High School Transcript Questions

[nelewaf]

Hi, I need some advice and I have a few transcript questions: I was wondering if things have changed much in the last few years regarding what everyone here thinks and does regarding transcripts.

1) What do you do with the courses taken during Fall 2024-Spr 2025 for  senior year when applying this fall on the transcript? Is it OK to list these courses at the top of the transcript, so that Admissions will see these are this year's courses? 

2) Do you recommend subject-listing of courses or by year-listing, i.e., 9th grade courses, 10th grade courses, etc? 

3) Do you provide both the weighted and unweighted GPA? 

4) is this still the standard weighting that is most used: AP courses = 1.0 quality point; Honors courses = .5 quality point

5) Grading Scale:  A+= 4.3    , A=4.0.  ; A-=3.7 ... 

TIA!!

 

[Lori D.]

The following is JMO, based on trends I've seen over the last 15+ years of participating on the high school and college boards here at the WTM. Other posters will have other views and other reasons for why they did what they did. All that to say... No one right answer most of the time. 😉 A lot will depend on your student's specific set of courses and grades, and what colleges the student will be applying to. BEST of luck!
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1 = Yes
You can list "IP" (in progress) in place of a grade for current courses. Make sure to explain in the notes section of the transcript that "IP" means "in progress".
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2 = Check what layout future colleges might want
Some don't care, some want by grade-year. Also, it is possible to do a layout that does both types of layout simultaneously -- by subject (down the lefthand side in a column, with a break or line between subjects) and by grade-year (across the top) 
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3. = Up to you
If only using unweighted grades, just use the unweighted GPA and grading scale on the transcript. If using weighted grades, then some people include both the weighted and unweighted GPA and weighted and unweighted grading scales -- and some people use just the weighted GPA and weighted grading scale.

Note that whatever you do, some colleges "unweight" the GPA and assign grade points for each grade according to their own grading scale, so that all GPAs are comparable.

Also, consider if the student has done enough AP and/or DE (dual enrollment) to make it worthwhile to use a weighted grading scale. If only 1-3, that may not be worth it. If more than 3, then certainly consider it. If you don't weight it, and if the future college does not unweight all transcripts grades, then your student is at a disadvantage and may miss out on a scholarship requiring a higher GPA that weighted grades would help with. Just my personal opinion: if you have a good amount of AP and/or DE, I would skip weighting a 0.5 point for "Honors" -- what is considered to be "Honors" varies SO widely from high school to high school, that it is pretty meaningless to colleges. AP and DE are much more standardized and verifiable/creditable as advanced work than "Honors."

 If weighting grades (for just AP/DE), then you could include something like this in the notes section of the transcript:

Grading Scales . . . . . . . Cumulative Totals
weighted . . unweighted. . . (note: dual enrollment courses: 1 semester = 1.0 credit)
A = 5.0 . . . A = 4.0. . . . . .  total credits = 28
B = 4.0 . . . B = 3.0 . . . . . . total GPA (weighted) = 4.18
C = 3.0 . . . C = 2.0 . . . . .  .total GPA (unweighted) = 3.82. 
D = 2.0 . . . D = 1.0 . . . . . . 
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4. Yes
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5. Hmmm...
Yes, you can use that grading scale, BUT, most people don't go that route. And, it really simplifies things for college admission officers when you use with a simple grading scale, without the +/- tweaks to the grade. So:

Grading scale
A = 4.0
B = 3.0
C = 2.0
D = 1.0
F = 0.0

And if weighting grades, you would want to add a note that 
- AP / DE = adds 1.0 point of weight to the grade
- Honors = adds 0.50 point of weight to the grade

Edited September 28 by Lori D.

[nelewaf]

Lori D. Thanks for getting back to me!! 

1) Ok, IP makes sense!

2) To check what future colleges want, Should I have my ds call the admission office and ask if they have a preference? 

