APS High School Transcripts

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Related question (sorry to hijack): what about 8th grade courses? Does it show all of the ones that are "high school level" (foreign language, algebra, computer science) or can you pick and choose which ones will show up on the high school transcript?

I'm not sure if you can keep some and delete others. In general kids with a strong GPA will remove the classes they took in MS because admissions officers who see that you took French 2 in HS will be able to figure out that you must have taken French 1 before HS.

Those classes will appear, yes. However, you can have high school classes taken in middle school removed from the transcript and cumulative GPA calculation, if you wish. You cannot remove a high school course taken in high school.

One caveat here, if the course had an associated SOL needed for graduation it has to stay on the transcript (unless there were later SOLs. This is mainly an issue for accelerated math. I don't recall all the specifics but when we discussed it with DS's counselor late in junior year she said he had to keep his geometry in 8th grade because of that. So, discuss it with the counselor sooner rather than later.

You need a certain number of verified credits to graduate. (Verified credits are courses for which the kid took the associated SOL.) So, you can drop a MS course so long as you have other verified credits within that subject to meet graduation requirements. Best to ask your counselor.

Question for veteran parents. I believe the attraction for dropping MS courses that yield HS credit is that they don't generate honors bonuses for GPA calculations. Thus, say a kid has all As in MS and HS. They would have a higher GPA in HS if they dropped the MS courses that yielded HS credits because their GPA would not be diluted with courses that don't convey a GPA bonus. For parents that have gone through this, is that right?

Yes, exactly. A straight-A student who has taken AP and IB classes will have a higher weighted GPA if they get rid of the MS classes.

Why don't they just fix this GPA anomaly so that kids don't have to jump through hoops deleting MS courses?

Too much focus on numbers. They should just see what classes a student took and what grade they got in them.

That's one way to deal with it. The other way is to give high-school credit bearing courses the same GPA weighting whether they are taken in MS or HS. Give intensified MS courses (that are HS-credit bearing) the same higher weighting that HS intensified courses receive. Then kids wouldn't have to drop MS courses to enhance their GPA. That should be an easy fix. Why not do that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Related question (sorry to hijack): what about 8th grade courses? Does it show all of the ones that are "high school level" (foreign language, algebra, computer science) or can you pick and choose which ones will show up on the high school transcript?

I'm not sure if you can keep some and delete others. In general kids with a strong GPA will remove the classes they took in MS because admissions officers who see that you took French 2 in HS will be able to figure out that you must have taken French 1 before HS.

Those classes will appear, yes. However, you can have high school classes taken in middle school removed from the transcript and cumulative GPA calculation, if you wish. You cannot remove a high school course taken in high school.

One caveat here, if the course had an associated SOL needed for graduation it has to stay on the transcript (unless there were later SOLs. This is mainly an issue for accelerated math. I don't recall all the specifics but when we discussed it with DS's counselor late in junior year she said he had to keep his geometry in 8th grade because of that. So, discuss it with the counselor sooner rather than later.

You need a certain number of verified credits to graduate. (Verified credits are courses for which the kid took the associated SOL.) So, you can drop a MS course so long as you have other verified credits within that subject to meet graduation requirements. Best to ask your counselor.

Question for veteran parents. I believe the attraction for dropping MS courses that yield HS credit is that they don't generate honors bonuses for GPA calculations. Thus, say a kid has all As in MS and HS. They would have a higher GPA in HS if they dropped the MS courses that yielded HS credits because their GPA would not be diluted with courses that don't convey a GPA bonus. For parents that have gone through this, is that right?

Yes, exactly. A straight-A student who has taken AP and IB classes will have a higher weighted GPA if they get rid of the MS classes.

Why don't they just fix this GPA anomaly so that kids don't have to jump through hoops deleting MS courses?

Too much focus on numbers. They should just see what classes a student took and what grade they got in them.

That's one way to deal with it. The other way is to give high-school credit bearing courses the same GPA weighting whether they are taken in MS or HS. Give intensified MS courses (that are HS-credit bearing) the same higher weighting that HS intensified courses receive. Then kids wouldn't have to drop MS courses to enhance their GPA. That should be an easy fix. Why not do that?

