little voice Just in case anyone is wondering, S doesn’t take his DE classes for GPA / class rank. I know a lot of kids do, and I’m on the record as not liking the gaming that goes on, or having to make decisions about what classes to take based mostly / solely on the impact on class rank. I really hate that a kid can’t try sculpture or introductory choir because it’s not weighted, or because they can’t risk not getting an A.
S loathes the AP format, and the slower pacing. He’d rather do DE, and he doesn’t care whether or not the grade is weighted.
I know people were talking about kids in their own districts, but just in case, while S does take DE classes, rank / GPA isn’t why he’s doing it.
I’m not an AO, but I’d assume if 30 kids from XYZ High School are applying to Brown, just as an example, and 15 kids have an A in Physics from a local CC and 15 kids have A’s, B’s and a few C’s or simply a wider dispersion or range of scores in AP Physics, then my sneaking suspicion would be that the kids taking the CC course are skating through the CC course.
@suzy100 – the games HS kids play these days are ridiculous. My D18 has an UW 4.0 and “only” a W 4.174 GPA because she has taken just 4 AP classes (Bio, Chem, Calc AB, CS-P). She’s ranked 86/698 kids in her class. Not in the top 10% even though all her APs are STEM. Other kids are taking the easy APs online and cheating their way through them to get a higher GPA and rank. I keep telling her to stick to her guns, maintain her integrity, and she’ll win in the end. It’s difficult for a kid to understand that.
I do think that what I’ve been telling her is sinking in a bit. She’s been breezing through school with minimal studying and mentioned the other day that the “high achievers” she’s talked to say they have tons of tutors and prep classes. Those kids are already at maximum capacity while she’s at, maybe, 50%. Once she finds something that grabs hold of her she’ll kill them at it (don’t know what that’ll be but I know it won’t be lab work!).
She’s interning at the StateU’s genetics lab this summer. It has been a great introduction to college life (living in a dorm, working with grad students, etc.) even though she says, “it’s more like work than college”, because she’s working 9-5 daily. She’s simultaneously working on her HS’s iGEM team (International Genetically Engineered Machine competition), one of only eight HS teams in the US. I tell her that these things are equivalent to AP classes and that colleges that matter will understand that. Still, she panicked when she found out she wasn’t in the top 10%. It’s crazy.
To avoid this our school does not include outside classes like DE CC classes, on line classes or summer school class on GPA for rank. Those grades aren’t factored in the calculation at all and I think that’s fair.
@3scoutsmom our school also does not count outside classes, DE, online or summer school in GPA for rank.
I think it is unfair to characterize any AP class as “easy”, it depends entirely on the individual instructor and the individual student. There are many, many reasons that students/families choose different course options, sure some are gaming the system, but just as many are taking different class options for scheduling, monetary or academic reasons. Certainly there are ways to game the system and raise GPA/rank, fortunately it is not just GPA/Rank that get a kid into college. Rigor, test scores, ECs, essays and any number of other things play in the holistic review of a candidate. As a Texan, I’ll not argue that gaming the system for GPA/rank absolutely can make a difference, certainly here in Texas (and a few other states as well, I’m sure) but, by and large, it is not just about the GPA/rank. AnecdotalIy, I am absolutely convinced that rigor is one of the most important factors that AOs are looking for in a potential admit, (perhaps not at the tippy top ranked schools, that is not within my realm of experience).
As a parent of a kid in a smaller rural school, I just get nervous about how some of this “gamesmanship” is seen by others. My kid takes his DE classes because the courses aren’t offered at HS. They actually bring GPA down–an “A” at CC gets a 97%, and in HS grades go up to 100%. And their GPAs are on the 100 point scale.
@sushiritto
I am quite certain that fewer than 10 students from my kids HS have applied to Brown in the last 10 years. Just doesn’t happen here. Can’t even imagine 10 in a year, much less 30! I guess I just have to trust that our counselor knows how to rate rigor–I think she does given what I’ve seen with previous applicants.
We’ve had a total of 72 apply at Brown since 2009. That’s a lot more than most of the schools D18 is looking at, but probably not enough that the AOs recognize our school in any way.
Guys and gals, I was using Brown as an example. I said “just one example.” Pick any school you want and then insert it into my example. The AO of a school must be examining and comparing the transcripts from the students who from one HS that apply to their university. I keep hearing the buzzword “holistic.”
That works only if there are kids to compare against. For several of the schools my DD’16 applied to she was the ONLY person from her HS to ever apply (well for at least as far back as they had Naviance Data). For the school she ultimately attend, only she and I other girl our school district of 6 HS applied. Most of her choices had very few kids from her HS/school district to compare against, therefore the AO may have needed to rely heavily on gut reaction and a holistic review. At best the GC would have only been able to say that in comparison to her classmates DD’16 took the most rigorous course load available to her.
