AP or Dual Enrollment - Transcript Poll

[TheAttachedMama]

It's transcript time!  I'm just curious about how I should handle AP courses on my transcript.

 

Thanks!

Edited May 17, 2022 by TheAttachedMama

[kokotg]

I did. I tried to follow more or less what the local school system does, so I added 1 point (so an A was a 5 instead of a 4) for AP and DE, .5 for honors (with a key at the bottom explaining the system)

[teachermom2834]

Yes. I followed local custom which was a whole point for AP or de and a half point for honors.

Many people will say not to bother because colleges reweight according to their own calculations. I think this is generally true but there are some colleges that do not reweight and just take what is on the transcript at face value. This can make a difference if a specific GPA is used for automatic merit aid or honors programs and the difference between weighted and unweighted would disqualify your student. So I weight according to local custom and put both the weighted and unweighted GPAs on the transcript clearly marked. They can use what they would like.

I used to be in the camp of not weighting but I was wrong. One of mine would have left huge scholarships on the table with an unweighted GPA. That wouldn't have been fair to him. If your student has a 4.0 unweighted then it probably doesn't matter but my kid had some Bs on his transcript and the weighted grades from de classes made up for them. 

 

[Arcadia]

You have a common typo on your thread title.  My kids didn’t have GPA listed on their transcripts. However, DS17 only wanted to apply to state universities and they calculate the GPAs on their applications their way. 

ETA: You should add for AP, DE and honors. Here honors also gets a one point boost. 

Edited May 17, 2022 by Arcadia

[daijobu]

44 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

You have a common typo on your thread title.  My kids didn’t have GPA listed on their transcripts. However, DS17 only wanted to apply to state universities and they calculate the GPAs on their applications their way. 

Maybe the student was enrolled in a community college fencing class?  

https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/dual-duel/

[daijobu]

If it was a community college fencing class with way too much homework it would be a 

dule-causing dual-enrollment duel class.  

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/dule

[Farrar]

I did not weight honors or designate any courses honors. 

I did weight dual enrollment and AP courses one point, as is pretty common.

It will not matter a ton how you do it and I've seen it done lots of ways by different families. Schools will reweight. Just be super clear how you're designating courses and how you're weighting in your school profile and ideally in a tiny note on the transcript itself.

[Roadrunner]

I decided not to do a weighted GPA at all for my transcript. If I end up having to calculate it, I will only weight AP and DE, but I am designating AoPS and Great Books courses as honors. God knows they were harder than any AP. 

[EKS]

I did not provide a weighted GPA because none of the public schools in my state do. 

[Clemsondana]

My kid is considering my alma mater, so I contacted an admissions advisor from there to ask about homeschool transcripts.  It was preliminary since my kid is finishing 10th, but they told me to weight any class in which kid took an AP and list it as 'with AP' and to include honors classes as weighted.  I'll actually be meeting with the coordinator at my umbrella this summer to help set their honors policy and figure out how they want to weight grades since they find that some colleges want them.  It seems so easy to manipulate, but if it's what they want, we'll do it.  

On another note, talking to a friend with a kid at a nearby public school...any kid who takes an AP exam gets 5 points added to their grade, so if they have an 88 B they'd get a 93 A just for taking it, whether they pass or not.  And, they keep the weighted grade in their GPA no matter their AP score.  If that's the case, it seems crazy not to do something to get a bump from my kid's AoPS math work and classes with passing AP exams.  

[TheAttachedMama]

10 hours ago, Arcadia said:

You have a common typo on your thread title.  My kids didn’t have GPA listed on their transcripts. However, DS17 only wanted to apply to state universities and they calculate the GPAs on their applications their way. 

ETA: You should add for AP, DE and honors. Here honors also gets a one point boost. 

Thank you, Arcadia!  Sorry about my typo too! 

[TheAttachedMama]

Another question:  How do you justify what is honors?  

ETA:   Also, if anyone could share a quick screenshot of how you clarified this on your transcript, I would be very thankful.  

Edited May 17, 2022 by TheAttachedMama

[TheAttachedMama]

9 hours ago, daijobu said:

Maybe the student was enrolled in a community college fencing class?  

https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/dual-duel/

hahaha!  You are too funny!   Thank you for all of your help and sorry again.