APS doesn't give added weight to intensified courses, only AP, IB, DE

[Anonymous]

The influence on GPA is really small. I don't see why people care about dropping an A in those classes just because it brings an unweighted grade into the calculation. It's not like APS does strict ranking where hundredths of a point matter. A weighted 4.0+ = rank 1, at least at W-L.

We dropped a MS grade that was a B but let the As stand

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Related question (sorry to hijack): what about 8th grade courses? Does it show all of the ones that are "high school level" (foreign language, algebra, computer science) or can you pick and choose which ones will show up on the high school transcript?

I'm not sure if you can keep some and delete others. In general kids with a strong GPA will remove the classes they took in MS because admissions officers who see that you took French 2 in HS will be able to figure out that you must have taken French 1 before HS.

Those classes will appear, yes. However, you can have high school classes taken in middle school removed from the transcript and cumulative GPA calculation, if you wish. You cannot remove a high school course taken in high school.

One caveat here, if the course had an associated SOL needed for graduation it has to stay on the transcript (unless there were later SOLs. This is mainly an issue for accelerated math. I don't recall all the specifics but when we discussed it with DS's counselor late in junior year she said he had to keep his geometry in 8th grade because of that. So, discuss it with the counselor sooner rather than later.

You need a certain number of verified credits to graduate. (Verified credits are courses for which the kid took the associated SOL.) So, you can drop a MS course so long as you have other verified credits within that subject to meet graduation requirements. Best to ask your counselor.

Question for veteran parents. I believe the attraction for dropping MS courses that yield HS credit is that they don't generate honors bonuses for GPA calculations. Thus, say a kid has all As in MS and HS. They would have a higher GPA in HS if they dropped the MS courses that yielded HS credits because their GPA would not be diluted with courses that don't convey a GPA bonus. For parents that have gone through this, is that right?

Yes, exactly. A straight-A student who has taken AP and IB classes will have a higher weighted GPA if they get rid of the MS classes.

Why don't they just fix this GPA anomaly so that kids don't have to jump through hoops deleting MS courses?

Too much focus on numbers. They should just see what classes a student took and what grade they got in them.

That's one way to deal with it. The other way is to give high-school credit bearing courses the same GPA weighting whether they are taken in MS or HS. Give intensified MS courses (that are HS-credit bearing) the same higher weighting that HS intensified courses receive. Then kids wouldn't have to drop MS courses to enhance their GPA. That should be an easy fix. Why not do that?

APS doesn't give added weight to intensified courses, only AP, IB, DE

Thanks, that's helpful to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Related question (sorry to hijack): what about 8th grade courses? Does it show all of the ones that are "high school level" (foreign language, algebra, computer science) or can you pick and choose which ones will show up on the high school transcript?

I'm not sure if you can keep some and delete others. In general kids with a strong GPA will remove the classes they took in MS because admissions officers who see that you took French 2 in HS will be able to figure out that you must have taken French 1 before HS.

Those classes will appear, yes. However, you can have high school classes taken in middle school removed from the transcript and cumulative GPA calculation, if you wish. You cannot remove a high school course taken in high school.

One caveat here, if the course had an associated SOL needed for graduation it has to stay on the transcript (unless there were later SOLs. This is mainly an issue for accelerated math. I don't recall all the specifics but when we discussed it with DS's counselor late in junior year she said he had to keep his geometry in 8th grade because of that. So, discuss it with the counselor sooner rather than later.

You need a certain number of verified credits to graduate. (Verified credits are courses for which the kid took the associated SOL.) So, you can drop a MS course so long as you have other verified credits within that subject to meet graduation requirements. Best to ask your counselor.

Question for veteran parents. I believe the attraction for dropping MS courses that yield HS credit is that they don't generate honors bonuses for GPA calculations. Thus, say a kid has all As in MS and HS. They would have a higher GPA in HS if they dropped the MS courses that yielded HS credits because their GPA would not be diluted with courses that don't convey a GPA bonus. For parents that have gone through this, is that right?

Yes, exactly. A straight-A student who has taken AP and IB classes will have a higher weighted GPA if they get rid of the MS classes.

