How do you weigh Honors courses for GPA purposes?

[Reader411]

I know there are different approaches to this in brick and mortar schools out there, but I was curious how other parents weight these grades (if they do).

 

DS is taking several Honors courses from an online school, but I will be making his transcript for college application purposes and wondering your take on it.

[NittanyJen]

I did not. I noted on the transcript that honors and AP courses were unweighted.

Often the first thing a college does is re-calculate the GPA by their own standards (weighted or unweighted) anyway, so that they are making an apples-to-apples comparison between candidates, and your kid isn’t competing for class rank. So I don’t think it actually matters in the homeschool setting. But … I could be wrong.

[Lori D.]

As @NittanyJen says, many (but not all) colleges strip out the weighted grades and recalculate as unweighted. On the other hand, if you don't weight grades, and your student is up against students who DO have weighted grades, I have heard of cases of students without the weighted grades losing scholarships or even admission to those students with the higher, weighted GPA. 🤷‍♀️ So, hard to say that one way is better...

One option: you can choose to include both a weighted AND an unweighted cumulative GPA on your transcript -- just be sure to include both grading scales.

As far as weighting, this is a pretty standard for how much weight Honors gets compared to unweighted and AP/DE:

. . . unweighted . . . Honors . . . AP & DE (Dual Enrollment)
A . . . 4.0 . . . . . . . . . 4.5 . . . . . . 5.0
B . . . 3.0 . . . . . . . . . 3.5 . . . . . . 4.0
C . . . 2.0 . . . . . . . . . 2.5 . . . . . . 3.0
D . . .  1.0 . . . . . . . . . 1.5 . . . . . . 2.0

Edited October 2, 2021 by Lori D.

[lewelma]

I put two GPAs: one weighted and one unweighted. This dealt with the issue of scholarships that Lori brings up. I weighted as Lori lists in the above post. (Perhaps she told me what to do all those years ago! LOL). My ds did get a big scholarship to CMU, so it must have worked. 

[teachermom2834]

Half point of weight for honors classes and a full point for de or AP. 
 

Many (most?) schools will just look at the course titles and recalculate so it is important to have honors clearly marked on the transcript whether you weight or not. Don’t expect an admissions staffer to go into course descriptions and determine what is honors. Make sure you designate it clearly. 

I have gone with weighted and unweighted GPAs both on the transcript. There have been schools that say they just take what is on the transcript at face value and if that is happening you want the weighted GPA. While most schools might recalculate their own if one of the ones you apply to does not, you could be leaving significant scholarship money on the table that your student would have earned if you had weighted. Unless all your schools are very clear that they recalculate I would have the weighted on there. They absolutely can disregard it and it isn’t weird because they are used to seeing that on there.

 

We also found through the process that the first step in admissions process is often a student worker and not a thoughtful admissions professional. So I like the transcript to be very straightforward and clear and provide all that info. 

[Melissa B]

I put weighted and unweighted GPA on the transcript.

I add 0.5 for honors classes and 1.0 for DE classes. This way my transcript matches those of the public schools in our school district and most of our state.

[RootAnn]

I put weighted & unweighted gpas on my dd#1's transcript because she had Honors courses starting Freshmen year and DE startimg the summer before senior year. It made a significant difference. I know at least one of her schools recalculated gpa themselves based on only "core" classes and their formula. That was fine because her transcript showed everything they needed for that process.

Dd#2 only ended up applying to 2 schools and she took zero honors classes. She did DE at one of the colleges she applied to starting the summer before senior year but so few weighted classes basically made no difference. So I only showed unweighted gpa for that kid. I haven't decided for dd#3 yet.

[kokotg]

half a point for honors and a point for AP/DE here, too. 

[Roadrunner]

Our local high school uses 5.0 scale for AP, DE, and Honors. I am not sure if it’s a California way of doing things, but it’s crazy to put Honors on a same level as AP. I was originally going to do as our local school since my kid will likely be viewed in a regional context,  but I am not sure I can go through with it. I am also leaning on the scale Lori showed up above. 

[EKS]

I did not give a weighted GPA.

47 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Our local high school uses 5.0 scale for AP, DE, and Honors. I am not sure if it’s a California way of doing things, but it’s crazy to put Honors on a same level as AP.

I think it depends on the class.  The honors courses that were actually honors sections (and not embedded honors, where kids got an honors designation for doing an extra project or two) at the local public high school were either equivalent to or head and shoulders above the level of the AP courses. 

[daijobu]

1 hour ago, Roadrunner said:

Our local high school uses 5.0 scale for AP, DE, and Honors. I am not sure if it’s a California way of doing things, but it’s crazy to put Honors on a same level as AP. I was originally going to do as our local school since my kid will likely be viewed in a regional context,  but I am not sure I can go through with it. I am also leaning on the scale Lori showed up above. 

I did it this way just for simplicity.  Also, I considered AoPS to be honors which in many cases was way more challenging than her AP classes, which were kinda easy by comparison.  Or just objectively easy.  

[Roadrunner]

2 hours ago, EKS said:

I did not give a weighted GPA.

I think it depends on the class.  The honors courses that were actually honors sections (and not embedded honors, where kids got an honors designation for doing an extra project or two) at the local public high school were either equivalent to or head and shoulders above the level of the AP courses. 