Edited May 17, 2022 by TheAttachedMama

[Farrar]

Oh, I meant to say... I provided both a weighted and an unweighted. Some schools do that as well. The vast majority of schools do their own calculations, but for those that don't. One school shared theirs with ds, by the way, and it was totally different than anything I managed to get no matter how I played with our numbers. It was higher than most of the versions I tried though, and higher than our weighted that I listed, so definitely no complaints.

As for justifying honors... honestly, it's totally up to you in the end. But that's why I didn't bother trying. Again, lots of approaches and different students and college goals may need different ones. I'm just telling you what I did. I put that my homeschool did not designate any courses honors but that all academic courses represented honors or college preparatory work on the school profile and the transcript. Another approach would be to put on the school profile that courses were designated honors if x, y, or z. And list your criteria. for making a course honors. Like, if the student spent more than x hours on it or if it included a research component or if the book list went beyond what's typical for a high school student or if the course used a college textbook. Whatever you want to put.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Farrar

[teachermom2834]

For my first two students I didn’t bother with the honors designation because it was just not clear whereas de was obvious because it was coming from the local university. Also, in a way I felt like highlighting some courses as honors and others not (they definitely were not all honors level) I was actually highlighting the fact that some were not that rigorous. Our umbrella school required proof of honors and I just didn’t bother with it. They each had 30+ hours of de which was more than enough extra weight on their transcripts to not bother with any honors designation on coursework earlier in high school. 
 

My third student had high test scores and special extra curriculars and I thought he’d be in the running for the top full ride scholarship at our flagship and I didn’t want to leave anything on the table, so I did go back and designate honors for his early high school coursework. 
 

I don’t think it mattered in any case. Once you are up over a 4.0 I really don’t think it matters how much over a 4.0 it goes. Right? Is there really a difference between a 4.5 and a 4.6? 
 

My dd is attending a private school next year for high school. They offer an odd mix of honors/AP/de. They don’t even offer honors in everything and don’t push kids to take all advanced class schedules.  They have student acceptances at all kinds of impressive schools every year. So every extra half quality point for honors clearly isn’t a big deal. You can start to worry if you think too hard about public school students having all honors and all AP everything but really you don’t need that. 

[Farrar]

20 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:

My dd is attending a private school next year for high school. They offer an odd mix of honors/AP/de. They don’t even offer honors in everything and don’t push kids to take all advanced class schedules.  They have student acceptances at all kinds of impressive schools every year. So every extra half quality point for honors clearly isn’t a big deal. You can start to worry if you think too hard about public school students having all honors and all AP everything but really you don’t need that. 

A lot of this is being contextualized by their school curriculum and their school profile. If they're sending lots of kids to selective schools, then they may be known to those schools at this point. The same regional reps are reading the applications from this school, the school counselor may have fostered relationships with those selective schools. So when they read those applications, the schools understand what each thing means. On the other hand, from a school they know less, they might really be relying on the honors designation. Or they might know it means less at another school that they also know well. So it's not that it doesn't matter for kids - it's that the context matters a lot more.

[teachermom2834]

15 minutes ago, Farrar said:

A lot of this is being contextualized by their school curriculum and their school profile. If they're sending lots of kids to selective schools, then they may be known to those schools at this point. The same regional reps are reading the applications from this school, the school counselor may have fostered relationships with those selective schools. So when they read those applications, the schools understand what each thing means. On the other hand, from a school they know less, they might really be relying on the honors designation. Or they might know it means less at another school that they also know well. So it's not that it doesn't matter for kids - it's that the context matters a lot more.

Yes. I realize that there is more context coming from schools than homeschoolers for sure and I did end up designating honors for that reason. But I also do not think homeschoolers need to get caught up worrying that every class needs to be honors or AP because that is what the school down the road does. 
 

My friend who had kids at super competitive public school is worried about my dd going where her 9th grade history class isn’t going to be honors because at the competitive public school they go after every half point on the weighted average. I’ve heard homeschoolers get that focused on it as well and I think that is overblown. Just my opinion of course. 
 