Why don't they just fix this GPA anomaly so that kids don't have to jump through hoops deleting MS courses?

Um, for some kids, the middle school grades will boost the GPA. If you had As in middle school and Bs in high school, those As will bring up the average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Related question (sorry to hijack): what about 8th grade courses? Does it show all of the ones that are "high school level" (foreign language, algebra, computer science) or can you pick and choose which ones will show up on the high school transcript?

I'm not sure if you can keep some and delete others. In general kids with a strong GPA will remove the classes they took in MS because admissions officers who see that you took French 2 in HS will be able to figure out that you must have taken French 1 before HS.

Those classes will appear, yes. However, you can have high school classes taken in middle school removed from the transcript and cumulative GPA calculation, if you wish. You cannot remove a high school course taken in high school.

One caveat here, if the course had an associated SOL needed for graduation it has to stay on the transcript (unless there were later SOLs. This is mainly an issue for accelerated math. I don't recall all the specifics but when we discussed it with DS's counselor late in junior year she said he had to keep his geometry in 8th grade because of that. So, discuss it with the counselor sooner rather than later.

You need a certain number of verified credits to graduate. (Verified credits are courses for which the kid took the associated SOL.) So, you can drop a MS course so long as you have other verified credits within that subject to meet graduation requirements. Best to ask your counselor.

Question for veteran parents. I believe the attraction for dropping MS courses that yield HS credit is that they don't generate honors bonuses for GPA calculations. Thus, say a kid has all As in MS and HS. They would have a higher GPA in HS if they dropped the MS courses that yielded HS credits because their GPA would not be diluted with courses that don't convey a GPA bonus. For parents that have gone through this, is that right?

Yes, exactly. A straight-A student who has taken AP and IB classes will have a higher weighted GPA if they get rid of the MS classes.

Why don't they just fix this GPA anomaly so that kids don't have to jump through hoops deleting MS courses?

Too much focus on numbers. They should just see what classes a student took and what grade they got in them.

That's one way to deal with it. The other way is to give high-school credit bearing courses the same GPA weighting whether they are taken in MS or HS. Give intensified MS courses (that are HS-credit bearing) the same higher weighting that HS intensified courses receive. Then kids wouldn't have to drop MS courses to enhance their GPA. That should be an easy fix. Why not do that?

High school intensified classes are not weighted. HS-level MS intensified classes, therefore, are given the same weight.
I don't think classes should be dropped - especially if the student earned an A or B - just to boost a GPA. If nobody drops, everybody is evaluated on the same level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Related question (sorry to hijack): what about 8th grade courses? Does it show all of the ones that are "high school level" (foreign language, algebra, computer science) or can you pick and choose which ones will show up on the high school transcript?

I'm not sure if you can keep some and delete others. In general kids with a strong GPA will remove the classes they took in MS because admissions officers who see that you took French 2 in HS will be able to figure out that you must have taken French 1 before HS.

Those classes will appear, yes. However, you can have high school classes taken in middle school removed from the transcript and cumulative GPA calculation, if you wish. You cannot remove a high school course taken in high school.

One caveat here, if the course had an associated SOL needed for graduation it has to stay on the transcript (unless there were later SOLs. This is mainly an issue for accelerated math. I don't recall all the specifics but when we discussed it with DS's counselor late in junior year she said he had to keep his geometry in 8th grade because of that. So, discuss it with the counselor sooner rather than later.

You need a certain number of verified credits to graduate. (Verified credits are courses for which the kid took the associated SOL.) So, you can drop a MS course so long as you have other verified credits within that subject to meet graduation requirements. Best to ask your counselor.

Question for veteran parents. I believe the attraction for dropping MS courses that yield HS credit is that they don't generate honors bonuses for GPA calculations. Thus, say a kid has all As in MS and HS. They would have a higher GPA in HS if they dropped the MS courses that yielded HS credits because their GPA would not be diluted with courses that don't convey a GPA bonus. For parents that have gone through this, is that right?

Yes, exactly. A straight-A student who has taken AP and IB classes will have a higher weighted GPA if they get rid of the MS classes.

Why don't they just fix this GPA anomaly so that kids don't have to jump through hoops deleting MS courses?

