Weighted GPA for honors class?

[athena1277]

I know a lot of high schools give a weighted GPA for honors classes. Can homeschoolers do it also? My dd is in 9th grade and taking an honors English class from The Potter School. Does it matter that it’s not me teaching her this subject? My main concern is how it will affect her going to college and competing for scholarships.

[RootAnn]

There have been a lot of discussions in the past on this topic. (I put in the search terms on Google. Some of these should be helpful. Some are older & some are just how to calculate it, but it makes good reading.

 

Some people do it & some don't. Sometimes colleges unweigh everything & reweigh it (according to some form of their own determining) but only if you have done the weighting yourself (and/or somehow indicated honors/AP/DE courses). Other places say not to bother.

 

Some people on here design courses for their kids (or have kids who design their own courses) which are clearly Honors level with a capital H.

 

My own personal policy, which is stated on the transcript, is to weigh only those courses which an outside provider has indicated are honors. If I got an AP syllabus approved, I'd weigh that one, too. My dd's DE course will be weighed. But, everyone has to come up with their own opinion on this. The previous threads give you lots to think about. And, it depends on which colleges your kid(s) will be applying to.

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

 

 

We weigh honors, AP, and College level courses.

[MerryAtHope]

I thought about it, but since it didn't matter in our case, I didn't. However, I always liked one of Lee Binz's criteria--if her kids took the Clep test and passed, she counted the course as Honors. 

[dirty ethel rackham]

We weight honors (from outside sources, not homegrown classes unless there was an outside verification of above grade level work), AP, and college classes.  Our local high school only reports weighted GPA so I figured I would not want to put my kids at a disadvantage.  If a school wanted to unweight a GPA, they were welcome to do so.  I do know that my kids were offered scholarships based upon their weighted GPA.  

[Julie of KY]

I did not weight my first son's grades. It did not matter at all for the school he ended up going to (highly selective). However, if he did not get in there, I'm afraid it might have cost him in scholarships elsewhere.

 

I will weight my second son's grades (and other kids) as he will be applying to state univ. and they take the gpa as is for scholarships. I would hope that a human would actually think about it and consider the actual courses he took, but I'm afraid that he wouldn't make the first cut based on not having a weighted gpa. 

[8filltheheart]

I haven't weighted the courses on my kids' transcripts, but I have definitely labeled them honors.  I didn't bother weighting bc the schools have recalculated according to their own weighting methodology anyway.  If I was concerned that my kids would be at an admission/scholarship disadvantage b/c the school only went by submitted GPA, then I would weigh without question.

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

I wanted to add, I included weighted and unweighted GPA scores on transcripts. This way the school can use whichever, and see how they compare.

[yvonne]

I wanted to add, I included weighted and unweighted GPA scores on transcripts. This way the school can use whichever, and see how they compare.

I did the same on our transcripts it can’t hurt.

[lewelma]

In the end, I did not weight honors classes, and I did not indicate honor on the transcript.  But I *very* clearly indicated in the first section of my course descriptions which courses were honors, AP-equialent (we are in NZ), at the local university, and at University level but taught at home, This way, if they needed to weight courses they could.  DS applied to 4 elites and 2 highly selective schools, and we were told by the highly selective schools that when considering ds for scholarships, they would re-weight grades based on their own formulas and ignore any weighted GPA I provided.  My understanding was that elite universities do not use weighted grades, but obviously it would vary by school.

 

Ruth in NZ. 

Edited February 3, 2018 by lewelma

[southcactusrose]

I haven't thought too much into it at this point, but I know I'll designate the course as Honors if it was provided by an outside provider.  However, I can tell you that I have a family member who does the admissions at one of the "Big 12" schools in Texas and according to them, as a homeschool student the GPA is a -wash.  So, it won't matter.  Yes, they look at what courses our children take but the GPA doesn't really mean a lot...so giving weight to courses won't matter at this particular college.  The big factor to them boils down to SAT/ACT scores and completing those required courses.

All this to say, that hasn't stopped me from making my children take Honors, AP and dual credit courses...and designating them on transcripts.

[southcactusrose]

Oh my...why is it double posting?  LOL --this is the second time this is happening.  haha..Sorry folks!  I'll get it figured out.  I promise I only entered it one time.  :lol: 

Edited February 3, 2018 by southcactusrose

[Carrie12345]

I use Transcript Maker, which gives both the weighted and unweighted GPA.  I'm a fan of that feature.

