Thanks for the reminder CC. Just stopped in to registrars office when picking D20 up from summer school and ordered an official transcript for D17 sent home for review.
@fun1234 Did you ever state what his other social sciences are?
I said this earlier, but in case you missed it, I would want mostly 4 yrs of each subject. W/o question for competitive schools. There are kids like my Ds who are graduating heavily math and science skewed but still have solid coverage on humanities subjects. Lack of balance may trigger alarms, especially at schools having core requirements.
DS did video call last night. He looked quite tired – woke up at 4 am yesterday to be at the airport on time. He met his research group, but his roommate was delayed in travel and should arrive today. Hang in there for the parents missing their kids who are off to summer programs! I’m keeping myself busy. :bz
@picklesarenice Happy to hear about your great ACT score news!!
@2muchquan Welcome back to you and your fingers and toes!!
NEU: Thanks for the information on NEU @PengsPhils – do you have any physics major friends at NEU, or are most of the students engineering/CS majors? I’m curious about how the co-op program works for physical science majors, particularly ones who are long-term aiming for a PhD. I see that there is a combined CS and Physics program, which is interesting to my son.
QOTD transcripts: Our transcript grades are by semesters. A+, A, A- are shown but do not affect the GPA. Agree with @itsgettingreal17 about checking a copy of the official transcript. DS’ had mistakes like a class listed twice and summer courses listed for the wrong summer.
Social sciences: DS will only have 2.5 to 3 years of social sciences (depending on how you look at it). I think perhaps I should ask his GC to mention why in her GC letter. We will see what happens. Many of the colleges on his list are STEM-focused and don’t require 3 or 4 years. He will have many science/engineering and math credits, so he’s “pointy” instead of “well-rounded”.
One issue is that our school doesn’t offer any social science freshman year. With a 6 period maximum and required math, English, science, PE, and “freshman seminar”/health the schedule is already full if you also take a foreign language. Freshman seminar (dumb class anyway) is included as part of the 9th grade engineering program, but that’s still 6 classes. There’s no way I’ve heard of to get a social science without taking some evening dual-enrollment class.
In 10th, DS wanted to take a science (AP Chem), which isn’t possible with math, English, foreign language, AP World Hist, engineering, and PE. So, the engineering students who also want to take a science take dual-enrollment World History at the community college. The school and the UC system counts 1 semester of that as a full year. (It’s a good class, and they write long research papers as compared to chapter outlines and 20-minute essays in the AP World History class.)
His 11th and 12th social sciences were/are APUSH, AP Gov’t (1 semester), and AP Macroecon (1 semester). They don’t make it easy to take both AP Econs, because the other semester is for any Econ class is always AP Gov’t and a semester of gov’t is required.
There are no other history classes offered (no AP Euro, AP Geography, or art history). The only other social studies class is AP Psychology. DS has heard that the class doesn’t even have a textbook and the teacher is clueless, so it doesn’t seem like a good option.
How does your school report grades on the transcript?: Insanely confusingly.
Part of this might could be the way classes are structured at my daughter’s school, but it’s a districtwide format for the transcript, so I figure it’s not just the school. So:
Any year-long class has grades reported for each semester. Everyone at my children’s school has one year-long quarter-credit course (basically a homeroom with actual content), however, and that one only has a single grade reported, which is shown as a first-quarter grade, even though the grade isn’t assigned until the academic year is over.
Semester courses only have grades reported on a semester basis, even if they’re full-credit courses.
And finally, her school has three minimesters—one at the beginning of the year, one right after winter break, and one at the end of the year. The credits awarded for these range from a quarter credit to (for an occasional intense one) a full credit; just for fun, sometimes you might have one of these count for, say, three quarter credits in three different subjects, and so each of these is listed as a separate course. The grades for each minimester course is reported as part of the quarter in which the minimester occurred.
No +/- and no class ranking.
I pity the admissions folks who have to parse it for “course rigor” sorts of assessments.
NMSF: Part of me is actually kind of happy my daughter forgot her calculator(!) on PSAT day, and so we don’t have the stress of trying to figure out whether she’s NMSF.
College essays: I don’t think anybody’s mentioned it, but Colgate’s essays are up now.
DH is visiting Univ of Oregon in Eugene next week – but it’s a runcation not a college visit. He’s watching a couple days of the US Olympic Trials for track & field.
QOTD: I actually have not seen an official transcript so I have no idea. She is on a block schedule so each semester is actually a full year course. On her printouts from PowerSchool it shows quarter grades and then the credit hours (most are 5 per quarter, so 10 per semester/course). Her leadership class counts as half a class (2.5 credit hours per quarter). I guess I should order an official transcript to see how it looks.
The grades listed have +/- but those aren’t used to calculate GPA.
@ynotgo All of the universities we have ever dealt with would consider that 3 credits. DE credits that are college equivalent courses have always been listed as 1 credit on my kids’ transcripts. There has never been an issue.
