GPA: honors vs. regular courses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do people really take AP classes in 10th grade? That would have been shocking "in the olden days" when I grew up (even though I went to a Whitman-like school)

Yes, they do. From a private school perspective, I see that phenomenon as largely parent-driven. More broadly, I blame Jay Mathews and his ill-conceived Challenge Index, LOL!

I wish more secondary schools and colleges fought back and said "you know what, these aren't really college-level courses (at least at the kinds of colleges most of the kids taking them aspire to attend) and HS shouldn't be a competition re who can handle the heaviest workload." It's like some bizarro arms race where, of course, everyone loses.

[Anonymous]

Just because a class is labeled 'regular' doesn't mean that your child will do any better in it.

I remember that in my high school, the honors classes were taught by the same teachers and covered the exact same subjects as the AP. It was just that AP students recieved a 1.0 weight and took the AP exam where-as honors students recieved a .5 weight and did not take the AP exam.

I mean this wasn't true of all courses, but it was true of some classes. (AP US History, AP English Lit, AP Enviro) Sometimes they even mixed the honors students in with the AP students, because they didn't have enough students sign up for honors to make a course.

Anyways, most of the colleges that I have seen would prefer an Honors B over a regular A. They essentially equate to the same thing, but one is actually challenging you where as the other is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people really take AP classes in 10th grade? That would have been shocking "in the olden days" when I grew up (even though I went to a Whitman-like school)

.

My DC will be taking one AP next year at Whitman in 9th grade. I think that is a recent phenomenon but there are certainly a group of 9th graders taking the same class next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people really take AP classes in 10th grade? That would have been shocking "in the olden days" when I grew up (even though I went to a Whitman-like school)

Yes, they do. From a private school perspective, I see that phenomenon as largely parent-driven. More broadly, I blame Jay Mathews and his ill-conceived Challenge Index, LOL!

I wish more secondary schools and colleges fought back and said "you know what, these aren't really college-level courses (at least at the kinds of colleges most of the kids taking them aspire to attend) and HS shouldn't be a competition re who can handle the heaviest workload." It's like some bizarro arms race where, of course, everyone loses.

I too have heard, from many sources, that your kid should take the most challenging courses available, and that colleges look for this.

That said, I have no idea how a college would know the whole range of offerings at each school, and whether or not your kid even had the option of taking *Honors* or *AP* courses. What happens if your kid is in Regular US History because the HS in question didn't actually offer Honors or AP US History? Does your kid just look like a piker? If somebody could enlighten me I'd be grateful.

For the rest, my kid will be taking an AP class next year in 10th grade, with the rest of her MoCo magnet class. She'd have done another AP too, in a foreign language, if the school hadn't cancelled the AP class for that language. I'm not sure how I feel about this, and I too, tend to blame the Challenge Index for some of the AP Arms Race. Also, the colleges all seem to look for AP/IB programs, see my first point about taking the most challenging courses available.

However, it seems like you can't tell your kid to just step off this bandwagon. Otherwise, your kid will be disadvantaged when it comes to applying to the college of his/her choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That said, I have no idea how a college would know the whole range of offerings at each school, and whether or not your kid even had the option of taking *Honors* or *AP* courses. What happens if your kid is in Regular US History because the HS in question didn't actually offer Honors or AP US History? Does your kid just look like a piker? If somebody could enlighten me I'd be grateful.

The selective colleges usually divide up the country by region so one admissions person is responsible for a couple of states (at least in this area where apps are so high). So they have visited the schools, know the schools pretty well, have seen candidates before, and have been given a profile of each school by the college counselor. The profile is part of the application package too. We have been told that they then use that to assess the rigor of the coursework at a particular school. Of course given the volume of apps I'm not sure how much time they really spend on this. I assume you need to get over a basic GPA and test score hurdle first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't many colleges recalculate the GPA by removing all weights for advanced courses? If so, doesn't that count against a student who stretches? Seems like it only works in your favor if you think you can get an A in a weighted course.

Most if not all schools recalculate by unweighting grades. However, I have been told by multiple college counselors that the colleges do look very favorably on kids who really challenged themselves. Consequently, a student with a less than perfect GPA can gain admittance to some very competitive colleges. After seeing a number of kids apply and get accepted to college the past 2 years, I really do believe that most schools take a good look at the total package the kid has put together.