 

[Farrar]

1 minute ago, teachermom2834 said:

Yes. I realize that there is more context coming from schools than homeschoolers for sure and I did end up designating honors for that reason. But I also do not think homeschoolers need to get caught up worrying that every class needs to be honors or AP because that is what the school down the road does. 
 

My friend who had kids at super competitive public school is worried about my dd going where her 9th grade history class isn’t going to be honors because at the competitive public school they go after every half point on the weighted average. I’ve heard homeschoolers get that focused on it as well and I think that is overblown. Just my opinion of course. 
 

 

Totally agreed. I think the important thing is that we also contextualize. Not just with course descriptions but also in the school profile. Make it clear what you offered and didn't offer. Students who attend schools where nothing is honors don't get penalized for not taking courses they couldn't take.

[mlktwins]

Any courses I designate as honors on transcripts will be for outsourced courses where the boys have done the extra work designated for honors students.  I'm not designating any of my home courses as honors, but the majority of their high school has been outsourced.  They will have a mix of Honors, AP, and DE and I will be doing an unweighted and weighted GPA.  

[Roadrunner]

Any home designed courses I didn’t designate as honors even if they were taught at that level. We have a ton of those on transcript. Reasoning? I don’t really have one, but I decided to be conservative on that end. I designated AoPS as honors because nobody in a right mind would argue with it. I also designated Great Books as honors because there is a way to take those same class as dual enrollment, so it logically follows.
I also decided in a way the designations might not matter because colleges do their own thing. 
If I did what our PS does, (designating conceptual physics as honors and giving an entire extra grade point…), I would have need to come up with honors + designations. 🤣

[Lori D.]

You might also check out PAGE 1 of the big pinned thread "High School Motherlode #2" at the top of the high school board. Lots of past wisdom in linked threads there on lots of transcript/record-keeping topics such as:

page #1 topics:
Transcripts / Record Keeping
Credits
Grading / GPA
Honors Courses
Record Keeping / Course Descriptions / Letter of Recommendation / Volunteering
Graduation topics / Diplomas
 

In case it helps, here are some of those linked threads on the topics you are asking about:

GPA - weighted / unweighted
GPA scale (weighted and unweighted discussion) 
Transcript: weighted or unweighted?
Weighted GPA for Honors class? 
If you weight GPA, what is the weighted scale? 
Weighted transcript (explanation; how to calculate it)

HONORS COURSES
What makes a class "Honors"? 
Honors courses: what is required for the label?

[bibiche]

Somewhat related… Do I weight a class differently according to where it is taken? So, say one class is taken at a community college and one class is taken at Duke. Are they both given the same amount of weight or do I weight Duke more because it is more rigorous? Or the same and let the admissions people figure it out?

[kokotg]

4 hours ago, TheAttachedMama said:

Another question:  How do you justify what is honors?  

 

I think the only classes I called honors were math classes done at home; I justified it because my husband is a high school math teacher and could look at what they were doing at home and confirm that it was honors level at his school. I feel like some other stuff would certainly be honors level at our local schools (some of our lit classes...like the one we just did where it was an AP class for my 12th grader and my 10th grader did all the same stuff but didn't take the exam this year or the WTM chemistry class my 10th grader took this year), but I don't designate anything honors unless I know I can absolutely justify it if anyone ever asks. I might call that lit class honors after all, now that I think about it. But, yeah, I only call something honors if I feel like I'd be cheating my kids by NOT calling it honors.

[teachermom2834]

1 hour ago, bibiche said:

Somewhat related… Do I weight a class differently according to where it is taken? So, say one class is taken at a community college and one class is taken at Duke. Are they both given the same amount of weight or do I weight Duke more because it is more rigorous? Or the same and let the admissions people figure it out?

I would weight them the same and just make sure it is designated where the courses were taken. The admissions people will obviously understand. 
 

There just are limitations to all of these systems and this is one of them. Weighting them differently just is too creative in my opinion and deviates too much from standard procedure. 
 

Sometimes the numbers just don’t tell the story but messing with the system is way too confusing. Then you need to make sure to highlight the coursework in other ways. I think I attempted to make sure my transcript didn’t hurt my kids or sell them short by denying them the points and credits they had earned but it isn’t necessarily the best place to make sure to highlight the strength of special achievements (like coursework from Duke). Have it on there but highlight it elsewhere rather than try to weight it with an extra half point or something. 
 

