Algebra in 6th grade - new selection process?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We received an email today that our school is doing the pilot and my kid is selected.

Why they did not do this at once?

That’s wild. I wonder if it’s no longer restricted to certain schools and is being opened to all eligible 6th graders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is algebra placement in 7th grade guaranteed if you decide to expunge the grade? If a kid gets an A- or Bs can we expunge? Are you allowed to expunge an A- and retake or is it discretionary?

Expunging an A- is insane. It Sends a terrible message to your kid, especially if they pass advanced the SOL, and you make them retake it.

I don’t think a parent who puts their kid in Algebra in 6th grade cares what message it sends. Anything less than A is not acceptable for a lot of parents, sadly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We received an email today that our school is doing the pilot and my kid is selected.

Why they did not do this at once?

That’s wild. I wonder if it’s no longer restricted to certain schools and is being opened to all eligible 6th graders.

Still only some schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FYI, since this seems to be misunderstood on this thread: when you expunge a middle school grade, you do not have to retake the course. You may choose to, but you don’t have to.

So you get the credit (if you pass) but you don't get to see the grade--is this what you mean? Because you'd need the credit from the class, so just want to make sure we understand this.

Colleges will know that means it wasn’t a good grade

Colleges are not going to care about any grades from middle school. Heck, a lot of colleges discount grades from 9th grade when they recompute GPAs.

The bigger issue is that if the grade is poor enough to expunge, the kid will struggle in Algebra II or pre-calc. I'm not sure that I would place a child in FCPS 6th grade Algebra without also having the kid take Algebra through RSM or AoPS.

I agree with your second part, but I know for fact the colleges care. It is absolutely a red flag to not have a grade for a math class. They look very closely at course selection, grades for all high school courses. Expunge at your own risk.

Sorry, you’re wrong. In many places (like where I live in NJ), middle school courses/grades are not on the HS transcript at all, even if they are traditionally high-school courses. My kid’s transcript does not list algebra, geometry, or Latin I.

I think you’re probably wrong about this, and likely missed the section where those courses are listed (ie:not with the HS coursework), but this a thread about a pilot program in our FCPS schools. Here in FCPS, the high school transcripts absolutely list the high school level courses taken prior to HS — they’re listed in a separate section, but it’s there and calculated into gpa.

To add to this discussion: most parents here are focused on Virginia schools, where admissions teams look closely at courses and grades—even those taken at the middle school level. [What New Jersey does isn’t really relevant to us.]

To the parent of the 12th grader who suggested it won’t matter: I agree that colleges recalculate GPAs using their own methods and always consider an unweighted GPA. But if you expunge a grade from the transcript, you also lose the potential benefit of that grade being factored into the GPA. To say it “totally won’t matter” isn’t accurate. At schools like UVA and Virginia Tech, it’s hard to imagine it won’t matter, since they consistently emphasize that they review the courses taken, the rigor of those courses, and the grades earned.

Why would a person expunge a grade if it would benefit them to have it factored into their GPA? You expunge a grade because you don’t want it in your GPA.

I am in NJ now but my kids were in FCPS before (one through 10th grade) and I’m familiar with AAP math and the FCPS high school transcript, as well as with college admissions. I mention NJ to explain that colleges’ first thought when they don’t see on the transcript a course taken in middle school is not “oh, the kid must have done poorly in that class.” They just as likely think it’s not on the HS transcript because it’s not a course taken in HS (since many places only include on the transcript courses actually taken in HS). Even if a college knows FCPS well enough to know the course should be on the transcript, I guarantee that they do not care about a grade for a course taken in sixth or seventh grade, especially if they have four or five other, more recent math grades to look at. If that kid gets As in AP Precal and AP Calc BC, a college absolutely will not care about what they got in Algebra I in middle school. And if they do poorly in AP Precal or AP Calc, a good grade in Algebra I is not going to save them.

