Are PLTW courses weighted?

[Anonymous]

Let's summarize a bit here:
- Honors, Advanced Level, AP/IB, and dual enrollment courses all received an additional "quality point" (letter grade) for weighted GPA calculations, if the course grade was A, B, or C.
- Honors courses typically have a non-honors version, although some schools may not be offering the non-honors version to anyone anymore.
- There are some courses that only have non-honors versions (Algebra 1, 1st 2 years of FL).
- Advanced Level, AP, and IB courses do not have an equivalent on-level version.
- Magnet courses are typically rated Advanced Level
- PLTW courses are advanced level (including IED https://coursebulletin.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/CourseDetails/Index/TEC2017A)
https://coursebulletin.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/CourseLists/Index/329/#Engineering,_Project_Lead_the_Way_(PLTW)_Inc.

Some colleges (including UMD) have students input their entire transcript into a Self-Reported Academic Record (SRAR), and then the university/major can do whatever data manipulation they want based on their own priorities.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What’s the difference between honors and advanced level? How are they weighted?

Kidding aside, colleges laugh at this and just exclude it from their GPA calculations.

So colleges do their own calculations on applicants' GPA?

Yes, for example, I've heard UC Berkeley doesn't even look at 9th grade grades, and most will completely ignore non-academic courses.

Also, most don't give extra weight to honors and only recognize AP or IB classes for additional weight.

What about the classes that are tagged as “advanced level” in the course bulletin linked on this thread? All the Blair magnet courses are “advanced level” - are you saying that they are weighted the same as a non advanced class? How does this work? What about Spanish 4 (“advanced level”) vs Spanish 4 hons (honors)?

The course bulletin says, "To determine WGPA (weighted GPA), an additional quality point will be added to grades of A, B, and C in all Honors, AL, and AP courses only." So if it has the "AL" designation, it will be weighted.

This is for MCPS' internal GPA calculations that colleges will ignore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let's summarize a bit here:
- Honors, Advanced Level, AP/IB, and dual enrollment courses all received an additional "quality point" (letter grade) for weighted GPA calculations, if the course grade was A, B, or C.
- Honors courses typically have a non-honors version, although some schools may not be offering the non-honors version to anyone anymore.
- There are some courses that only have non-honors versions (Algebra 1, 1st 2 years of FL).
- Advanced Level, AP, and IB courses do not have an equivalent on-level version.
- Magnet courses are typically rated Advanced Level
- PLTW courses are advanced level (including IED https://coursebulletin.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/CourseDetails/Index/TEC2017A)
https://coursebulletin.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/CourseLists/Index/329/#Engineering,_Project_Lead_the_Way_(PLTW)_Inc.

Some colleges (including UMD) have students input their entire transcript into a Self-Reported Academic Record (SRAR), and then the university/major can do whatever data manipulation they want based on their own priorities.

My non-MCPS senior applied and was accepted to UMD this year. I'm about to send my younger child to MCPS high school and am wondering how the "advanced" classes get entered into the SRAR. As I recall, we had the option to designate my senior's classes as either honors or AP or dual enrollment, but I don't recall advanced as a designation option.

Also, for the record, some schools that my senior applied to say on their websites that they award merit based on the GPA on the transcript. I.e., they do not recalculate GPA with their own system.