As always just my opinion and there are lots of ways of doing things and most of them work out just fine.

[Clemsondana]

1 hour ago, bibiche said:

Somewhat related… Do I weight a class differently according to where it is taken? So, say one class is taken at a community college and one class is taken at Duke. Are they both given the same amount of weight or do I weight Duke more because it is more rigorous? Or the same and let the admissions people figure it out?

The point of the weight is to give a high schooler a bump for taking a college class - a B in a college class is in theory equivalent to an A in a regular high school class, in terms of what was learned.  Of course there's no guarantee that's what happened, but I think it's a measure to avoid penalizing students who take on a challenge.  In theory, classes can transfer between colleges - it's not exactly true, but there are transfer agreements between various schools.  I know that for one college that my kid is considering, we can type in classes from various other colleges, including the nearby CCs, and see what course, if any, is the corresponding course at the big school.  For that matter, when I was attending a big school, there were particular classes that students from big school took at the CC, and, alternatively, certain courses that students at the CC would pay to take at big school, because specific courses and instructors were known to be easier.  And, sometimes the same person actually taught at both places, since many univeristy courses are taught by adjuncts.  Admissions people can be impressed by a transcript from a prestigious school, but as far as GPA it shouldn't matter where a course was taken.  For that matter, it's common for students at our co-op to say that when they take DE classes the classes are significantly easier than the ones taught at our co-op.  

[Roadrunner]

I heard some schools (Caltech is one) automatically dismiss any grade assigned by a parent. Also not directly related, but…

Edited May 17, 2022 by Roadrunner

[Lori D.]

 

3 hours ago, bibiche said:

Somewhat related… Do I weight a class differently according to where it is taken? So, say one class is taken at a community college and one class is taken at Duke. Are they both given the same amount of weight or do I weight Duke more because it is more rigorous? Or the same and let the admissions people figure it out?

Everything I've seen shows following the standard below for weighting grades, regardless of institution through which the credit was earned. On the transcript (and Course Description document), you show through notations / notes section where each credit was earned, and it will be clear to the colleges being applied to that a Duke DE course would likely be more rigorous than a CC DE course.

. . . regular . . . . .honors. . . . .AP / DE (college)
A = 4.00 . . . . . .  4.50 . . . . . . 5.00
B = 3.00 . . . . . .  3.50 . . . . . . 4.00
C = 2.00 . . . . . .  2.50 . . . . . . 3.00
D = 1.00 . . . . . .   1.50 . . . . . . 2.00

Edited May 17, 2022 by Lori D.

[Miss Tick]

2 hours ago, Clemsondana said:

For that matter, when I was attending a big school, there were particular classes that students from big school took at the CC,

CC person told me that some students from Big U take CC classes because the credit transfers but the grade doesn't. So if you have to take, say, Chemistry to check a requirement, but you don't think you are going to get a stellar grade (or you don't want to put in the time) you can scrape a passing grade at the CC and not ding your gpa. Not my cuppa, but goes to show that if there is a way to game the system, people will find it.

[teachermom2834]

13 minutes ago, SusanC said:

CC person told me that some students from Big U take CC classes because the credit transfers but the grade doesn't. So if you have to take, say, Chemistry to check a requirement, but you don't think you are going to get a stellar grade (or you don't want to put in the time) you can scrape a passing grade at the CC and not ding your gpa. Not my cuppa, but goes to show that if there is a way to game the system, people will find it.

Definitely. My ds goes to big state U. He took foreign language de so he isn’t dealing with that requirement but his peers (top honors students) are finding the foreign language requirement to be a big time suck and very frustrating to those not really interested. Very common practice to drop and take online through the local cc and transfer the credit back. And the deal with the credit transferring and not the grade applies here, too. So definitely a common practice. I know when one of my older guys was struggling with a particular course I did go hunting for someplace easier he could possibly take it if it meant he wasn’t going to graduate if he couldn’t pass it at his university. So pretty common practice. 
 

So while there is a system for transferring credits I do think everyone knows everything isn’t exactly equivalent. 

[BusyMom5]

Yes, I weighted DE classes as a 5.  I actually listed weighted GPA and unweighted GPA.  

