For all of you getting reports cards, do these grades count towards GPA? We got first quarter grades a while back but they don’t show on transcripts. They factor into the semester grade that we don’t get until January.
S19 feeling good this morning. Had a study session last night via phone and Google docs with a friend who took AP Euro last year and knew how to study for the APUSH test today. He feels pretty prepared but hopes he can manage his time well while writing the essay. It’s such a relief to wake up and see him in a good mood.
I just realized that we have the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off of school. (I have no idea how I missed that.) Looking forward to five days of no school and four Nutcracker shows for our D21!
We get quarterly grades and an end of the year grade. IIRC, they don’t show the cumulative GPA on it until the end of the year. This quarterly report card just shows the quarter’s GPA.
Honestly, my d’s quarterly GPA has very little variation on any report card so far. I think the current one may be her highest ever by .5 a point. Her lowest ever was 2 points lower. All that means is that so far, it hasn’t been too tough to calculate her cumulative GPA pretty closely.
Our grades don’t count until the end of the semester, thank goodness. Right now D19 has 2 A’s (Calc AB and Criminology), one B (US History), 2 C’s (Human Anatomy & Physiology Honors) and AP Lang/Comp, and one F (AP Art). Art is the least of my worries because D19 has had that teacher the last 2 years and she’s very lenient – too lenient, and D19 is not going to be in a position to submit an AP Art portfolio. D just refuses to declare herself done and hangs onto her art projects until the absolute end of the semester. I’m still hoping she ends the semester with A’s and B’s and avoids any C’s. I’m more stressed about this than D is.
My S got his grades and it was his best report card he’s had in high school. There were more A’s than B’s and not a C in sight. We are very happy and hope that colleges will appreciate the upward trend.
On the other hand, he still won’t talk about a college list. I showed him the list I created which has about 10 schools. His response was “cool” and nothing further. One of the schools is close by and had an open house this past weekend. I mentioned to him since we had an completely free weekend as fall AAU has ended and high school basketball hasn’t started up yet, but he said no - “I’ve got lots of time for that”. So far the only college campuses he has been to are two that he visited with his older sister, both of which are not contenders for him, and local schools that he has been to for basketball tournaments and camps.
I did show him some lists of what type of courses you would take for different majors. I got an NWF when he saw an engineering schedule. He was most interested in something I showed him that UMass Amherst has called an exploratory track but that school will be a bit of a reach for him. They don’t seem to have anything similar at UMass Lowell which is more of a match for him. The most surprising thing for me was I showed him a sample schedule from a catholic college that had a fairly large size core and he didn’t react badly. I thought that would get a negative reaction, especially since the school in question has a requirement that you take a full year of foreign language regardless of what your skill you have when you enter, but he still seemed interested.
Its hard to figure out what this kid may like when he is not volunteering anything. I’m also looking forward to getting the PSAT scores in December since that is his first encounter with any of this college related standardized testing. it will be nice to have a benchmark.
@Corinthian Your art comment makes me laugh. Our S19’s grade in art always looks bad but then he ends up with an A in the end. Our art teacher is a great art teacher but kind of a flake and doesn’t have hard deadlines. Yet, she’ll put zeros in for projects not completed so the grade always looks bad until the very last minute. To get the honors credit, the kids have to visit a museum and write a review or attend art classes outside school. I don’t even think she confirms the kids do that and still gives them the points. I do not complain. It’s the only class S19 enjoys 100% and it’s a perfect break in the day from academics. He does have to submit a certain number of paintings but, since the teachers deadlines are “fluid”, he sometimes just paints on the weekends or brings his paintings to his private art teacher’s house when he finds time and she helps him.
That’s funny @me29034 because my d is the exact opposite as far as which courses interest her. Horror at the idea of having to take any type of theology course (both my kids are like this thanks to poorly run summer religion classes that will likely lead them to avoided organized religion as adults) and she loooves when she sees all the math/chemistry/physics courses on the flow sheet for chemical engineering. The only other course she has shown a lot of interest in is ASL.
The grading system at D19’s school makes little sense. It’s a semester based school, with each semester divided into 6 week grading periods. The grades at the end of the semester is what counts and shows on the transcript, which is the weighted average of the three grading periods and the semester exam.
