Question about high school grades...

[krcit]

I'm asking here because it's not a big deal but I'm just curious how other schools do things and wondering why ours does it like this. At my dd's high school, honor roll is 88 and high honor roll is 95. My dd is in all honors classes and one AP class which are weighted. However, they only weight them on her transcript and not on her report card. For example, her unweighted average is 92.3 but weighted it is 96.3 so she doesn't make the high honor roll. Not a big deal but kind of annoying to me. Anyone else's school do this and do you know why? The kid works her tail off so it would be nice to be recognized for her efforts.

 

[golfgal]

Our school doesn't weight grades at all but they do have 2 class rankings, one is an honors rank and one is an overall rank. They have a formula that they use for honors classes/AP/CIS that calculates their honors class rank. If you don't take honors classes you can't finish in the top 20-30% or more in the class. I prefer that because having your name on a list in the newspaper really doesn't mean much to colleges but your class rank does. We have an A and a B honor roll that gets published but it don't mean that much really.

 

[MrsPete]

She is being recognized -- she's making honor roll, just not high honor roll.

This isn't something to get worked up about. When colleges look at her transcript, they'll see all the numbers (and the high school summary, which details what classes were available to her and much more information), so they'll take all that into consideration. That matters much more than which honor roll she "made".

I understand where you're coming from. You want her to be at the top. I'm kind of irritated that my daughter's made ONE B in high school -- and it was a 92. A 93 would've been an A. But the vast majority won't be top-top-top in everything.

 

[golfgal]

She is being recognized -- she's making honor roll, just not high honor roll.

This isn't something to get worked up about. When colleges look at her transcript, they'll see all the numbers (and the high school summary, which details what classes were available to her and much more information), so they'll take all that into consideration. That matters much more than which honor roll she "made".

I understand where you're coming from. You want her to be at the top. I'm kind of irritated that my daughter's made ONE B in high school -- and it was a 92. A 93 would've been an A. But the vast majority won't be top-top-top in everything.

Which also brings up another point, every school has their own grading system and even in individual schools, individual teachers have their own scales. In our school a 94 is the cut off for an A, or even 96 for some classes. All that information gets sent from the counselor's office with the student transcript when they apply for college.

 

[tvguy]

Which also brings up another point, every school has their own grading system and even in individual schools, individual teachers have their own scales. In our school a 94 is the cut off for an A, or even 96 for some classes. All that information gets sent from the counselor's office with the student transcript when they apply for college.

Which is why more and more colleges aren't accepting weighted grades, or AP classes. Wish I had known that before I paid for those AP exams.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Which is why more and more colleges aren't accepting weighted grades, or AP classes. Wish I had known that before I paid for those AP exams.

I've not known a college that accepts the class grade for
AP coursework. They only considered the exam score and often, you have to more than just "pass". This is what makes Dual Enrollment more appealing I'd that is available. Even then, that only works if the community college coursework is widely Accepted. The only colleges I have known to not accept that were unacredited institutions that advertise on late night tv. I interviewed at one once for something different. Even with a Bachelor's degree from a major university, NONE of my coursework would be considered to get out of basic gen Ed coursework since that would mess up their profits.

YMMV.

I agree with others to not sweat the honor roll disinction.

 

[tasha99]

Which also brings up another point, every school has their own grading system and even in individual schools, individual teachers have their own scales. In our school a 94 is the cut off for an A, or even 96 for some classes. All that information gets sent from the counselor's office with the student transcript when they apply for college.

It's all so arbitrary. I took a computer programming class as an undergrad where the highest A on one test was a 38%. Curved grades are the only way to get an accurate ranking, and even those are as much a reflection of peers (aka competition) as they are of the person getting the grade.

 

[krcit]

Thanks for the info! She's my oldest so this is all new to me. I know it means nothing in the long run as long as the colleges are aware of her class load. I'm just going to enjoy this year because next year the college search will begin

 

[Hannathy]

Our high school doesn't weight them at all anywhere. Your AP calculus A is worth the same as your A in underwater basketweaving.

 

[mjkacmom]

Our HS (and JH) considers 93 - 100 high honor roll. Her GPA is weighted because of honors classes (she has a 4.4).

 

[scrapquitler]

At my DDs school it is all wieghted. There are five levels of classes (lowest to highest) basic, general, academic, honors and AP. An A in a 'basic' class is ranked much lower than an A in the other levels, and so on. My DD is in Academic classes, and her A+ in an academic level class is worth about an A- in an AP class. Honor Roll goes from 3.2 GPA up to 3.5 GPA, High Honors from 3.5 or higher (it can go up to 4.8 I think if you have all AP classes with A+ grades).
The GPA on the report card was calculated to 5 decimal points.