Well our high school considered Conceptual Physics to be honors (it is the only physics course offered in school). I once showed Connie (Clover Valley Chem) the textbook for honors chem for our local school and she couldn’t believe it. Actually anything that isn’t remedial is labeled honors, so 🤷‍♀️. And we are among the top CA districts. I have a hard time believing we are so far below others. 

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, daijobu said:

I did it this way just for simplicity.  Also, I considered AoPS to be honors which in many cases was way more challenging than her AP classes, which were kinda easy by comparison.  Or just objectively easy.  

I am tempted, especially knowing what our local school calls honors. 

[EKS]

2 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

I have a hard time believing we are so far below others. 

That is definitely below our district.  The only classes that have honors sections are the high school math sequence (and these are fundamentally different from the standard sequence), post-AP statistics, and a two period honors humanities course that was actually more rigorous on the input side than any humanities course I took in graduate school.

[Lori D.]

10 minutes ago, EKS said:

That is definitely below our district.  The only classes that have honors sections are the high school math sequence (and these are fundamentally different from the standard sequence), post-AP statistics, and a two period honors humanities course that was actually more rigorous on the input side than any humanities course I took in graduate school.

That is quite unique and extremely different/far more advanced than anything I've ever seen labeled as "Honors." The course you are describing is way beyond Honors, and is college level. I hope there is a way for students to earn college credit for taking this course! 😄 

As you said up-thread about "embedded" Honors, the typical Honors courses I see require a few more books / assignments / projects; or have a book list that features harder / longer works; or go into more depth on some topics than the regular version of the course -- but Honors is advanced high school level, not college level.

Edited October 2, 2021 by Lori D.

[Roadrunner]

10 minutes ago, EKS said:

That is definitely below our district.  The only classes that have honors sections are the high school math sequence (and these are fundamentally different from the standard sequence), post-AP statistics, and a two period honors humanities course that was actually more rigorous on the input side than any humanities course I took in graduate school.

May I ask where you live? You can PM me. 
I have never seen a post -AP stats offered in any school here. My son’s honors English is reading books on 5th grade level. And AP Lit is considered the hardest class ever. 
I am just curious where such pockets of excellence exist. 

[EKS]

40 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

That is quite unique and extremely different/far more advanced than anything I've ever seen labeled as "Honors." The course you are describing is way beyond Honors, and is college level. I hope there is a way for students to earn college credit for taking this course! 😄

No college credit, and the output side was not nearly as rigorous--which was great for my kid with senioritis starting in September!  I do think it was one of those courses that fundamentally changes students, and maybe that's even better than college credit.

[EKS]

42 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

As you said up-thread about "embedded" Honors, the typical Honors courses I see require a few more books / assignments / projects; or have a book list that features harder / longer works; or go into more depth on some topics than the regular version of the course -- but Honors is advanced high school level, not college level.

I'm not thrilled with the embedded honors model, because I think that an honors course should be fundamentally different--different texts, different assignments, different conversations--and that requires placing students into their own sections.  It should not be about more work.  My son did have a teacher that did the embedded model about as well as it could be done, with assignments that replaced the standard fare rather than adding to it.  

Unfortunately, college level these days, especially in the humanities and nonmajors survey courses in the sciences, seems to be more high school level than anything else, and sometimes not even that.

[EKS]

44 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

May I ask where you live?

One of the top ten districts in Washington state.

[EKS]

48 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

I am just curious where such pockets of excellence exist.

I wouldn't say that the district is totally amazing.  It's good, but it could also improve in a number of areas.  But those two classes, the post AP stats and honors humanities, were definitely amazing.  

[Roadrunner]

1 minute ago, EKS said:

One of the top ten districts in Washington state.

I am impressed. 
I thought maybe VA where I have heard of miracle schools or Bay Area. 
 

I always wonder how some schools manage this while others don’t. You guys are lucky. 
I can tell you stories about our “top school,” but I won’t. 😉

[EKS]

52 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

I am impressed. 
I thought maybe VA where I have heard of miracle schools or Bay Area. 

I always wonder how some schools manage this while others don’t. You guys are lucky. 
I can tell you stories about our “top school,” but I won’t. 😉

This is definitely not a miracle school.  It's more like they have a few teachers that are inspired and two sections worth of students who are interested and capable of that level of inquiry.  A miracle would be if they could apply the honors humanities model to the humanities courses in other grades.  

[Arcadia]

14 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

Our local high school uses 5.0 scale for AP, DE, and Honors. I am not sure if it’s a California way of doing things, but it’s crazy to put Honors on a same level as AP. 

UC and CSU do that. The CSU app just opened on October 1st (yesterday) and it auto spit out the GPA when the student enter all the completed coursework so far.  
 

ETA: It might be an equity issue since not all high schools offer APs for all subjects that they have honors classes for. 

Edited October 3, 2021 by Arcadia

[Reefgazer]

On 10/1/2021 at 11:20 PM, NittanyJen said:

I did not. I noted on the transcript that honors and AP courses were unweighted.

Often the first thing a college does is re-calculate the GPA by their own standards (weighted or unweighted) anyway, so that they are making an apples-to-apples comparison between candidates, and your kid isn’t competing for class rank. So I don’t think it actually matters in the homeschool setting. But … I could be wrong.

I did the same, and for the same reasons.