Proceed at your own risk then. They will absolutely make note of it. You heard it here first

DP. It's cute that you think so. You're obviously an ES parent. .
So, in your world, a kid with very high grades across the board, including As in Calc and post-calc DE classes will have trouble getting into UVA or VT engineering due to a missing Algebra I grade from 6th grade? That's completely absurd, especially since there are any number of benign reasons that a kid might not have a grade recorded on their transcript for classes taken before high school.

One of the reasons many colleges omit 9th grade classes when they recompute an applicant's GPA is that kids mature a lot during 9th grade. The grades from later years are much more indicative of how well the kid will do in college and how solid their academic foundations are. This is doubly true for classes taken in *6th grade.*

There are *a lot* of reasons to be worried about this pilot, but kids expunging and having a "missing" Algebra I grade from 6th grade on their high school transcript is not really one of them. I have no idea why you're so obsessed with the "missing grade" issue. The real problem is that any kids who earn poor grades in 6th grade Algebra, as well as a good chunk of the kids who get As will have bad math foundations and will get poor grades in the later classes. Colleges will certainly care about the kid's grades in the pre-calc, AP Calc, and DE classes they take in high school.

You can’t receive an advanced diploma if you expunge a math grade and don’t retake the course. That would be an additional disadvantage.

Hilllllrarious! This is idiocy on a whole another level.

No college cares about FCPS "advanced diploma". It is just not a thing for colleges.

I love these “colleges don’t care” people. They use all these metrics to rank an application. Maybe some colleges don’t but I’m pretty certain that the schools these advanced students are applying to will absolutely care. They are bombarded with more applications than they can handle and will use any low hanging fruit type metric to push an application aside, that includes a standard diploma which doesn’t translate to the level of rigor they want to see.

There is no place in the Common App that says "Advanced Diploma". When they are looking at the transcript they are looking for rigor. Not being Advanced for a technical reason, is not going to be of any impact.

If you every actually looked at what an application file looks like you would know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is algebra placement in 7th grade guaranteed if you decide to expunge the grade? If a kid gets an A- or Bs can we expunge? Are you allowed to expunge an A- and retake or is it discretionary?

Expunging an A- is insane. It Sends a terrible message to your kid, especially if they pass advanced the SOL, and you make them retake it.

I don’t think a parent who puts their kid in Algebra in 6th grade cares what message it sends. Anything less than A is not acceptable for a lot of parents, sadly.

I think this forum is obsessed with the outlier that it is.

My child does no extra enrichment. They were selected for the pilot. When we discussed it, they said, "I don't know if I want to, but I think I should," so we accepted it. If they had not been selected or were not interested, we would not have enrolled him. If this were not an option, they would not have taken Geometry in the summer. If they get an A-, we will be ecstatic.

Not everyone is pushing their kids beyond their limits. But if an option is presented that does not present a burden, we will consider it and likely accept it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is algebra placement in 7th grade guaranteed if you decide to expunge the grade? If a kid gets an A- or Bs can we expunge? Are you allowed to expunge an A- and retake or is it discretionary?

Expunging an A- is insane. It Sends a terrible message to your kid, especially if they pass advanced the SOL, and you make them retake it.

I don’t think a parent who puts their kid in Algebra in 6th grade cares what message it sends. Anything less than A is not acceptable for a lot of parents, sadly.

I think this forum is obsessed with the outlier that it is.

My child does no extra enrichment. They were selected for the pilot. When we discussed it, they said, "I don't know if I want to, but I think I should," so we accepted it. If they had not been selected or were not interested, we would not have enrolled him. If this were not an option, they would not have taken Geometry in the summer. If they get an A-, we will be ecstatic.

Not everyone is pushing their kids beyond their limits. But if an option is presented that does not present a burden, we will consider it and likely accept it.

That is a perfectly sensible approach and I think that there are more parents like you then this forum thinks. I know kids who got Bs and A- in A1H in 7th grade and their parents were perfectly happy with it. The kids moved onto geometry in 8th grade. Most kids in AAP are not working with tutors or going to enrichment. I know of 2 kids from my son's advanced math group that did any enrichment, and he was one of the 2 kids. The other 40 or so kids, we were at a smaller ES, didn't do any math enrichment outside of school. About half the kids who qualified for A1H in 7th grade choose to take M7H because the kid didn't want to take Algebra.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We received an email today that our school is doing the pilot and my kid is selected.

