Another high school GPA question.

[madteaparty]

I'm just now becoming aware of the tip of the nonsense iceberg that is the weighing of GPAs and the games that are played school to school. I've decided I will do what local public does regarding that, but here's a specific question:

I plan to list "classes taken before 9th grade" for the DE classes (rationale being that adcoms would receive a transcript from the respective institution anyway). Question: Do you include these classes on the high school GPA calculation? Thank you.

[Lori D.]

I'm just now becoming aware of the tip of the nonsense iceberg that is the weighing of GPAs and the games that are played school to school. I've decided I will do what local public does regarding that, but here's a specific question:

I plan to list "classes taken before 9th grade" for the DE classes (rationale being that adcoms would receive a transcript from the respective institution anyway). Question: Do you include these classes on the high school GPA calculation? Thank you.

 

You will get both "yes" and "no" answers on this question. Some people say "yes" because their local public schools do count not only the credit but also the grade towards the GPA. Some people say "no", because their local high schools do not do so, and because many colleges only count the credits (and grades) of courses taken in the 4 years before entering college as valid.

 

What do your local high schools do?

 

Just thinking through what I would do for your situation: since some of your high school courses taken before 9th grade will be college-level DE, and will be on the permanent official college transcript that will also be submitted by your student upon applying to college, I would say that makes a strong case for including the pre-9th grade courses of high school and college level in the cumulative GPA. Just make a note of that in your notes/explanation section of the transcript.

 

Also, if you discover in 12th grade that the college your student is applying to does NOT accept grades of courses earned prior to 9th grade, you can always leave the grades on the transcript, but not include in the cumulative GPA, and be sure to note that on the transcript (that the pre-9th grades are not included in the GPA).

 

If your student ends up going to a brick-and-mortar high school, then you will just have to go with their policy, and still be sure to submit your student's official DE college transcript, along with the high school transcript.

 

As far as weighting/not weighting grades... If you student only has 1-3 AP and/or DE courses, it's not going to make a huge difference in the overall GPA, so it would be fine to not weight. However, because weighted grades are used by SO MANY schools, your advanced student taking 3 or more AP and/or DE courses will be at a severe disadvantage for scholarships that are awarded based on GPA if you do NOT weight the AP and DE courses. I have heard more than one story of a homeschool student either missing out on a scholarship, or being advised by the college admissions to, yes, weight the grades so the student can more fairly be compared to other students doing advanced work of AP and/or DE.

 

 

Question: Do you include these classes on the high school GPA calculation? 

 

Answer: in our family, no, I did not weight grades, as each of our DSs only had two 1-semester courses of DE in the senior year, and yes, I did include in the cumulative GPA the grade of the 1 credit of Algebra 1 that DS#1 "brought up" from 8th grade.

Edited November 18, 2017 by Lori D.

[madteaparty]

Bless you Lori.

[Lori D.]

Bless you Lori.

 

lol

[Corraleno]

DS had 2 pre-9th credits (Lukeion Greek & Latin); I included them on the transcript, labeled and weighted them as honors (+ 0.5), and included them in the GPA calculation. That's what the schools here do, and that's the way my own HS transcript was done a million years ago in another state, so I figured it's probably a pretty common system.

[madteaparty]

Here in NY, public school does include high school courses taken in 8th grade on the high school transcript.

So, if the DE class is college prep high school level or higher, it should be on the transcript and the grade transferred in. Of course, one can choose the P/F option before taking the course. The local high school can tell you how they translate the alphabetical grade from your provider to the numerical scale, or vice versa and how many high school credits they would award. In my district , seat time rules and AP/DE are not weighted. So DE Calc 1 in 1 semester is half a high school credit. AP Calc AB in 2 semesters is 1 high school credit.

My districts weighs. Crazy that within a few miles there's different policies.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I'm just now becoming aware of the tip of the nonsense iceberg that is the weighing of GPAs and the games that are played school to school. I've decided I will do what local public does regarding that, but here's a specific question:

I plan to list "classes taken before 9th grade" for the DE classes (rationale being that adcoms would receive a transcript from the respective institution anyway). Question: Do you include these classes on the high school GPA calculation? Thank you.

I included classes taken before 9th grade in the gpa. We didn't have DE classes that early, but I counted math and foreign language.

 

I would just be clear and consistent. In other words don't include some DE classes but not others.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

My districts weighs. Crazy that within a few miles there's different policies.

This is one reason I tell people just to be clear about what they did and to be consistent.

 

There are so many systems that I had some large state schools say that they recorded and reported how but did not give much consideration to it. This was a school that brought in students from states and districts with very different systems. They had decided that for admissions they couldn't compare by gpa.

[TKDmom]

In our district, it's common for kids to take high school level (math and language) courses in middle school. If the student scores well, their grades will be included on the high school transcript (with weighting for honors). If they don't do well, they can ask to have the grades removed and retake the course in high school with no penalty. When my oldest enrolled at a ps here, I didn't even hesitate to put her high school-level spanish and algebra (from 8th grade) on her transcript. She needs those credits to fill the boxes for graduation and they'll be counted towards her GPA. I've always thought the weighted scales were ridiculous, but now I just wish I'd made a note of honors-level courses, because her GPA will be lower than her peers for some of those really tough classes she took.

[Library Momma]

In our district and I believe most of the schools in our state, high school level classes taken in middle school are never counted towards or included on a high school transcript.  Even if they are the same exact class offered in the high school with the same exams.  Also classes are only weighted for the purpose of class rank.  There are no weighted GPAs.

[Janice in NJ]

I included courses and listed the grades for a couple of classes done in 8th grade for two out of three of my kids. 

 

My daughter was applying to nursing schools, and they required high school biology with lab. She had taken a high-school level class in 8th grade, so we needed to list it. If we hadn't, she wouldn't have been considered for the program even though she had also taken the nursing, college-level anatomy and physiology (A&P I) class and was enrolled in the A&P II class during the fall of her senior year. For admittance, the nursing program required "Biology with Lab" so it needed to be on there.

 

My younger son applied to colleges a year ahead of schedule, so he only had coursework for 9th, 10th, and 11th grade on his transcript. I added his Algebra I course and a high-school level online computer programming course to give a better picture of all of the high-school level work he had done even though it was completed in 8th grade.

 

In both cases, the grades were listed; however, I did not include them in the GPA calculation. I just wrote "N/A" in the GPA calculation column. 

 

Peace,

Janice

 

Enjoy your little people

Enjoy your journey

[madteaparty]

To be clear, I'm asking whether *college* classes taken before 9th grade should be counted in the high school

GPA calculation. There's no question they all go on the transcript, because college grades are forever and an official transcript will go directly from the respective institution. I wonder if I back them out and calculate the GPA based on the 4 yrs of high school, that's all.

Edited November 20, 2017 by madteaparty

[Bootsie]

If the classes are intended to meet high school graduation requirements, I would include them in the high school GPA.  If the classes were "extras" I think you could go either way.