However, the GPA is also calculated at the end of the first six week period and the fourth six week period. Therefore, the grades at the end of the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th grading periods are completely meaningless, but 1st and 4th are of great importance because they show on the transcript.
And it was even odder this year because they went to school one week, missed two weeks due to the hurricane, then had a slow week while getting people back into the groove of school (they didn’t want to give a lot of homework that week since some people lost their home).
We have four quarters. Two semesters. First and second quarter grades each worth 40% of semester grade and the final is worth 20%. They roll up to the semester grade and that’s what’s on the transcript. (Same goes for third and fourth quarter…)
It gets to be sort of a game. If you can manage to get a high percentage A for the quarters, then you don’t even have to study for finals. You could get a super low (like 60%) on the final and still get the A. If you’re sitting in the middle percentages of a B, it also does not make sense to study for finals because you mathematically cannot get an A. The worst place to be is a low A for each quarter. Then, you have to study like crazy and get an A on the final. S19 is almost always in this last boat.
Our finals are all multiple choice and kids think they are hard. The science finals are notoriously long with 120 multiple choice questions to finish in 90 minutes. Crazy.
@homerdog yes our art teacher also has “fluid” deadlines which is actually a bad synergy with D’s perfectionism and anxiety. She’d be better off with hard deadlines especially in art. I’ve practically begged the teacher to give her hard deadlines but the teacher is a softie. But I don’t see any way D can be prepared to submit a portfolio for AP Art this year.
Right now the class that concerns me the most is Human Anatomy & Physiology Honors. D has way too many missing assignments. She keeps insisting that she “is aware” and “has a plan” and I should “stop treating her like a child.” She actually has a good track record of miraculously pulling out A’s and B’s at the last minute from what looked like C’s and D’s. My D19 is the kind of student that used to really annoy my D15 when she was in high school, because D15 was always the kid who was exactly on time and irritated when the teacher cut others a lot of slack.
Haha @Corinthian my d19 is like your d15. One of her friends is like your d19 and it boggles her mind.
@homerdog we also don’t get ABC, etc for grades. It’s all percentages. It probably discourages that type of game play. For my kids, they want every point possible. I try to tell them the goal is 90 and above to help ease the stress but they really want 100 and above.
D19’s school, like most, has a 1 credit=1 standard year-long course system. All semester grades go on the transcript, whether for a full-credit class (in which case there are two grades, the semester and final ones) or a half-credit class (in which case it’s just the final grade)—except. There are mini-courses offered thrice a year at the school, usually quarter-credit but sometimes half-credit, and those go on the transcript as a quarter grade, and there’s a required quarter-credit year-long student governance class each year that goes on as a final-quarter grade. Also, there are four double-length courses each year (two per semester) where a full credit course is packed into a semester, and two grades go on the transcript, one for each quarter (so, a mid-course grade and a final grade)—unless a student takes two half-credit quarter-long courses each half of a double-length block, in which case just the final grades go on as quarter grades.
Oh—and there’s the occasional case where a double-length full-credit course only gets transcribed once (its final grade), as with one course D19 is taking this semester that’s fully project-based.
It all works out in terms of grades per credit listed on the transcript, but it makes it kind of difficult to translate it into some state-school application systems that want you to enter in grades as if every course runs at the same rate.
@mom2twogirls I think my D15 assumed that all the kids being cut slack were in fact slackers. But D19 isn’t really what I would call a typical slacker. She spends 10-12 hours per week getting homework help at our local tutoring company but still has time management, organizational and perfectionism problems. Her problem isn’t lack of effort but lack of effectiveness and efficiency. So now I’m more sympathetic to the idea that some apparent slackers may have a more complicated back story. And in my D19’s case, cutting her slack actually just exacerbates her problems because when up against a hard deadline she generally has a surge of adrenaline and focus and gets the job done.
Oh sure @Corinthian she knows to be careful about being too judgmental. She’s seen a couple of kids being tutored for exams she’s already taken and realized there was stuff she didn’t know about going on. She just gets a bit annoyed when it’s someone she knows well who gets behind because of choosing to devote extra time to a beloved EC. My d doesn’t hold a grudge or anything like that, it’s one of those passing annoyances. Pretty sure even the parents of the one my d knows feel similarly!