Florida actually has a published equivalency chart: https://www.hccfl.edu/media/2440537/hillsborough%20county%20de%20course%20equivalency%20list%202015-2016-12716.pdf This might give you an idea of how other states view the credit conversions. I looked at their world history credit and it is only 0.5 credits. Interesting. (My kids have never DEed for a humanities course, so that is a new one for me. But, I also have never lived in FL, just heard homeschoolers talking about the list.)
I watched swimming trial on TV last night. One swimmer, Maya Dirado, who qualified 1st in 400 IM went to Stanford, and had perfect SAT when she was 15. Already lined up job at McKinsey and a fellow Stanford swimmer as husband, and is now going to Olympics. I guess some people are more blessed than the rest of us!!
QOTD: Our high school’s transcript is just perfect-- well organized, easy to read,inlcudes test scores and major awards. Awesome, if I do say so myself!! 
Only final grades are listed and no +/-s.
** transcripts: ** Easy peasy - letter grades with +/- issued at the end of each semester. GPA for the year is then converted to a 4.3 scale (4.3 being an A+ and 4.0 being an A and so on) with the +/- remaining intact.
Midway through each semester, they get detailed narrative progress reports, which are very helpful.
** NMSF: ** Not happening. She made commended but won’t be in range unless the predictions out there are extremely inflated, and I doubt they are. As @dfbdfb has commented, at least we aren’t stressed out about the cutoffs!
@whataboutcollege Great Caesar’s Ghost!! @-)
No kidding about that Yale admissions book. DS got it (in Florida, we’ve never visit Yale or even it’s website) on Saturday, and it weights in at 124 full color pages. How many of those did they mail out? Thousands?
Transcripts: The school reports semester grades since we are on a block schedule meaning every class is a full year class. There is no -/+ scale just letter grades, so it is really straightforward.
NMSF: D is a good 10 points above the range (according to Compass Prep) for our historically low scoring state, so we are confident that she will make the cutoff unless these predictions were drastically wrong. She took the SAT in June for a confirming score to get it out of the way for the fall, so like a lot of you, we are waiting for July 21
All of the waiting in this process is driving me nuts, and we haven’t even started applying yet! What’ll I do when we’re waiting for acceptances?
QOTD
Our high school transcript looks strikingly similar to @Mom2aphysicsgeek 's It’s organized by subject instead of year. I have to update it with planned classes for 2016-17, once I know what those classes will be :))
@RightCoaster, do you mind me asking what math your son will take next year?
My son has typically not taken study halls except when he took an on line class because you needed to have one for tests. He took 5 math classes Algebra 2 pre-calculus calculus ab calculus BC and statistics For science he took Environmental science AP biology, AP Physics, currently taking AP Chemistry and signed up for anatomy and physiology He wants to maybe be a dentist so anatomy and physiology is pretty important for him. He took 3 regular social studies classes one being us history the other economics/civics and world studies. He has taken all level 4 English and now he is taking an AP English class his senior year. It is with writing. He is better in math and science. I know the online Psychology is very easy just like the statistics class he took. He is just concerned about getting enough sleep. So you do feel it is important to keep all class. I just think taking it at the community college in the spring May be less pressure. I am guessing they probably wouldn’t care when he takes it. Fall or spring, but the problem is they won’t know the schedule for the community college until November 7th Early decision is November 1st. I wonder if the college placement can send another sheet with his updated schedule If he could sign up for it.
How do you get a copy of the transcript ? :-S
QOTD: Our district shows grades by Semester even for year long courses with +,- grades but with no impact on grades and latest semester is shown first.
NMSF: DS is right @ Compass prediction of 220, but their range is 219-222.
@fun1234 Why don’t you have him email an admission’s officer for the schools he is interested in and see what they say. It may not be that big of a deal since he has 3.
Fwiw, the A&P class is really not important for him to have as a high school credit… He is going to have to retake it in college. That does not mean he can’t go ahead and take an A&P course. He can study it independently. MHe can even write an essay about how he really wanted to study it and couldn’t fit it in his schedule, so he studied it on his own.
Carniege Mellon has a free open course:
https://oli.cmu.edu/jcourse/lms/students/syllabus.do?section=0ceede9c80020ca600076be76fb80a15
MIT has a list of biology related courses:
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/#biology
Coursera probably has some as well.
(Welcome to the world of how my kids study. My Ds owns just about every Great Courses physics and astronomy course. Another source you can look into. 
)
QOTD: The guidance staff at S’s school aren’t there in the summer. Do you all just request an official transcript from the main office? I will try that tomorrow and see what they say. They’re bound to be at least as helpful than the GCs anyway and definitely more friendly.
@mommdc my son is going to take honors pre-calc and taking Ap stats.
He’s taken honors math all 3 years, not really a strong candidate for AP math.
He really only likes studying anything business related. And he likes to read too.