[Clemsondana]

I've looked around some more and several sites say that it's typical for schools to count their highest course (honors, AP, whatever) as worth 5 points vs 4 for regular.  That's what happened when I was in school, too, so that the weighted grades could include a mix of honors, advanced, etc.  For instance, at my high school and spouse's, in different states, all foreign language years 3 and up was weighted (most people only took 1 and 2), and all maths above a certain level were weighted.  Another site said that Honors, AP, IB, and DE all should be worth 5 on a 4 point scale.  I read somewhere, a few years ago, where honors/advanced were worth 5 and AP/DE were worth 6.  At some point it all seems absurd, particularly when we know that you don't have to pass an AP exam to get the benefit of the AP bump.  I had never seen the 1/2 point increase to a 4.5 before, but I guess, like the 6 point scale, it's an attempt to deliniate between honors and AP.  It all seems so imprecise.  My plan is to weight what seems appropriate and give both GPAs.  

Edited May 17, 2022 by Clemsondana

[teachermom2834]

14 minutes ago, Clemsondana said:

 At some point it all seems absurd, particularly when we know that you don't have to pass an AP exam to get the benefit of the AP bump.  I had never seen the 1/2 point increase to a 4.5 before, but I guess, like the 6 point scale, it's an attempt to deliniate between honors and AP.  It all seems so imprecise.  My plan is to weight what seems appropriate and give both GPAs.  

Yes, this. It is imprecise and can get absurd. So yes, weight in a way that make sense to you and the person reading it so that your student isn’t penalized but don’t get crazy or complicated about it. Surely at some point there is a max GPA the college considers. I guess I am skeptical that any admissions officer is looking at a 4.6 as different than a 4.8. At that point the student took hard classes and got all As and it doesn’t matter exactly how the school calculated it. Surely? I have seen bios of students in the paper or whatever that listed something like a 5.6 GPA. Surely no one even knows what that means? Yes, at some point it just becomes absurd. No college is going to say “wow! A 5.6 GPA! This student gets all the scholarships!” 

[bibiche]

This thread has convinced me to weight nothing. 😂 They’ll get the grades, they’ll get where the classes were taken, they can figure it out themselves!

[Lori D.]

2 hours ago, bibiche said:

This thread has convinced me to weight nothing. 😂 They’ll get the grades, they’ll get where the classes were taken, they can figure it out themselves!

The only problem with this approach is that if your student takes a fair amount of DE or AP (say more than 2-3 classes), NOT weighting WILL impact their cumulative GPA which will be competing for admissions -- but esp. for SCHOLARSHIPS.

I recommend listing both a weighted and an unweighted GPA on the transcript (which several people have mentioned doing above), so that you don't cut your student out of potential scholarships, or reduce what scholarship amount they are offered.

I have seen this topic of NOT weighting discussed on these boards a few times by people who regretted NOT weighting grades because their students missed out on a scholarship entirely, or was awarded a lower scholarship because their unweighted GPA landed them in a lower "bracket" of scholarship $$.

Just a thought.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Lori D.

[Clemsondana]

2 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

Yes, this. It is imprecise and can get absurd. So yes, weight in a way that make sense to you and the person reading it so that your student isn’t penalized but don’t get crazy or complicated about it. Surely at some point there is a max GPA the college considers. I guess I am skeptical that any admissions officer is looking at a 4.6 as different than a 4.8. At that point the student took hard classes and got all As and it doesn’t matter exactly how the school calculated it. Surely? I have seen bios of students in the paper or whatever that listed something like a 5.6 GPA. Surely no one even knows what that means? Yes, at some point it just becomes absurd. No college is going to say “wow! A 5.6 GPA! This student gets all the scholarships!” 