 

[golfgal]

Which is why more and more colleges aren't accepting weighted grades, or AP classes. Wish I had known that before I paid for those AP exams.

A lot of colleges still 'accept' AP classes but they don't give "credit" for them. Usually what you see is kids being passed into 200 level classes vs 100 level, which, in the long run can speed up graduation, thus saving money but you won't see that AP class on your college transcript like you used to.

I've not known a college that accepts the class grade for
AP coursework. They only considered the exam score and often, you have to more than just "pass". This is what makes Dual Enrollment more appealing I'd that is available. Even then, that only works if the community college coursework is widely Accepted. The only colleges I have known to not accept that were unacredited institutions that advertise on late night tv. I interviewed at one once for something different. Even with a Bachelor's degree from a major university, NONE of my coursework would be considered to get out of basic gen Ed coursework since that would mess up their profits.

YMMV.

I agree with others to not sweat the honor roll disinction.

Our Duel enrollment comes from 4 year colleges so the credits do transfer. I don't know anyone, yet, that hasn't been able to transfer their CIS/Duel Enrollment credits.

 

[allison443]

Our high school doesn't weight them at all anywhere. Your AP calculus A is worth the same as your A in underwater basketweaving.

Interesting.

Does the school still give class rank? I know some schools have eliminated that.
My dd's school uses the weighted average for class rank only, so I guess it wouldn't be needed if they didn't rank.

 

[SC Minnie]

Our doesn't weight them for honor roll. They have A honor roll and AB honor roll. The only place their grades are weighted is on the transcript. They are listed as weighted and unweighted. The used the weighted avg to assign class rank.

 

[agnes!]

Our high school has "A" and "A/B" honor rolls. Honors classes are given a .5 bump and AP classes are given a 1.0 bump when the school calculates the weighted GPAs.
When colleges/universities/scholarship apps ask for class rank, I have to laugh. Our system doesn't officially rank students, even though I am sure the kids pretty much know who's in the top 5% or so, all they have to do is look around and see who is at the honor roll ceremony.

agnes!

 

[Hannathy]

Interesting.

Does the school still give class rank? I know some schools have eliminated that.
My dd's school uses the weighted average for class rank only, so I guess it wouldn't be needed if they didn't rank.

Yes they rank and yes your grade determines honor roll.
You need a 3.5 to be on the honor roll and a 4.0 to be on high honors, doesn't matter in what courses.

The final ranking when kids have 4.0's then goes to How many AP courses so if you have 6 AP courses with A's and Sally has 7 with A's then she goes ahead of you, then it goes to ACT,SAT scores. But they only use these when they have too many with 4.0's

 

[MrsPete]

Several comments:

When the high school sends out a transcript, it also sends out information about the high school itself. This lets the college know all those "extra things" that don't show up on a list of grades. For example, I went to a tiny, rural high school. My school's information would have shown that only a handful of AP classes were available, so the college wouldn't look down on me for not having taken AP Spanish (I use this example because my high school didn't even teach Spanish). This is fair because being #20 in a public high school class of 400, where the students range from top-notch to crackhead, is quite different from being #20 in a class of 50 in an elite private high school where everyone is college-bound. Colleges do take these things into consideration.

I've long thought that AP classes aren't quite what they're cracked up to be. Oh, don't get me wrong: They are more rigorous, and all the studies say that more difficult classes = better preparation for college work. BUT each college gets to decide what it will/won't accept FOR CREDIT. So your state's flagship college may flat out say, "We accept only grades of 5" or even "We don't accept any AP credits"; while the tiny private school that needs to work harder to recruit students will gladly award credit for a grade of 3. Also, some colleges allow students to move on to an upper level class but don't award , credit (so they might allow the student to move straight into Biology 1102, but they don't give credit for Biology 1101 -- thus, the student still needs 3 hours of elective credit). A friend of mine ended up in trouble because she thought (at graduation time) that she had 3 hours of credit for a high school AP class, but the Registrar's Office thought differently; they'd noted that she passed that class, but they didn't award her credit. It was a bad thing to discover as a college senior. Since students can't know where they're going to end up going to college, AP classes are a gamble. Teaching seniors, I hear lots of stories about this type of thing, and more often than not, it's "I'm glad I took AP Chem. I learned a great deal, but I'm not getting the credit I had expected for college." So take the classes, but take them because you want the extra challenge and preparation for college . . . if you end up with a college credit, that's just a bonus.

