or honors courses. I worry about her being compared to other students in schools that have more opportunities. But, she has taken a solid college prep curriculum for her school, and we/she have to be satisfied with that. I did learn today, though, that one of the large districts in our county has a unique way to calculate GPA. They only require 23 credits to graduate, and to encourage students to take a full courseload the last year they give more weight to any credits above the required 23. This works to about 33/34 credits, when they start decreasing the weight of the courses. Apparently, many of the students who take online correspondence courses in this district do so to fulfill a requirement, like health, and open up their schedule during the school year for more AP courses. </p>
<p>We have a graduation date. May 18, 2013. Yikes. I feel like it’s a reverse due date. A year of testing, planning, waiting, agonizing, calculating, and at the end you get an adult.</p>
<p>Terinzak~ Is it mainly the money factor, or do you just want him to be closer to you? I worry about my D going too far away because she has ADD and I worry about how she is going to deal with everything, but on the other hand she needs to go away and take care of herself. </p>
<p>D likes U of Alabama, which is how our whole ‘how to get the GPA to 3.5’ discussion began, but decided the South is probably not for her.</p>
<p>Money is the biggest concern…I suppose if he could get a great aid package I may be willing to broaden my horizons and let him go further away.</p>
<p>Blueshoe, you made me laugh, especially since I asked our orthodontist today if I could declare the costs on our FAFSA. Would be even better if we could get EC out of it as well.</p>
<p>ternizak - If I were you, I would sit down with your S and let him know that while he can apply to places he wants to go, in the end the numbers might not support him attending. If he knows this going in, then I don’t see any reason for him to apply to some places HE would like to go and see if the FA and Merit Money comes through. Also, if he is determined to go out of state, get him started at looking at scholarships to apply for (FASTWEB.com is a great place to start.) I know several students who were DETERMINED to get money for college and just applied, applied and applied for scholarships. Ended up receiving a great many of them! (They made applying for them almost another HS class however!)</p>
<p>GPA IS a nightmare here too. The varience of GPA from school to school is what scares me. I hope this is not going to be a detrimental factor in the college admission as there are different meaning to each of the GPA- or the colleges will take that into consideration.
My S is in a school that doesn’t inflate grades and ofcourse it shows. His course work has most regor and naturally GPA shows it. With high SAT scores, I am worried colleges will label him as lazy- where as he is working so hard- just not so focused on grades-</p>
<p>terinzak-don’t limit his choices, this is his college career, not your career. Just make it clear to him how much you can afford out of your pocket to help, if anything. Make sure he understands that he needs to apply to a range of schools academically as well as financially. Once everything is said and done and you have all of the aid packages in the mail, then he can decide what HE can afford based on various scholarships, his summer earnings, etc. Keep in mind that there are a lot of out of state schools that have VERY generous merit aid as well and you might only have to pay for a few plane tickets along the way. You just never know. Also, being a single parent in a not very high paying career will be a huge benefit to him for financial aid, especially at schools that guaranty to meet 100% of need. A school like that could save thousands. The Ivy’s have income based tuition and some schools do that as well as convert any loan aid into grants so he graduates debt free too.</p>
<p>As for GPA’s across the nation, pretty much every school we have looked at has GPA down the line for things they consider. Usually it’s test scores, class rank and essays that are listed as what they give the most weight to, and then GPA. Not only do various high schools have varying degrees of difficulty they also have different grading scales. In our high school you need 94% to get an A-, 93% is a B+, in other schools the bottom for an A- is 90%, which in our school is a B. The scale is sent along with the school profile but even so.</p>
<p>Almost all the schools my D is interested in list GPA as very important to them, and it is considered in the context of the high school in which it was earned. Duke is one school that comes to mind that reports the GPA is only considered in their deliberations. I believe schools like Duke place less weight on GPA for the reasons that have been mentioned here…so many different ways in which they are calculated make them an unreliable source of achievement. I believe schools like Duke look at the high school transcript for all they need to know about the student’s grades and rigor. It really is all right there. My S applied to one school where his GPA and test scores placed him in the top 25% of accepted students, yet he was waitlisted. The school explained he was waitlisted because of a couple less than stellar grades on the transcript. We were surprised about the decision, but very much appreciated their honesty, and we all learned a valuable lesson…hs transcript>GPA.</p>
<p>blueshoes, thanks for sharing your son’s story.</p>
<p>I think, correct me if I am wrong, but here in California, for the UC’s, they compare your GPA to the other applicants from your school. So if you have a 3.5, but a lot of other students were able to pull a 4.5, then you would be at a disadvantage, but if you have a 3.5 and everyone else is a 3.8 and below, than you look a lot better. After watching the admissions from our (public) school for the past 4 years or so, it seems that consistently the top 2% get into UCLA and Cal (sometimes they are given a Spring Admit to Cal). The top 4% seem to get into all UC’s. I would like to think that admissions offices know how to compare various GPA’s. Test scores seem to matter more for the engineering schools.</p>
<p>I just found out that my son was accepted to a writing workshop at Champlain college. I’m not sure how competitive it was lol but I’m sure he’ll be thrilled regardless when the letter finally comes. </p>
<p>Terinzak, I think that unless there’s some other reason besides your desi to keep him close, you should let him apply where he wants with the understanding that he can only attend where you can afford. Then you need to talk about what you can afford to pay. One thing to keep in mind though is that most of the schools with the best financial aid policies also require financial information from the noncustodial parent (and possibly any stepparent) and base their calculation of need on the incomes of both households. So while they might not be as expensive as you think, they probably won’t be as cheap as you’d like…lol. Take a look around onthe financial aid forum. You’ll probably learn a lot. I had no idea what I didn’t know :)</p>
<p>He has a list of 7-8 schools already that he wants to apply to. Top of the list was, until last night, University Colorado COlorado SPrings. He was talking to many admission reps at different colleges last night on Collegeweeklive. He learned a great deal. Our state’s flag school, University of Utah, took a great amount of time to talk with him about mechanical engineering. They have an amazing hands-on, work with robotics etc., program that he is very interested in. The hooker was that they told him that with his GPA, and if he gets a 30 or higher on the ACT in April, he could get a full ride 4 year scholarship. He may not get it but it’s something to work toward.</p>
<p>Other colleges on his list are Colorado State, Texas Tech (my alma mater), Utah State, University of Arizona…I’m sure there will be more.</p>
<p>I have already told him he can apply where he wants but the final decision will e based on financial aide, etc. He totally gets that</p>
<p>I LOVE the Colorado College campus. It is just beautiful. It’s a good school. I would have no issues if our kids wanted to go there, plus, it’s a great place to visit and be a tourist!!</p>
<p>Had another money talk with DD today. Mainy the reality of the “what if’s” again. Her top choice is a perfect fit academically, socially, everything, but it’s expensive. On paper she should qualify for at least 1/2 the COA and I know they give great aid otherwise so there is a good chance they will come in at or near the same cost as her “cheep” schools but just needing to make sure she understands that if it still costs $45,000 to attend when all is said and done she can’t go there. She started to complain to Dad that I won’t “let” her go there and he pretty much told her the same thing I did—I think she gets it now. Kids.</p>
<p>Isn’t Utah part of that tution exchange program? Does that open up some additional possibilities? I noticed Colorado and Arizona on the list.</p>