[Anonymous]

Last year, Fairgrade in Fairfax County had a hugely successful campaign to get the scale lowered from 94-100 to 90 to 100 for an A, and to add weight to honors, IB and AP courses. They claimed that colleges take the GPA from the school, so I don't know what to think. But it would make sense to judge the "total package" as PP said. I just hope they look at the level the kid has been taking, and not just see "Biology", and disregard whether it's AP or standard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:However, it seems like you can't tell your kid to just step off this bandwagon. Otherwise, your kid will be disadvantaged when it comes to applying to the college of his/her choice.

Yup, that's how arms races work.

Re the take the most challenging courses advice -- to the extent that it makes sense, it's based on a couple of assumptions:

1. That if your DC takes the most challenging courses she'll get As at least 60% of the time (and A-s most every other time) vs. As almost all the time.

2. That your DC's objective is admission to a highly selective school that invests lots of $$ in admissions.


So, yeah, they'll admit the the kid with a 3.8 and all APs over the kid with a 4.0 and no APs (if and only if you know that in the latter case, there were APs and the kid didn't take them -- something that is most likely to be known at schools that invest in lots of admissions people, record keeping, etc.) But the kid with a 4.0 and no APs is not going to be beat out by a kid with a 3.4 and lots of APs. These schools aren't admitting kids with 3.4s unless there's some other reason (legacies, athletes, family/personal crisis) that justifies looking beyond the numbers. And schools with less selective admissions aren't parsing the data that closely.

Harvard certainly used to recalculate HS GPAs based on its own system and, in some cases, to use multipliers to reflect its assessment (based on previous admissions) of the school's rigor. So if they'd seen grade inflation, the multiplier might be a deflator and if the school was really rigorous, the multiplier might increase the GPA. Don't know whether the multipliers now reflect AP/IB (rather than school) or some combination of both. But the bottom line is don't assume that the colleges with the most selective admissions rely on your school's/school system's method of weighting grades. Their goal is to create commensurability across schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That said, I have no idea how a college would know the whole range of offerings at each school, and whether or not your kid even had the option of taking *Honors* or *AP* courses. What happens if your kid is in Regular US History because the HS in question didn't actually offer Honors or AP US History? Does your kid just look like a piker? If somebody could enlighten me I'd be grateful.

The selective colleges usually divide up the country by region so one admissions person is responsible for a couple of states (at least in this area where apps are so high). So they have visited the schools, know the schools pretty well, have seen candidates before, and have been given a profile of each school by the college counselor. The profile is part of the application package too. We have been told that they then use that to assess the rigor of the coursework at a particular school. Of course given the volume of apps I'm not sure how much time they really spend on this. I assume you need to get over a basic GPA and test score hurdle first.

Thanks for the answer!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. What DD is planning on doing is taking honors level in her strong areas only next year, like English, Foreign Language, Government, but doing regular in Math and Science. She wouldn't go into a career that required strong math or science anyway. I would rather her be comfortably challenged, than be stressed. We looked at the GPA/SAT scores from previous grads from her HS and what these numbers were for those admitted to several universities, and she's on track for some pretty decent schools. Not Ivy League, of course, but we don't care about that.

Sounds good in view of your goals. Life is too short to be stressed out unnecessarily. In the end, it will be about having lived a good life and not how much you struggled in high school or how many hours you spent at work.

[Anonymous]

heyy if i take honors english up until my junior year then take regular my senior year...(i am takin all honors)... will i be accepted to colleges like nc state, carolina an ECU???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Solid 4.0 in regular courses. Better to be the big fish in the small pond than the small fish in the big pond. The former has a better shot at the big leagues whereas the latter can't stand out enough from her peers to get that initial shot.

This is the exact opposite of the advise we were given by admissions counselors at every college we visited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people really take AP classes in 10th grade? That would have been shocking "in the olden days" when I grew up (even though I went to a Whitman-like school)

.

My DC will be taking one AP next year at Whitman in 9th grade. I think that is a recent phenomenon but there are certainly a group of 9th graders taking the same class next year.

My daughter took AP U.S. History her 9th grade year. She got an A in the class and a 4 on the exam. It happens.

[Anonymous]

It's annoying when a parent brags about a kid getting an A in Home Ec.

[Anonymous]

The elite colleges tend to know most of the high schools in this area. Some high schools can get 4 kids into Harvard and some none. The admissions people tend to know how difficult the courses are at a particular school. The college counselors have to be helpful in talking about the qualities of a particular school.