I didn’t mean to sound critical of your D19 @mom2twogirls so I hope I didn’t sound that way. I remember D15 actually directed most of her ire (privately) toward the teacher whom she felt played favorites, cutting slack to kids she liked and ruthlessly enforcing deadlines for kids she didn’t like. Actually my main point is that I recognize that in the long run it’s not good for my D19 to be getting as much slack as she is and I am worried about her college readiness.
@homerdog :"It gets to be sort of a game. If you can manage to get a high percentage A for the quarters, then you don’t even have to study for finals. You could get a super low (like 60%) on the final and still get the A. "
Teachers go back on their word on that. D19 was promised that, with an A for each of the three grading periods within the semester, she would round up any 89 to an A.
D19 didn’t study for the final (instead studying for other classes) and got a 60 on the final for an 89 final semester grade. The teacher didn’t round up. When D19 asked, teacher said (in essence), “I didn’t mean you could fail the final.”
The school has exemptions for finals. Freshmen get one exemption, sophomores get 2, juniors get 3, and seniors get 4. The result is gaming the system, if you have a sure A or sure B, you exempt the final and only study for the ones where a Final can lift you to an A (or you can do badly and still not lower your grade).
With only 2 exemptions last year, it was tough to decide which class to exempt and which not to. The third exemption (out of 7 total classes) will help a lot. Especially since two of her classes are really easy (health and XC). That means she only has two real finals each semester, because she exempts three of them. (The XC final consists of bringing food for a potluck).
@Corinthian no offense was taken, I got where you were coming from.
My d was recently discussing another classmate’s possible slacking. This is not a classmate she is fond of, so she knows she is biased. But this classmate is high Stats (and d knows because the classmate literally announced her SAT score in classes and speeches when running for club officer positions and had said her parents complained before to the school when she didn’t get more end of the year awards ). Anyway, apparently this classmate is being allowed to regularly turn AP Bio labs in late. Another friend was complaining about the unfairness of it. My d said her response was “the teacher isn’t doing her any favors in getting ready for college.” So yay, somethings I say have sunk in!
@gusmahler Our teachers will not round up either. Otherwise, if they round up for one student, they are afraid that the next student who needs just a little more rounding will want the teacher to round up and it’s a slippery slope. Last year, in Chem Honors, S19 had an A- for both quarters (about a 91) and, after the final, ended up with a 89.4. Teachers round 89.5 up to an A IF the student had As for both quarters. He missed it by .1 percent. It was the difference of getting one more multiple choice question right on the final. Teacher wouldn’t round and he got a B+. Devastating. It was the class he spent the most hours on throughout the semester, had As for both quarters, yet got a B. It wasn’t much condolence but only about 20% of the kids got As and a full 30% got Cs. He wasn’t alone with his B.
My kid varies between #3 and #6 in the class of 398 students. There are two girls who trade off the #1 and #2 spots, both of which are friends with my kid. The girls have alternated as class president/student council president since middle school.
The two top girls are in calculus with my kid and they’ve lightened the difficulty of the class for him, since apparently they did dreadfully on the first series of tests and are constantly bugging the teacher for extra credit, re-tests, repeat the re-test, etc.
Kiddo has had a couple of re-tests on material he didn’t get the first time and the teacher apparently didn’t record one of those grades until very late in the semester. However after seeing the two girls badgering the teacher for extra points he’s made it a policy not to bug the teacher about anything more than once.
D19 took the October ACT and wasn’t happy with her composite score (32) and wants to take it again. But she got a 9 on the writing and is happy with that score. Most of the schools she will be applying to don’t even require writing. (In fact, as of now, no school on her list requires writing, but lists are always subject to change).
Can she take the December without writing? Then, any school that requires writing, she can send both October and December (for the hopefully higher composite score), and any school that doesn’t require writing, she can just send the December scores. Or should she just bite the bullet and take the ACT with writing again?
I guess what she’s worried about is this question: what is better, a 32 composite with a 9 writing or a 34 composite with an 8 writing?
@gusmahler have you looked on the websites of the schools that are on your radar and want the writing? I don’t have ACT experience but d19 took the SAT with writing and also thought her score was fine even though she would like to up her English score a bit. The one school on her radar that wanted the writing superscores so we are all set. I think they even had a FAQ page that laid out the scenario and showed that taking the writing again wasn’t necessary. That made her decide to just take the SAT without writing next time.