[daijobu]

I weight AP, AoPS, and anything a vendor calls "honors."  But i like the idea of above of presenting both weighted and unweighted gpas.  

[Corraleno]

I weighted honors classes +0.5 and DE +1, and I included both a weighted and unweighted GPA on the transcript.

 

I explained in the grading section of the Common App that my criteria for designating courses as Honors were that they (1) used college-level materials, (2) required a significantly higher level of work and deeper level of analysis and understanding than would be expected in a typical HS course, and (3) covered subjects in which standard HS level courses could provide a basis for comparison. So, for example, The Epic in World Literature was designated as an honors English course, but Intro to Linguistics was not listed as honors, even though it used college texts and college lectures, because there is no standard "high school level" course to compare it to.

[Penelope]

I haven't thought too much into it at this point, but I know I'll designate the course as Honors if it was provided by an outside provider. However, I can tell you that I have a family member who does the admissions at one of the "Big 12" schools in Texas and according to them, as a homeschool student the GPA is a -wash. So, it won't matter. Yes, they look at what courses our children take but the GPA doesn't really mean a lot...so giving weight to courses won't matter at this particular college. The big factor to them boils down to SAT/ACT scores and completing those required courses.

All this to say, that hasn't stopped me from making my children take Honors, AP and dual credit courses...and designating them on transcripts.

I have to believe this is true at many colleges. I would have to think the same thing if I worked in admissions, even having been a homeschooler. It is probably the same for very small, private schools as well; until a college or university has a track record of students from that school, how are they going to know how that school generally grades? At least for an unknown school, they have class rank, but for homeschoolers, how can they know? I know the rigor of local homeschool classes vs. what I require at home, and I hear how some homeschoolers are generous with grading (not necessarily fudging grades, but not having strict deadlines and things like that that would affect grades in regular school), so I do have to think that colleges are going to give much lower consideration to grades, especially large state schools that process huge numbers of applications.

 

That said, I do think there are some providers that offer certain classes that would be considered honors level in many public schools, but yet don’t designate them as such. I wish that they would call them honors, just for the schools that consider a weighted GPA. Examples that seem like they fit here would be WHA Math (only precalculus is honors), WTMA Rhetoric, Lukeion courses, perhaps WTMA Bio. It feels dishonest to call something honors that isn’t labelled that way, yet feels unfair to the student knowing that something surely would be considered honors elsewhere. Although, some private schools say in their school profile that all their courses are honors despite not labeling them that way. A homeschooler can do the same, but are they believed either way?

Edited February 6, 2018 by Penelope

[Corraleno]

I have to believe this is true at many colleges. I would have to think the same thing if I worked in admissions, even having been a homeschooler. It is probably the same for very small, private schools as well; until a college or university has a track record of students from that school, how are they going to know how that school generally grades? At least for an unknown school, they have class rank, but for homeschoolers, how can they know? I know the rigor of local homeschool classes vs. what I require at home, and I hear how some homeschoolers are generous with grading (not necessarily fudging grades, but not having strict deadlines and things like that that would affect grades in regular school), so I do have to think that colleges are going to give much lower consideration to grades, especially large state schools that process huge numbers of applications.

 

That said, I do think there are some providers that offer certain classes that would be considered honors level in many public schools, but yet don’t designate them as such. I wish that they would call them honors, just for the schools that consider a weighted GPA. Examples that seem like they fit here would be WHA Math (only precalculus is honors), WTMA Rhetoric, Lukeion courses, perhaps WTMA Bio. It feels dishonest to call something honors that isn’t labelled that way, yet feels unfair to the student knowing that something surely would be considered honors elsewhere. Although, some private schools say in their school profile that all their courses are honors despite not labeling them that way. A homeschooler can do the same, but are they believed either way?

FWIW, Lukeion does consider their courses "honors level," and this was specifically mentioned in LORs they wrote for DS. I have also seen some courses and curriculum that are self-designated as "Honors" which I would not consider honors level at all, so I don't think homeschoolers should be limited by the way that providers happen to label their courses — there can be as much variation there as there is in so-called "honors" courses in different public schools. I have seen what passes for "honors" courses at schools some of my nieces and nephews have attended, and they are well below what I consider a light-weight course in my homeschool. So to me it makes more sense to establish specific criteria for what constitutes "honors level" in my school, and then apply that consistently and explain it clearly on the application.