A more "sure thing" for credit-transfer is dual enrollment in the community colleges (taking a community college class during senior year). These are less rigorous than AP classes, but basic English 101 or College Algrebra 101 is going to transfer. These classes transfer into the college as credit classes, but they do not help or hurt the college GPA.

School systems do set their own grading scales, but individual teachers can't do that. Around here, all the high schools are on the 7-point scale (93+ is an A, 86+ is a B, etc.), while colleges are on a 10-point scale (90+ is an A, 80+ is a B, etc.). Who decided that? I dunno, but it's been that way all my life.

All schools do not rank students. All schools do not even recognize valedictorian and saluditorian. It's because the difference between #1 and #2 is often so slight that many people complain. Personally, I think it's just one more thing in a long line of failed attempts to help kids' self-esteem. Know who agrees with me? My friend whose son was #3 in the class and just barely, barely, barely missed out on sitting on the stage at graduation and making a speech.

 

[browneyes106]

At the high school I went to the honor roll system was determined by GPA. For example 3.5 to 4.0 was principal's roll, 3.0 to 3.4 was honor roll and 2.5 to 2.9 was merit roll. Our AP classes were weighted but I can't remember exactly how much the weights were.

 

[golfgal]

Several comments:

When the high school sends out a transcript, it also sends out information about the high school itself. This lets the college know all those "extra things" that don't show up on a list of grades. For example, I went to a tiny, rural high school. My school's information would have shown that only a handful of AP classes were available, so the college wouldn't look down on me for not having taken AP Spanish (I use this example because my high school didn't even teach Spanish). This is fair because being #20 in a public high school class of 400, where the students range from top-notch to crackhead, is quite different from being #20 in a class of 50 in an elite private high school where everyone is college-bound. Colleges do take these things into consideration.

I've long thought that AP classes aren't quite what they're cracked up to be. Oh, don't get me wrong: They are more rigorous, and all the studies say that more difficult classes = better preparation for college work. BUT each college gets to decide what it will/won't accept FOR CREDIT. So your state's flagship college may flat out say, "We accept only grades of 5" or even "We don't accept any AP credits"; while the tiny private school that needs to work harder to recruit students will gladly award credit for a grade of 3. Also, some colleges allow students to move on to an upper level class but don't award , credit (so they might allow the student to move straight into Biology 1102, but they don't give credit for Biology 1101 -- thus, the student still needs 3 hours of elective credit). A friend of mine ended up in trouble because she thought (at graduation time) that she had 3 hours of credit for a high school AP class, but the Registrar's Office thought differently; they'd noted that she passed that class, but they didn't award her credit. It was a bad thing to discover as a college senior. Since students can't know where they're going to end up going to college, AP classes are a gamble. Teaching seniors, I hear lots of stories about this type of thing, and more often than not, it's "I'm glad I took AP Chem. I learned a great deal, but I'm not getting the credit I had expected for college." So take the classes, but take them because you want the extra challenge and preparation for college . . . if you end up with a college credit, that's just a bonus.

A more "sure thing" for credit-transfer is dual enrollment in the community colleges (taking a community college class during senior year). These are less rigorous than AP classes, but basic English 101 or College Algrebra 101 is going to transfer. These classes transfer into the college as credit classes, but they do not help or hurt the college GPA.

School systems do set their own grading scales, but individual teachers can't do that. Around here, all the high schools are on the 7-point scale (93+ is an A, 86+ is a B, etc.), while colleges are on a 10-point scale (90+ is an A, 80+ is a B, etc.). Who decided that? I dunno, but it's been that way all my life.

All schools do not rank students. All schools do not even recognize valedictorian and saluditorian. It's because the difference between #1 and #2 is often so slight that many people complain. Personally, I think it's just one more thing in a long line of failed attempts to help kids' self-esteem. Know who agrees with me? My friend whose son was #3 in the class and just barely, barely, barely missed out on sitting on the stage at graduation and making a speech.

Around here the duel enrollment classes are through the 4 year schools are are more rigorous then the AP classes as they are actual college level classes taught by college professors either at the high school or on the college campus itself.

I would also say the any high school that has more then a couple 4.0 students (on a traditional scale) is not challenging their students enough, even at an elite prep school. Statistically that is all that there should be in any given class.