3) Thanks for the explanation of weighted and unweighted  GPAs. Several  years ago, for my daughter, I used both, so I'll probably do that. My ds has 9 APs so I think there's enough. 

4) Great

5) Our school district calculates grades this way, as do several other public high schools in our part of our state.  I just figured that Adcoms would know the schools in our area and be used to that so it would not pose much of an issue. 

Again, Thanks so much!

 

 

 

[EKS]

7 hours ago, nelewaf said:

1) What do you do with the courses taken during Fall 2024-Spr 2025 for  senior year when applying this fall on the transcript? Is it OK to list these courses at the top of the transcript, so that Admissions will see these are this year's courses? 

I listed the senior year courses with in progress (IP) input for the grade and the number of credits in parentheses.  

7 hours ago, nelewaf said:

2) Do you recommend subject-listing of courses or by year-listing, i.e., 9th grade courses, 10th grade courses, etc? 

I prefer listing by subject.  This give the person viewing the transcript an easy understanding of what the student did in the different areas.

7 hours ago, nelewaf said:

3) Do you provide both the weighted and unweighted GPA? 

I only provided an unweighted GPA. 

7 hours ago, nelewaf said:

4) is this still the standard weighting that is most used: AP courses = 1.0 quality point; Honors courses = .5 quality point

That is what I would have done if I had gone the weighted route.

7 hours ago, nelewaf said:

5) Grading Scale:  A+= 4.3    , A=4.0.  ; A-=3.7 ... 

No A+s here.  So A = 4.0, etc.

[regentrude]

I prefer course listing by subject and year. There's a great template many of us here have used.

Subject makes it much easier to see what the student has actually done in each area, without hunting through a chronological transcript.

By year gives a good overview of each year's course load and rigor.

Edited September 29 by regentrude

[nelewaf]

regentrude - Thanks.  Yes, this is what I'm looking for!  So by year and subject would look like:

           an overall column going by year,  say at the top,

           &  the subjects going along at the left margin?

 

Does that make sense?   So with your mind's eye you can see both at the same time...?

 

[lewelma]

 

Someone on this board gave me this. I put explanations to the right of the different codes and grading scales

Edited September 29 by lewelma

[nelewaf]

lewelma, Thank You!!  This is great. 

🙂 Thank you so much. 😃 

[regentrude]

22 hours ago, nelewaf said:

regentrude - Thanks.  Yes, this is what I'm looking for!  So by year and subject would look like:

           an overall column going by year,  say at the top,

           &  the subjects going along at the left margin?

 

Does that make sense?   So with your mind's eye you can see both at the same time...?

 

I posted the transcript in your other thread 

[Likaly]

On 9/29/2024 at 6:05 PM, regentrude said:

I prefer course listing by subject and year. There's a great template many of us here have used.

Subject makes it much easier to see what the student has actually done in each area, without hunting through a chronological transcript.

By year gives a good overview of each year's course load and rigor.

Could you please share the link to this template? Thanks a lot!

 

[Likaly]

On 9/29/2024 at 7:02 PM, lewelma said:

 

Someone on this board gave me this. I put explanations to the right of the different codes and grading scales

Could you please help me? I am grateful for all your posts and questions, reading them from the 2010s at night. So, how can I include all extracurriculars (if they can be called that)? For example, he is in the 10th grade; there is no way I can include him starting from Algebra 1 since he is doing LA and Calculus BC now, plus Profs and Olympiad, etc., so it's 4-6 hours of math per day. The same applies to physics or CS; it's like 3-6 separate items per subject per year.

[8filltheheart]

33 minutes ago, Likaly said:

Could you please help me? I am grateful for all your posts and questions, reading them from the 2010s at night. So, how can I include all extracurriculars (if they can be called that)? For example, he is in the 10th grade; there is no way I can include him starting from Algebra 1 since he is doing LA and Calculus BC now, plus Profs and Olympiad, etc., so it's 4-6 hours of math per day. The same applies to physics or CS; it's like 3-6 separate items per subject per year.