[Penelope]

FWIW, Lukeion does consider their courses "honors level," and this was specifically mentioned in LORs they wrote for DS. I have also seen some courses and curriculum that are self-designated as "Honors" which I would not consider honors level at all, so I don't think homeschoolers should be limited by the way that providers happen to label their courses — there can be as much variation there as there is in so-called "honors" courses in different public schools. I have seen what passes for "honors" courses at schools some of my nieces and nephews have attended, and they are well below what I consider a light-weight course in my homeschool. So to me it makes more sense to establish specific criteria for what constitutes "honors level" in my school, and then apply that consistently and explain it clearly on the application.

Makes a lot of sense. I agree about typical honors courses.

 

Can I ask how you define it? I have seen here that a few posters have said they go by hours, but we have found it difficult to count hours other than very roughly. And I don’t really like the focus on time, but rather on depth. But that is much harder to define. I am more of a big picture person when evaluating these things, but that is hard to spell out in a school profile.

 

For instance, for science it is by the textbook we use and how much is completed, difficulty of the tests and labs, additional readings, and score on SAT exams where applicable. But for literature, history or math, other factors might be involved (whether text is typically used in honors classes in schools, how many books read, number and length of essays and depth of analysis required). For language, it is based on provider labeling since I don’t have a strong basis for evaluation, and many schools do not label lower level language courses with honors, anyway.

Edited February 8, 2018 by Penelope

[Corraleno]

Makes a lot of sense. I agree about typical honors courses.

 

Can I ask how you define it? I have seen here that a few posters have said they go by hours, but we have found it difficult to count hours other than very roughly. And I don’t really like the focus on time, but rather on depth. But that is much harder to define. I am more of a big picture person when evaluating these things, but that is hard to spell out in a school profile.

 

For instance, for science it is by the textbook we use and how much is completed, difficulty of the tests and labs, additional readings, and score on SAT exams where applicable. But for literature, history or math, other factors might be involved (whether text is typically used in honors classes in schools, how many books read, number and length of essays and depth of analysis required). For language, it is based on provider labeling since I don’t have a strong basis for evaluation, and many schools do not label lower level language courses with honors, anyway.

 

 

To be designated "Honors," courses had to meet these three criteria:  (1) they used college-level materials; (2) they required significantly more work and a deeper level of analysis and understanding than would be expected in a typical HS course; and (3) they covered subjects in which standard HS level courses could provide a basis for comparison. So, for example, The Epic in World Literature was designated as an honors English course, but Intro to Linguistics was not listed as honors, even though it used college texts, college lectures, and a 2-week intensive on a college campus taught by linguistics professors, because there is no standard "high school level" linguistics course to compare it to.

[Reefgazer]

On ‎2‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 4:57 PM, PinkyandtheBrains. said:

 

 

We weigh honors, AP, and College level courses.

How do you weight a college course, and how do you indicate the GPA is weighted on the transcript?  I don't really know how to determine if or how to weight a course.

[lewelma]

As I wrote earlier, I did not do a weighted GPA, but I did make the transcript very clear as to what was honors, AP-equivalent, and university level. For university level, I just used a superscript U.  This was for the two classes taken at a university, 5 math courses that were self studied, and music diploma done by exam through the Royal School of Music in the UK.  Knowing that CMU in particular reweighted grades when determining scholarships, I did not want my son to be at a disadvantage.  And he did earn the highest merit scholarship they offer that is not also connected to need, so they must have weighted his GPA using the info I gave them.

[katilac]

I put weighted and unweighted GPA. We had at least one school specifically tell us that they accepted weighted GPA for automatic scholarships, and did not add weight themselves. It came up in a discussion about public schools that did not weigh grades, putting those students at a disadvantage. They advised the students to go to their guidance counselor and request a revised transcript with weighted grades, and they would happily accept it. They told homeschoolers to classify courses as honors if they would be honors at their local public school, and to use whatever weighting system the local district used. 

Many schools do figure out GPA with their own methods, but I saw no reason to hassle with figuring out which schools were which. Send in a weighted GPA, and they will do with it what they will. 

[madteaparty]

I was leaning towards providing both weighted and unweighted GPAs but then I know of a local private high which sends a ridiculous percentage of kids to highly selective schools and they have no “honors”, no “AP” classes. It’s clear most of their upper level classes are post AP or college level (they seem to offer more French classes than a local university), but none are labeled such. Clearly the colleges know this school though...

[EKS]

For my older son's transcript, I did not do a weighted GPA and the only classes I called "honors" were the ones that outside providers designated as such.

