S21 is planning on taking Accounting I and II Honors. These fall under the Business Department. Will these grades get tossed aside with art, music, and PE when colleges recalculate his GPA?
Whether colleges recalculate GPA, and what courses they include/exclude if they do recalculate, will vary by college. Unless a college gives its guidelines (e.g. UC’s), nobody knows the answer.
I’d file it under :It is what it is" and spend no time pondering it.
First, your question probably only matters if your son is trying for a highly selective college/program/scholarship.
Second, not every selective actually recalculates the GPA. But they all do some kind a qualitative review or scoring of the transcript. That is usually focused on the core academic areas (math, English, science, foreign language, history). Accounting might/might not fall within the core.
Third, the goal of the scoring is to determine if your kid is (i) taking the most challenging classes that the kid’s HS offers and (ii) doing well in that challenging course of study.
It isn’t just selective colleges that re-calculate GPA. Those that I know of would not include business courses. How is your son’s GPA now? Does he need to take other courses with increased rigor that would help him in admission and with a prospective major?
There is no one answer that will be correct for every college.
Do not worry about this. He should take the courses if they interest him. Colleges may also remove any added points given for AP and Honors classes. Accounting sounds academic to me.