Um, for some kids, the middle school grades will boost the GPA. If you had As in middle school and Bs in high school, those As will bring up the average.

Yes, that aligns with PP's comment to eliminate the hoop jumping. It's the other kids whose MS A's lower their GPA that drop their MS classes.
Either all MS courses taken for high school credit should count, or none of them should - for every student. period. Students taking high school level classes in MS should already have an edge because their high school courseload should be more rigorous than their peers who are taking grade-level classes. There shouldn't be a need for numbers-games. If you don't want an A to count from a middle school course, then why take it? Again, you're still at an advantage if you're taking more advanced levels of a subject than your classmates, that's why. If you screw it up, you screw it up. Regardless of individual course grades, the schools (countrywide so it's standard) should either not include them in their HS GPA or include them. If anything, it's the more average/below average student who needs a break for college competitiveness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Related question (sorry to hijack): what about 8th grade courses? Does it show all of the ones that are "high school level" (foreign language, algebra, computer science) or can you pick and choose which ones will show up on the high school transcript?

I'm not sure if you can keep some and delete others. In general kids with a strong GPA will remove the classes they took in MS because admissions officers who see that you took French 2 in HS will be able to figure out that you must have taken French 1 before HS.

Those classes will appear, yes. However, you can have high school classes taken in middle school removed from the transcript and cumulative GPA calculation, if you wish. You cannot remove a high school course taken in high school.

One caveat here, if the course had an associated SOL needed for graduation it has to stay on the transcript (unless there were later SOLs. This is mainly an issue for accelerated math. I don't recall all the specifics but when we discussed it with DS's counselor late in junior year she said he had to keep his geometry in 8th grade because of that. So, discuss it with the counselor sooner rather than later.

You need a certain number of verified credits to graduate. (Verified credits are courses for which the kid took the associated SOL.) So, you can drop a MS course so long as you have other verified credits within that subject to meet graduation requirements. Best to ask your counselor.

Question for veteran parents. I believe the attraction for dropping MS courses that yield HS credit is that they don't generate honors bonuses for GPA calculations. Thus, say a kid has all As in MS and HS. They would have a higher GPA in HS if they dropped the MS courses that yielded HS credits because their GPA would not be diluted with courses that don't convey a GPA bonus. For parents that have gone through this, is that right?

My kid, now a freshman in college, had straight A's through middle school and high school, where he took lots of AP, DE, and IB classes (minus one B+ in HS). He had 5 HS credits in MS, and considered whether to delete them from his transcript. Deleting them would have improved his GPA (since the the middle school classes were not given the GPA bump). In the end, he decided not to drop them, since the increase in GPA would have been very small, and he felt that seeing an additional 5 A's would have made the transcript look better. He finished with a 4.53 GPA, a 35 ACT score, and an IB Diploma, but did not get into any highly ranked schools (highest ranked school he got into was Wake Forest). So I don't know whether he made the right choice on the transcript, though I'm doubtful that it made much of a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Related question (sorry to hijack): what about 8th grade courses? Does it show all of the ones that are "high school level" (foreign language, algebra, computer science) or can you pick and choose which ones will show up on the high school transcript?

I'm not sure if you can keep some and delete others. In general kids with a strong GPA will remove the classes they took in MS because admissions officers who see that you took French 2 in HS will be able to figure out that you must have taken French 1 before HS.

Those classes will appear, yes. However, you can have high school classes taken in middle school removed from the transcript and cumulative GPA calculation, if you wish. You cannot remove a high school course taken in high school.

One caveat here, if the course had an associated SOL needed for graduation it has to stay on the transcript (unless there were later SOLs. This is mainly an issue for accelerated math. I don't recall all the specifics but when we discussed it with DS's counselor late in junior year she said he had to keep his geometry in 8th grade because of that. So, discuss it with the counselor sooner rather than later.

You need a certain number of verified credits to graduate. (Verified credits are courses for which the kid took the associated SOL.) So, you can drop a MS course so long as you have other verified credits within that subject to meet graduation requirements. Best to ask your counselor.

