Converting Letter Grades to Number Grades for transcripts

[scrappyhappymama]

I searched, but couldn't find the answer to my question, either here or on Google.  

One of the colleges that my son has applied to wants us to convert our transcript to their format, which includes numerical grades.  However, I did not keep track of his grades throughout high school numerically, only letter grades.   He does have some co-op  classes and online classes with number grades that we can use.   But the classes I taught him, I only recorded  as letter grades.  

Is there a standard number grade to assign when converting letter grades to numerical grades?  I thought about assigning him 95s for all As and 85 for all Bs, but don't want to shortchange him if the convention is otherwise.  

Also, the college wants his transcript to be unweighted.  He does have several AP classes on  his transcript.  Would the class being AP affect the number grade I should assign?  He has a couple of AP semesters where he got a B, but I had awarded him 4 points on a 5 scale.  

His transcript has been accepted by several other colleges already and he already has acceptances from two.  So I'm not concerned about the validity of the transcript  I created, but need to convert it  for this particular school.  (It is University of Alabama Huntsville.  He wants to consider this school, since his planned major is Aerospace Engineering)

Thanks for any suggestions or resources!
 

[cbollin]

Try this link https://pages.collegeboard.org/how-to-convert-gpa-4.0-scale

 

[Dmmetler]

UAH accepted letter only grades for my DD with no problem at all. And they reweight grades based on their weighting. 

[teachermom2834]

UAH also accepted my ds with only letter grades. Just this year.

ETA: My ds had his transcript sent by our umbrella school. I remember now from our visit that they had different requests from homeschoolers (such as course descriptions) that they did not want if we had the umbrella school they recognized. So maybe this is a homeschool requirement and they didn't apply it to my ds because of the umbrella school? I think @Dmmetler2 has her dd applying from the same umbrella school. 

Edited December 2, 2020 by teachermom2834

[Dmmetler]

17 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:

UAH also accepted my ds with only letter grades. Just this year.

ETA: My ds had his transcript sent by our umbrella school. I remember now from our visit that they had different requests from homeschoolers (such as course descriptions) that they did not want if we had the umbrella school they recognized. So maybe this is a homeschool requirement and they didn't apply it to my ds because of the umbrella school? I think @Dmmetler2 has her dd applying from the same umbrella school. 

That's true-I sometimes forget TN is weird that way. 

[RootAnn]

I really dislike their laughable (like laugh until you cry) Homeschool-only regulations they started instituting this year. This link has info under "homeschool".

Since they list 90-100=A, 80-89=B on their homeschool transcript form, I'd use the 95=A, 85=B thing you suggested.  If it were me, I'd actually pick numbers based on how I felt at the moment as long as they matched their scale. (I use a much harder scale where As end at 93 & B+ is 90-92, so DD would have likely had less B+s with their scale.) 

[RootAnn]

6 hours ago, scrappyhappymama said:

Would the class being AP affect the number grade I should assign?  He has a couple of AP semesters where he got a B, but I had awarded him 4 points on a 5 scale

Nope. You'd just give him the 85 based on their scale & convention.

IMO, the unweighting is unfair since it applies only to homeschoolers. They use this GPA for their automerit thus homeschoolers are at a disadvantage compared to private/public schoolers who are allowed to submit weighted gpas for merit aid.

Edited December 2, 2020 by RootAnn
Added unfairness paragraph

[teachermom2834]

2 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

I really dislike their laughable (like laugh until you cry) Homeschool-only regulations they started instituting this year. This link has info under "homeschool".

Since they list 90-100=A, 80-89=B on their homeschool transcript form, I'd use the 95=A, 85=B thing you suggested.  If it were me, I'd actually pick numbers based on how I felt at the moment as long as they matched their scale. (I use a much harder scale where As end at 93 & B+ is 90-92, so DD would have likely had less B+s with their scale.) 