We had a scheduled 7-min phone call from D in Guatemala. Without giving the gory details, let’s just say the toilets don’t take any paper products and the flush isn’t spectacular. Oh and besides the earthquake, I guess there’s a volcano erupting there too. :-??
She’s got another week there, and she’s having fun and working hard, but it sounded like she’s ready to come home. We get another phone call on Friday.
Our HS only includes “core courses” in the GPA - math, science, social studies, English and foreign language. DE/AP/Honors are all the same weight. Any course outside of the HS or local CC is not weighted. The only courses that you can choose between DE and AP are English and US Gov. This is a pretty new system, D’s class is the first to graduate using it.
An unweighted 4.0 would require a 98 or above in every class! My D made one 97, so she has a 3.992. I only made one grade higher than 97 in HS, because my chemistry teacher had multiple choice tests with 10 choices (a, b, c, d, all, none, a&b, b&d…) and I broke the curve. I wish that they would address grade inflation - then most of the controversy over rank/GPA would disappear. Same with the ACT/SAT. They hand out top scores like candy now.
The AO of a school must be examining and comparing the transcripts from the students who from one HS that apply to their university.
I understood what you meant – I’m just not sure how, if you are from a large public where only a handful apply outside of the large state public schools, how the AOs that are using holistic admissions can really compare. Most years they are going to get only a handful, if that. It would be different for a school where 30 kids in one year are all applying to the same place. The colleges where we have that many applicants are not doing holistic evals, or at least not for everyone.
I just don’t give AO’s (or the tools they have available to them) that much credit to be able to do much more than just verify whether the right number of boxes are getting checked and if they know/connect with/like the student (I really think holistic largely just means that the essay needs to connect with the person reading it). That’s why I worry about S18 not having higher grades because there just isn’t a lot of easy ways to put grades into context.
Other perspective here: my class rank is tanking bc my school weights dual enrollment classes like regular classes. One, this wasn’t clear before I started full time dual enrollment and two, please do not tell me 200- level mechanical engineering classes at a 4 year university (albeit a directional one) are easier than AP and honors classes because I don’t want to hear it. I’ve given up on it and hopefully a 2nd decile (top 20%) rank plus an explanation from my counselor who understands that my philosophy towards what classes I take had little to do with the weighting system but what would challenge me most will suffice for college’s and especially getting merit aid.
@daffodilpetunia A school gets 30 apps (or 3) from a school with 30 (or 3) transcripts. Compare. Not that difficult to me. Beyond that I’m not going to argue.
In our county, which is a very large one near DC, schools do not assign class rank anymore. Also, DE course grades do not get incorporated into HS GPA, which is rough when kids do well in the CC classes that are not offered at the HS level and can’t have it factor in. From what I’ve heard, most institutions take the information from HS transcripts and CC transcripts and generate their own GPA from them, since counties can handle honors and AP courses differently in terms of GPA calculations. It sounds like they factor in the counties that students come from, at least for the more well-known ones, to get a sense of how challenging a program a student took and how well they did.
To me, it seems like there are so many different factors used to determine whether to admit a student that I just encourage my kids to do as well as they can in areas that matter to them and that are meaningful. For D18, her strong grades, standardized tests, SSL hours, and commitment to music and theater ECs should help universities see where her motivation and passion lies, and hopefully this will help her make it into our very selective state flagship. For my S16, his grades and standardized testing was not has high, but he really excelled in difficult CS courses through the DE program, so it seemed that universities took his skills and strong grades in those courses into consideration when determining whether to admit him. I think his LOR and essays were also very strong (probably more useful to colleges than what D18 will be writing), and his grades showed a strong upward trend.
Isn’t “rigor of courseload” assessed and ranked by the HS GC? I would think that AOs would take their word for it, rather than comb through the minutiae of every student’s options.
@ShrimpBurrito – at D18’s large public HS the GC assigns a rigor level based on certain criteria. There are five areas of study (I think they are Math, English, Science, Social Studies, and Foreign Languages, and you can get a max of 4 points in each category). You get extra points in each category for Honors and AP classes. To get the most rigorous designation you need 16 points. D18 calculated her point total with her current senior year schedule and discovered she would only get 15 total points for her HS career (heavy on science and math) so she’s planning on exchanging AP Physics C for AP Psychology to get the extra SS points. This actually works well for her because she’s thinking about majoring in a Psychology field (Cognitive Science).
PS. We only found out about the rigor criteria a month ago.