For the younger one, I have *a lot* more experience with what "rigorous" b&m schools offer, in terms of regular, honors, and AP, the requirements of the courses offered by our local (well regarded) community college, and the requirements of reading/writing intensive graduate level classes (and the caliber of work produced by the students).  Based on all of this, I have absolutely no problem designating our homegrown classes as either "honors" (advanced high school level) or "advanced" (college level materials/output but not necessarily college level pacing--AP classes are in this category).  The designation will be in the form of a code, not in the course titles.  I'm still deciding whether to do a weighted GPA.  If I do, it will be +0.5 for honors and +1.0 for advanced.

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

18 hours ago, Reefgazer said:

How do you weight a college course, and how do you indicate the GPA is weighted on the transcript?  I don't really know how to determine if or how to weight a course.

 

I weighted AP and College level the same weight, because AP is supposed to be college level.  I did not list both next to the individual courses. As for indicating on transcript, I had a GPA box and just listed both: Unweighted GPA, Weighted GPA.  

[cintinative]

I know this thread is five years old, but I was hoping we could update it given the current trend toward schools going test optional. It seems like the general thought when this thread was active was that test scores would demonstrate academic proficiency.  With many schools going test blind, should that/does that affect what homeschoolers should do as far as labeling courses "honors" and weighting GPAs?  

TIA for any opinions. 

[EKS]

19 minutes ago, cintinative said:

With many schools going test blind, should that/does that affect what homeschoolers should do as far as labeling courses "honors" and weighting GPAs?  

I have no clue, but I'm so glad we finished with all of this before test blind became a thing.  I'm so sorry that the current crop of homeschoolers has to deal with this.

[teachermom2834]

I had grads in 2016, 2018, 2021.

Over that time I evolved from don’t call anything honors, don’t weight, course titles and descriptions should speak for themselves and test scores verify to call everything honors that is and weight and provide weighted and unweighted on the transcript. Yes, most schools will do what they want with it but make it as easy as possible to give your kid every possible point. 

I now have a dd in private school. I have further refined my position to be very generous with what you call honors and be very generous with your grading in addition to weighting. Otherwise kids like mine are going to look on paper like absolute superstars when they may, or may not, be. But at least give your kid the credit to be on a level playing field. 

[daijobu]

I agree with @teachermom2834.  High school GPAs are rising while ACT scores are static or even declining.  Grade inflation is rampant now without test scores.  

 

You only need to briefly read the subreddit of teachers to hear what's going on.  Teachers who dare give a student anything less than a B are often pressured/threatened by parents and school admin.  They aren't paid enough to hold the line on grades and will acquiesce just so they can get on with their lives. 

Students are arriving at their junior year with low SAT scores and parents think they are just bad test-takers, otherwise why would their valedictorians score so poorly?  

Colleges like to crow about how stellar their admitted students are, possibly to compensate for an otherwise poor reputation.  Even Stanford does this.

Shaw said the 745 students who received acceptance letters come from 48 states and 34 countries. More than 80 percent of them have a high school grade point average of 4.0 or above and have demonstrated excellence in fields ranging from the arts and humanities to Earth sciences, natural sciences, social sciences and engineering.

 

 

 

[cintinative]

That subreddit was very depressing @daijobu

=(

[teachermom2834]

Also at my dd’s school she is a top student in her class. All honors/AP and nearly 100s across the board. She works very hard. But when the transcripts come out there is nothing to differentiate her A in honors English that she had 100 in without needing extra credit from the kid that had an 89.5 while doing lots of extra credit. I am counting on test scores to bear out that difference and at this point our state schools (which she will be focusing on) still use test scores. I’m not losing sleep over it as my dd isn’t going to try to doing anything competitive and at the school level her teachers know the deal and I think she will have good references and opportunities that come up will go to her. But on the transcript it looks the same. 
 

So homeschool parents really don’t need to do anything to make things any harder for their own students.

Edited April 6, 2023 by teachermom2834

[daijobu]

29 minutes ago, cintinative said:

That subreddit was very depressing @daijobu

=(

IKR!  

[EKS]

4 hours ago, daijobu said:

Grade inflation is rampant now without test scores.  

I'd argue that it was rampant even with test scores, and the SAT redesigns were done to obscure that fact.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

8 hours ago, cintinative said:

I know this thread is five years old, but I was hoping we could update it given the current trend toward schools going test optional. It seems like the general thought when this thread was active was that test scores would demonstrate academic proficiency.  With many schools going test blind, should that/does that affect what homeschoolers should do as far as labeling courses "honors" and weighting GPAs?  

TIA for any opinions. 