Why not? I have had kids with crazy loaded transcripts. I have a ds who basically completed the equivalent of minors in math and physics in high school. A dd had 15 foreign lang crs. The beauty of that transcript format is just how ingenious it is for fitting so much information on a single pg.

[Lori D.]

28 minutes ago, Likaly said:

...how can I include all extracurriculars (if they can be called that)? For example...  Profs and Olympiad, etc

All of the extracurriculars go on a separate Extracurriculars, Honors, and Awards document which you upload to colleges when applying, along with the separate 1-page transcript, and the separate multi-page Course Descriptions document.

That way, each extracurricular, honor, award, etc. can "shine" with a good paragraph or two detailing his achievements and passion. So Math Olympiad would go there. Not sure what "Profs" is -- assuming another math-based extracurricular??
 

28 minutes ago, Likaly said:

...there is no way I can include him starting from Algebra 1 since he is doing LA and Calculus BC now, plus Profs and Olympiad, etc., so it's 4-6 hours of math per day. The same applies to physics or CS; it's like 3-6 separate items per subject per year...

The transcript is a list of all of the courses, with the grade and the amount of credit earned for each course. If there are too many courses to fit, you can always leave off anything done prior to 9th grade. He will certainly have plenty of math credits all the way through high school, so the Alg. 1, Geometry, and Alg. 2 would not be missed. 

I would not include the "Olympiad Geometry" in your course listings on the transcript unless it was an actual math course. It will shine much brighter as a detailed listing on the Extracurricular document, rather than hidden on a transcript as a single line item. 

[regentrude]

3 hours ago, Likaly said:

Could you please share the link to this template? Thanks a lot!

 

Posted in the  recent thread on Dori's transcript template.

[Likaly]

17 hours ago, regentrude said:

Posted in the  recent thread on Dori's transcript template.

Thanks! will look for it.

 

[Likaly]

20 hours ago, Lori D. said:

All of the extracurriculars go on a separate Extracurriculars, Honors, and Awards document which you upload to colleges when applying, along with the separate 1-page transcript, and the separate multi-page Course Descriptions document.

That way, each extracurricular, honor, award, etc. can "shine" with a good paragraph or two detailing his achievements and passion. So Math Olympiad would go there. Not sure what "Profs" is -- assuming another math-based extracurricular??
 

The transcript is a list of all of the courses, with the grade and the amount of credit earned for each course. If there are too many courses to fit, you can always leave off anything done prior to 9th grade. He will certainly have plenty of math credits all the way through high school, so the Alg. 1, Geometry, and Alg. 2 would not be missed. 

I would not include the "Olympiad Geometry" in your course listings on the transcript unless it was an actual math course. It will shine much brighter as a detailed listing on the Extracurricular document, rather than hidden on a transcript as a single line item. 

Thanks a lot! That's extremely helpful. I have never read about that. Will change the transcript and description courses for the kids.

[Likaly]

20 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

Why not? I have had kids with crazy loaded transcripts. I have a ds who basically completed the equivalent of minors in math and physics in high school. A dd had 15 foreign lang crs. The beauty of that transcript format is just how ingenious it is for fitting so much information on a single pg.

What are the reasons for listing the subjects (I have read a lot that colleges prefer only listings by years?) Thanks for taking the time to explain!

[cintinative]

10 minutes ago, Likaly said:

What are the reasons for listing the subjects (I have read a lot that colleges prefer only listings by years?) Thanks for taking the time to explain!

The template provided above lists by subject (along left) and year (along top).  So as you scan down the page you see the progression within a subject. For example, in math, it will show the progression from year to year.  

[EKS]

2 hours ago, Likaly said:

What are the reasons for listing the subjects (I have read a lot that colleges prefer only listings by years?)

We never encountered such a college except for the University of Washington which wanted all classes and grades to be input into a form it provided.