Our school district seems to be the total outlier here. HS classes taken in MS, here usually Algebra 1 and English 1, are listed on the HS transcript with grades and those grades count for HS GPA. But then our HS transcripts also list ACT scores … So I’m not sure how TO would work here. It did not apply to D22, she had good test scores. But it scares me for S26.
Many colleges take the transcript and recalculate GPA based on their own formulas. Some don’t look at middle school or freshman year grades. So the GPA listed on the high school transcript may not even be evaluated.
That seems like a good idea to me. I know that in our MS many kids were put into Algebra 1 and English 1 that really had no business being there. I think it looks good for the school to be able to report having many students in those classes but is often not in the best interest of students, especially since many colleges in our region give auto merit on unweighted GPA.
Not an outlier… we’re in the same boat. S25 was fully remote for all of 8th grade (20/21 school year) and took high school English 1 and algebra 1 through the state’s online learning platform (he took middle school science and middle school history on there as well). He was the only 8th grader in those high school classes, and his corresponding grades are on his transcript with credits attached. His SAT scores are also on there, which I plan to investigate if they can be taken off, since it does not make sense if he plans to apply any place TO.
The difference in middle school experiences for students is amazing to me. We just don’t have access to those opportunities in our local public schools. Unlike S25, S27 was in a regular 8th grade math class and the teacher offered him and 2 other students what I would essentially call pre-algebra but she called algebra 1. I do not believe it appeared as algebra on his grade report. We had him retake algebra 1 as a freshman at his new school, and it was absolutely the right call because it was very evident he did not cover a bunch of material in 8th grade.
Upshot being, for us I think it depended on whether the student is learning the material in a class with high school students in a high school setting/with a high school teacher when it comes to how it appears on a high school transcript.
My children attend a 7th-12th grade junior-senior high school. All high school level courses are included on their transcripts and grades are included in the high school GPA. 7th and 8th grade students test into their math courses. Roughly a quarter of 7th grade students and half of 8th grade students take Algebra I.
S26 started high school with two math credits, a science credit, and a foreign language credit. While his Algebra I class was comprised of 7th and 8th grade students, it covered the same material as the 9th grade course. The Geometry class he took in 8th grade included students from 8th-10th grades.
Son’s pre-9th grade math credits count toward completion of the required math sequence of Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, and Precalculus. They do not count toward the requirement of math each year of high school. Son took Algebra II and Precalculus in 9th grade. Two credits of math taken the same year are counted as one year of math. He took Calculus in 10th. He must take AP or DE math in 11th and 12th grades. Whether he takes one math course in 11th grade or 6 math courses, he will be required to take a math course in 12th grade.
Math and English are the only two subjects that his school treats this way. The graduation requirements for all other subjects are based on number of credits earned.
Our district does include HS classes taken in middle school (most commonly algebra and foreign language) on the HS transcript. They make this very clear to parents and students when signng up for 8th grade classes.
The time to start working on a change in the transcripts for your '26 is NOW. It takes forever, even when there is a clear error which is easily verifiable.
A neighboring school district included a chart on page two of the HS transcripts showing the various subject offerings and the level. AP Physics was on there FOREVER, even in the years when there was no qualified AP Physics teacher in the district and therefore, the course wasn’t offered.
The process to get it cleaned up was like molasses. You’d think an email to the Superintendent- “Hey, I’d like to help you fix your HS transcripts- there are numerous errors (not just physics)” followed by a phone call would do the trick.
But no. It can be lengthy, so if you’d like a policy change that test scores are not sent to the college unless a kid requests it, start now.
Your principal is likely to want to help. But might feel hamstrung by the powers that be!
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Couple thoughts here.
First, on the general topic, and the “must” insistence about including MS grades. It’s worth noting that there are a number of practical reasons why admissions offices wouldn’t learn much from seeing those grades (they don’t know anything about the middle schools and it’s really not worth the time to learn about them, middle schools certainly don’t have college profiles, many middle schools don’t have grades, cohorts don’t necessarily travel to the same high school, etc.), and also note that essentially everywhere, admissions offices have decided they can make appropriate judgments on who to enroll with four years of coursework. (Also, probably good for students that they aren’t generally worrying about their middle school grades.)
Second, related to your children: everyone on this thread has explained clearly why your son’s three years of math are unlikely to be a concern, because AOs will make a reasonable set of correct inferences about your son’s math experience and skill. To use your word, that’s “weird” in a good way. I would worry, though, that the situation with your D27’s English plan might be “weird” in a less-good way. “She took HS English in grade 8” may not be convincing to some schools - HS English is a mix of subject matter and time invested in skills growth, and one reason that schools look for four years of English is that they want to see continued investment in writing skills development. Can you explain your way out of it? Yes. Will that explanation work everywhere? I don’t think so. (There are more-informed people out here who might differ… I’m not seeing that in the thread, though.)
Since you’ve been investing in an unconventional path, I would probably be looking at some way to fill that English need this year in an unconventional way - some sort of elective class somewhere. (I know it may be too late.)
Good luck!
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High school level math and english courses are pretty standard in public schools too. Our public school allows high achieving students to take Math 1 (Algebra), English 1, Spanish 1 and Earth Science in 8th grade. Some kids also take Math 2 (Geometry). Most schools have an advanced math option where kids take algebra 1 as an 8th grader, and many (if not most) allow for double acceleration for a very small amount of kids in math. In our state, middle school courses are recorded on the high school transcript.