Oh I agree. It is super laughable if you know how loose our umbrella school is. I definitely do an eyeroll that somehow our umbrella school sending the transcript verifies anything. I like our umbrella for what it does (which is record keeping and keeping us legal) but they don't verify anything. They have started verifying de grades with copies of an unofficial transcript from the college but I can call my classes whatever I want and give whatever grades I want. It really is not any different than a mom issued transcript as far as any kind of verification. So, odd that UAH considers it preferable. The admissions rep told us that they like Homelife because they can read the transcipts. But I can tell you that those have letter grades!

[cbollin]

and here's the grading scale conversion for the cover school that dmmetler and teachermom and I use.  http://homelifeacademy.com/hla-recordkeeping/grading-scale/

"... because they can read the transcripts".  yes, that is funny.

and Alabama has cover schools too. Maybe it's all about the legal side of private school vs "independent"?  maybe those other schools don't have easy to read columns on transcripts? I don't know. just rambling and showing there is no consistent standard out there with numbers and letters.

[teachermom2834]

2 minutes ago, cbollin said:

 

"... because they can read the transcripts".  yes, that is funny.

 

We got the same comment when we visited Tenn Tech with this ds. This is my third kid doing the college visit thing and the second kid to apply to Tenn Tech and we had never gotten that comment before. Then both schools within a couple months. Really made me wonder what kind of crazy transcripts they have been getting from homeschoolers. 

[katilac]

12 hours ago, scrappyhappymama said:

 Is there a standard number grade to assign when converting letter grades to numerical grades?  I thought about assigning him 95s for all As and 85 for all Bs, but don't want to shortchange him if the convention is otherwise.  

This will almost certainly shortchange him, unless he truly had all mid-level As and Bs. Use 85/95 as a starting point, and adjust up or down for each class as you remember it. 

6 hours ago, RootAnn said:

I really dislike their laughable (like laugh until you cry) Homeschool-only regulations they started instituting this year. This link has info under "homeschool".

 

I am absolutely boggled that the school in question turned out to be UAH. My recent grad is going to be so mad when she hears this! 

She was a freshman in 2016 and, because of the lowered scholarships, we would be paying more than three times the amount if she were entering in 2021 with the same score and GPA 😬 (the scholarships used to be very generous) 

An incoming freshman with a 4.0 GPA and 36 on the ACT will actually be paying nearly triple what we did  (based on out of state like us). Excuse me while I take a moment to be very grateful for our timing . . . 

 

[MamaSprout]

On 12/2/2020 at 3:32 AM, katilac said:

This will almost certainly shortchange him, unless he truly had all mid-level As and Bs. Use 85/95 as a starting point, and adjust up or down for each class as you remember it. 

I am absolutely boggled that the school in question turned out to be UAH. My recent grad is going to be so mad when she hears this! 

She was a freshman in 2016 and, because of the lowered scholarships, we would be paying more than three times the amount if she were entering in 2021 with the same score and GPA 😬 (the scholarships used to be very generous) 

An incoming freshman with a 4.0 GPA and 36 on the ACT will actually be paying nearly triple what we did  (based on out of state like us). Excuse me while I take a moment to be very grateful for our timing . . . 

 

Yeah... this might knock UAH off dd's list, and she only has three target schools. sigh. 

Edited December 3, 2020 by MamaSprout

[scrappyhappymama]

"

"UAH accepted letter only grades for my DD with no problem at all. And they reweight grades based on their weighting."


Yes, I tried to submit our transcript as is.  But we're in Texas, so there are no Umbrella schools.   So UAH emailed and asked for the transcript to be converted to number grades.  

Edited December 3, 2020 by scrappyhappymama

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I sent them the transcript and course descriptions I provided other schools. I also did the fillable transcript form they have for homeschool students. 

I used 95 for any class where I didn't have a percentage. If it was a course where he did really well, I adjusted up to 97-99.

There is a way to indicate weighted credit for AP or DE. I added a point in the column for GP. This isn't in the instructions, but was mentioned in one of my conversations with my son's Admissions Rep.

I thought the UAH rep was very responsive, but unfamiliar with states that don't use cover or umbrella programs. 

ETA: My son was accepted a week after applying. I haven't seen the aid offer yet.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Sebastian (a lady)