Yes!  And I always wonder how it's even possible.  Don't they have to take health and PE and a fine arts credit and personal finance or typing or some other random stuff?  I'm happy to give credit for honors, but there is no such thing as honors health.  I do remember some students at my high school working the system to up their GPA - where I took band, they took study hall or teacher's aide so that there were fewer unweighted classes to pull them down.  I took the 'I've got 7 periods in a school day, so let's fill them all with stuff to learn' approach, so no shot at valedictorian but I continued with marching band all the way through college and now sometimes play in church, and I took sociology and an extra science class as electives so it seems like time well spent.  My kid will have mostly weighted core classes and some classes weighted due to DE, but horticulture and science fiction were just fun electives and, despite PE including some hardcore workouts with a trainer as part of summer strenght and conditioning for a sport, we are not putting honors PE on a transcript.  🙂  

And, super strange that we are talking anonymously on this forum despite knowing each other...

[Roadrunner]

I have a freshman in PS. Even with PE and performing art, his GPA is 4.7. 🙄 Why? Because our school gives a full point bump to honors. It’s ridiculous. 

[mlktwins]

23 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

I have a freshman in PS. Even with PE and performing art, his GPA is 4.7. 🙄 Why? Because our school gives a full point bump to honors. It’s ridiculous. 

Wow?  I hope college re-weight everyone's GPA based one the same criteria then.  Either .5 for honors or 1.0 for honors, but everyone who applies gets the same treatment.

 

[Roadrunner]

43 minutes ago, mlktwins said:

Wow?  I hope college re-weight everyone's GPA based one the same criteria then.  Either .5 for honors or 1.0 for honors, but everyone who applies gets the same treatment.

 

Yep, wow indeed 🤣🤣🤣

CA adds an extra point for honors, AP, and DE. They also call everything that isn’t remedial honors. The only kids in non honors courses at our PS are those struggling with academics with very rare exceptions. 
 

[cintinative]

17 hours ago, Clemsondana said:

Yes!  And I always wonder how it's even possible.  Don't they have to take health and PE and a fine arts credit and personal finance or typing or some other random stuff?  I'm happy to give credit for honors, but there is no such thing as honors health.  I do remember some students at my high school working the system to up their GPA - where I took band, they took study hall or teacher's aide so that there were fewer unweighted classes to pull them down.  I took the 'I've got 7 periods in a school day, so let's fill them all with stuff to learn' approach, so no shot at valedictorian but I continued with marching band all the way through college and now sometimes play in church, and I took sociology and an extra science class as electives so it seems like time well spent.  My kid will have mostly weighted core classes and some classes weighted due to DE, but horticulture and science fiction were just fun electives and, despite PE including some hardcore workouts with a trainer as part of summer strenght and conditioning for a sport, we are not putting honors PE on a transcript.  🙂  

And, super strange that we are talking anonymously on this forum despite knowing each other...

My nephew in public school got dinged on his class rank because of summer gym of all things. It is unweighted, of course, but some others got out of gym by doing a sport, so there was no unweighted A on their transcript. Thus their class rank was higher.  

[teachermom2834]

1 hour ago, mlktwins said:

Wow?  I hope college re-weight everyone's GPA based one the same criteria then.  Either .5 for honors or 1.0 for honors, but everyone who applies gets the same treatment.

 

The majority of colleges really do. Just to reassure you. And I really believe that the ones that don’t have some sort of cutoff after which it’s a wash. Like everything over a 4.25 or 4.5 is treated the same or something like that. It’s been awhile since I was in the middle of it but I know I have seen that somewhere my kids were applying. 
 

There is no way these colleges don’t know the game. 

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, cintinative said:

My nephew in public school got dinged on his class rank because of summer gym of all things. It is unweighted, of course, but some others got out of gym by doing a sport, so there was no unweighted A on their transcript. Thus their class rank was higher.  

For this reason our PS doesn’t rank, and it has created a criteria for a valedictorian (need all A’s, need this many APs or honors courses….). The result is we routinely have 15+ valedictorians per year. 🙄And some kids game the system by not taking hard APs and going for honors instead. It’s all a dumb game if you ask me. 

[Library Momma]

Public schools here weigh only for class rank not for final GPA.  The grading scale is out of a hundred and honors classes are multiplied 1.1 times.  AP and DE classes are multiplied 1.2 times.  It is almost impossible to have a tie for valedictorian because the weighted GPA would be something like 108.23.  Also core academics are weighted differently than electives.

Through the years I've heard many people discussing the weighting at our local schools but most people don't realize that it is only for rank even though it is explicitly explained.  It is understood that most colleges do their own weighting calculations for admissions.