Question for veteran parents. I believe the attraction for dropping MS courses that yield HS credit is that they don't generate honors bonuses for GPA calculations. Thus, say a kid has all As in MS and HS. They would have a higher GPA in HS if they dropped the MS courses that yielded HS credits because their GPA would not be diluted with courses that don't convey a GPA bonus. For parents that have gone through this, is that right?

My kid, now a freshman in college, had straight A's through middle school and high school, where he took lots of AP, DE, and IB classes (minus one B+ in HS). He had 5 HS credits in MS, and considered whether to delete them from his transcript. Deleting them would have improved his GPA (since the the middle school classes were not given the GPA bump). In the end, he decided not to drop them, since the increase in GPA would have been very small, and he felt that seeing an additional 5 A's would have made the transcript look better. He finished with a 4.53 GPA, a 35 ACT score, and an IB Diploma, but did not get into any highly ranked schools (highest ranked school he got into was Wake Forest). So I don't know whether he made the right choice on the transcript, though I'm doubtful that it made much of a difference.

I'll bet your are correct. Only so many kids from a given high school are going to get accepted by a given elite university. There are other kids in your child's HS who also had impressive stats, not to mention kids across the country who had the same or higher. He's happy and successful....he made the "right" decision. Thing is, so many people believe there is only one "right" decision. Life paths might be different, yes; but doesn't necessarily make a decision "wrong."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Related question (sorry to hijack): what about 8th grade courses? Does it show all of the ones that are "high school level" (foreign language, algebra, computer science) or can you pick and choose which ones will show up on the high school transcript?

I'm not sure if you can keep some and delete others. In general kids with a strong GPA will remove the classes they took in MS because admissions officers who see that you took French 2 in HS will be able to figure out that you must have taken French 1 before HS.

Those classes will appear, yes. However, you can have high school classes taken in middle school removed from the transcript and cumulative GPA calculation, if you wish. You cannot remove a high school course taken in high school.

One caveat here, if the course had an associated SOL needed for graduation it has to stay on the transcript (unless there were later SOLs. This is mainly an issue for accelerated math. I don't recall all the specifics but when we discussed it with DS's counselor late in junior year she said he had to keep his geometry in 8th grade because of that. So, discuss it with the counselor sooner rather than later.

You need a certain number of verified credits to graduate. (Verified credits are courses for which the kid took the associated SOL.) So, you can drop a MS course so long as you have other verified credits within that subject to meet graduation requirements. Best to ask your counselor.

Question for veteran parents. I believe the attraction for dropping MS courses that yield HS credit is that they don't generate honors bonuses for GPA calculations. Thus, say a kid has all As in MS and HS. They would have a higher GPA in HS if they dropped the MS courses that yielded HS credits because their GPA would not be diluted with courses that don't convey a GPA bonus. For parents that have gone through this, is that right?

My kid, now a freshman in college, had straight A's through middle school and high school, where he took lots of AP, DE, and IB classes (minus one B+ in HS). He had 5 HS credits in MS, and considered whether to delete them from his transcript. Deleting them would have improved his GPA (since the the middle school classes were not given the GPA bump). In the end, he decided not to drop them, since the increase in GPA would have been very small, and he felt that seeing an additional 5 A's would have made the transcript look better. He finished with a 4.53 GPA, a 35 ACT score, and an IB Diploma, but did not get into any highly ranked schools (highest ranked school he got into was Wake Forest). So I don't know whether he made the right choice on the transcript, though I'm doubtful that it made much of a difference.

I'll bet your are correct. Only so many kids from a given high school are going to get accepted by a given elite university. There are other kids in your child's HS who also had impressive stats, not to mention kids across the country who had the same or higher. He's happy and successful....he made the "right" decision. Thing is, so many people believe there is only one "right" decision. Life paths might be different, yes; but doesn't necessarily make a decision "wrong."

He has ended up at a good spot for him. Not sure if any of the schools which rejected him would have been better, and don't think there is any way to really know that. For purposes of this thread, however, I don't think a few hundredths of a point on the cumulative GPA would really matter. If you have a straight A HS student, it might make sense to remove any "B's" from MS, but I don't think taking out middle school "A's" would be that meaningful.