There are many test optional colleges, but few that are test blind outside California. University of Washington, Washington State, and Worcester PI come to mind.

But look carefully at requirements for homeschoolers, because they may still be required to submit test scores at test optional colleges. 

In a test optional or test blind setting, grades and rigor matter a lot. But in my opinion, admissions reps want to see outside grades of some kind and reccomendation letters from non-family members. 

I tend to weight outside honors, AP, and DE, be a some scholarships take the gpa as submitted. But don't lose a lot of sleep over your policy, because colleges will often recalculate an in house gpa according to their own methods for admissions. There are too many different high school policies out there not to.

[mom2scouts]

I have decided that I will give DD honors credit for some of her classes, including ones done at home, and I explain why on the course descriptions. In some cases she does extra work or she is working ahead of the normal high school sequence or she is following the curriculum writer's requirements to call the class honors. DD gets texts every week from her friends at public school asking for her help to solve a math problem or explain something in chemistry or help with a grammar issue, so I've seen what they're doing in public school in the honors classes and I have no problem designating some of our work as honors. For example, any sophomore who's doing Algebra 2 is considered to be in the honors math track in our public school. DD is a sophomore doing pre-calculus, including the optional work, so it puts her at a disadvantage in our local universities if I don't call them honors.

[teachermom2834]

1 hour ago, mom2scouts said:

I have decided that I will give DD honors credit for some of her classes, including ones done at home, and I explain why on the course descriptions. In some cases she does extra work or she is working ahead of the normal high school sequence or she is following the curriculum writer's requirements to call the class honors. DD gets texts every week from her friends at public school asking for her help to solve a math problem or explain something in chemistry or help with a grammar issue, so I've seen what they're doing in public school in the honors classes and I have no problem designating some of our work as honors. For example, any sophomore who's doing Algebra 2 is considered to be in the honors math track in our public school. DD is a sophomore doing pre-calculus, including the optional work, so it puts her at a disadvantage in our local universities if I don't call them honors.

Fully half my dd’s freshman class is in honors English and they all (honors and regular) have the same teacher so he doesn’t make alot more work for himself by teaching totally separate courses. Same with geometry. Same teacher for honors and non-honors and he isn’t going to go to the work of making it different for the honors class. Plus they put kids in honors that aren’t really honors they just have scheduling conflicts. The differences in the courses end up with letting the non-honors have open notes for tests or tacking an essay onto a test for honors. But really there is very little difference until the upper grades when they differentiate a little more with APs/harder courses. 

[Vintage81]

On 4/7/2023 at 10:22 AM, mom2scouts said:

I have decided that I will give DD honors credit for some of her classes, including ones done at home, and I explain why on the course descriptions. In some cases she does extra work or she is working ahead of the normal high school sequence or she is following the curriculum writer's requirements to call the class honors. DD gets texts every week from her friends at public school asking for her help to solve a math problem or explain something in chemistry or help with a grammar issue, so I've seen what they're doing in public school in the honors classes and I have no problem designating some of our work as honors. For example, any sophomore who's doing Algebra 2 is considered to be in the honors math track in our public school. DD is a sophomore doing pre-calculus, including the optional work, so it puts her at a disadvantage in our local universities if I don't call them honors.

I've been contemplating whether or not to call a few classes we're doing "honors" or not, so this updated information has been helpful. 

Question for anyone, but @mom2scouts you mentioned it in your post. On your course descriptions/transcript, how are y'all explaining why the course deserves the honors designation? Would the criteria be what was mentioned in bold...(1) if it is designated by the class provider; (2) if the student is doing extra work/projects beyond the scope of the curriculum; (3) if the student is working beyond the normal scope/sequence for that grade level??

Would anyone add/change anything to that?

Edited April 10, 2023 by Vintage81

[cintinative]

24 minutes ago, Vintage81 said:

I've been contemplating whether or not to call a few classes we're doing "honors" or not, so this updated information has been helpful. 

Question for anyone, but @mom2scouts you mentioned it in your post. On your course descriptions/transcript, how are y'all explaining why the course deserves the honors designation? Would the criteria be what was mentioned in bold...(1) if it is designated by the class provider; (2) if the student is doing extra work/projects beyond the scope of the curriculum; (3) if the student is working beyond the normal scope/sequence for that grade level??

Would anyone add/change anything to that?

I ended up putting this in my school profile, rather than in the individual course descriptions.  I don't have my exact language but it was something like:

A course was marked honors if it was designated so by an outside provider, if the course used college texts, or if the rigor of the course justified the honors designation.