I see I ended up as OP of a split off thread.
The primary issue (as an offshoot of the other thread)
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/should-you-take-3-years-of-english-in-high-school-if-accelerated-9th-grade-english-taken-in-8th-grade
is the situation of taking a “gap year” in a core subject during grades 9-12, if High School level courses were taken earlier, and the student will end up with (more than) enough HS level courses in each subject. Since our two oldest children are both in this exact same, quite specific, scenario (S24 no math in grade 9, D27 no English in grade 9), I thought it best to join the ongoing discussion on the topic, rather than starting a duplicate thread, especially since mods could have merged the duplicate thread into the ongoing discussion (the reverse of what has happened). Either way is fine. I’m learning from the two threads.
With regard to what I said on the secondary issue about HS level courses taken before grade 9, (that had already been raised by several posters in the precursor thread before I even got there), note I said “Perhaps different states/regions do things differently”, so I was not making an assertion about what happens globally, just locally. But I did want to make a counterpoint to claims that that such courses would/should not count and were “fluff”.
The other poster has an 8th grader, who will be attending a conventional high school for 9th through 12th grade. The student is slightly accelerated compared to the conventional course sequence, but not unusually so. The student is planning ahead for 9th grade, and needs advice about which courses to take.
You have two students who have already accumulated an unconventional portfolio of both courses taken and school choices, including homeschool and virtual charter schooling. Your S24 is significantly accelerated in math. (It’s possible that your D27 will be in a similar position in math, but we don’t have all the information about the math courses she has taken.) You are trying to understand how colleges will view your kids’ portfolios, as well as asking for advice on what to do next (as I understand it)?
The advice for your situation is going to be different for a few reasons:
- your kids (particularly your S24) are more likely to be evaluated as “special case children with unconventional educational portfolios” rather than “conventional school children who skipped something”
- kids who are significantly accelerated in math are a bit of a special case in themselves
- and you aren’t looking forward at options for 9th grade; you have already made 9th grade choices and now have to figure out what to do next.
It’s not a situation of “one thread per family”… but it is a different situation where different advice is needed.
Posters have already offered some advice, but if that advice hasn’t been helpful enough, you might ask specific questions?
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Conversations like this emphasize how hard it is to be an AO in the United States. The complete lack of standardization in curricula, grading, reporting, and so on makes it incredibly hard to come up with a way to reliably compare transcripts from different school systems.
Anyway, my two cents is part of what is going on here is that there are additional considerations colleges might have besides merely the level attained in different core areas.
Like, at least in some areas, continuity might be reasonably important to colleges. There is evidence to support such a preference, indeed even just what is sometimes called the “summer gap” issue supports the idea that continuity can be fairly important. So I think at least some colleges might prefer to see you have continuously done math classes, language classes, writing classes, or so on in preparation for having to do all of that as a college first year.
And then there is the issue about challenging yourself broadly. This very much varies between colleges, but again some expect/require you to take a broad range of classes your first couple years, and some of those colleges really hope you will be open-minded about what you might actually declare as a major. Kids who seem to be rushing to be done with some core areas so they can start specializing already in HS may not be what those colleges love to see since those kids would have to un-specialize at their college. But of course other colleges could be fine with that.
And so on.
I think part of where this can lead is simply the observation that maybe it is not so reasonable to think you can optimize for every college as you make your choices in HS. I do think some choices at least cover more colleges than others, but in the end you may find that the choices you make lead to some colleges being a better fit for you than others. And that can be fine.
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Our counselors send a counselor report with the applications (I feel like this is common) and the purpose of it can be to explain something like this. Ask at your kids’ school.
Same for our kids’ school. Any HS math, science or foreign language taken in MS goes on the HS transcript. Parents are informed of this when they sign MS students up for these classes.
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In my state, it varies by high school whether HS classes taken in MS show up on a HS transcript. Our state universities know that most of those early classes are sequential (world languages or math) so they assume that a student taking Spanish 2,3, and 4 in high school either took Spanish 1 or tested out. They also assume the “algebra sandwich” sequence for math.
It’s a long way of saying the focus is more on the highest class taken.
Typically, elite schools look at HS classes taken in middle school as an opportunity for students to pursue higher level classes in those subjects in HS. They don’t see it as a way for kids to skip a year of core classes so they can pursue things that interest them more. That being said, no one can know how AO’s view individual transcripts - some may care about a missing year more than others, some might think a missed year is offset by acceleration elsewhere and some might not care at all. It all depends.
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Just by way of example, our private HS takes kids from all over, but it also has a Middle School. And in their Middle School program, the more advanced STEM kids can take Geometry and Physics 1 in 8th grade (the normal track is Algebra 1 and Environmental Science in 8th).
Geometry is basically Math 2 at the high school, and those kids are on track to do Calculus (of some sort) junior year, post-Calc electives senior year (some particularly advanced math students are then even farther head, but this is the “normal” advanced track). Physics 1 is Physics I, and those kids then do Chemistry, Biology, and two years of advanced electives.
My S24 came from a different K-8 where he was on the advanced math track but had not had Physics. So, he did Physics 9th, Chemistry in the summer, Bio 10th, which put him on the advanced science track. That summer Chemistry course is specifically designed to allow kids like mine from other middle schools to get on that track.
I am pointing all this out just to confirm none of this is about getting out of four years of Math and Science, it is about letting STEM kids do a lot more electives in Math and Science–which was your point.
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