Why they did not do this at once?

That’s wild. I wonder if it’s no longer restricted to certain schools and is being opened to all eligible 6th graders.

Should be an option for all AAP students. Another fcps failure.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have clarification on whether the kid is eligible in 7th grade again if they choose to expunge the grade?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have clarification on whether the kid is eligible in 7th grade again if they choose to expunge the grade?

Yes. I don’t have to ask because it allowed for HS classes taken before HS.

[Anonymous]

Colleges 100% don't care about the advanced diploma. It's literally a sticker stuck on the normal diploma and is not awarded until graduation so it's not something even indicated on college applications. You can choose to have the grade expunged from a high school course taken in middle school for any grade any reason. One of my kids took Latin and did fine but hated it and we expunged it. I'd worry much more about my child not getting a strong algebra base for all the courses to come over worrying about them getting a high grade in what likely will end up being a watered down course. Half the AAP kids isn't a high enough bar for 7th grade Algebra so it's certainly going to be a mess a year earlier with less maturity and no preparation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Colleges 100% don't care about the advanced diploma. It's literally a sticker stuck on the normal diploma and is not awarded until graduation so it's not something even indicated on college applications. You can choose to have the grade expunged from a high school course taken in middle school for any grade any reason. One of my kids took Latin and did fine but hated it and we expunged it. I'd worry much more about my child not getting a strong algebra base for all the courses to come over worrying about them getting a high grade in what likely will end up being a watered down course. Half the AAP kids isn't a high enough bar for 7th grade Algebra so it's certainly going to be a mess a year earlier with less maturity and no preparation.

This is very bizarre. Walk me through the logic behind this one please. Your kid hated Latin so much that they couldn’t bear to see it on their transcript so you expunged it, despite doing fine in the class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges 100% don't care about the advanced diploma. It's literally a sticker stuck on the normal diploma and is not awarded until graduation so it's not something even indicated on college applications. You can choose to have the grade expunged from a high school course taken in middle school for any grade any reason. One of my kids took Latin and did fine but hated it and we expunged it. I'd worry much more about my child not getting a strong algebra base for all the courses to come over worrying about them getting a high grade in what likely will end up being a watered down course. Half the AAP kids isn't a high enough bar for 7th grade Algebra so it's certainly going to be a mess a year earlier with less maturity and no preparation.

This is very bizarre. Walk me through the logic behind this one please. Your kid hated Latin so much that they couldn’t bear to see it on their transcript so you expunged it, despite doing fine in the class?

I'm not the poster who wrote that, but I can totally see this. You can do fine and still expunge the grade if you hated the subject and wouldn't take the next sequence. It's better than showing a year of Latin, perhaps an ok to mediocre grade, and then showing zero follow-through to the next class. Keep in mind the classes you choose in HS is supposed to tell your story. Sometimes the inconvenient truth is, you took a class and thought you'd like it and would continue but it turns out you hated it and would prefer it to "just go away" from your composite story.

[Anonymous]

Parents debating the value of an advanced diploma are overlooking that kids have their own preferences. Sometimes, the advanced diploma is less about how we—as parents—perceive its worth and more about the sense of accomplishment it gives them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges 100% don't care about the advanced diploma. It's literally a sticker stuck on the normal diploma and is not awarded until graduation so it's not something even indicated on college applications. You can choose to have the grade expunged from a high school course taken in middle school for any grade any reason. One of my kids took Latin and did fine but hated it and we expunged it. I'd worry much more about my child not getting a strong algebra base for all the courses to come over worrying about them getting a high grade in what likely will end up being a watered down course. Half the AAP kids isn't a high enough bar for 7th grade Algebra so it's certainly going to be a mess a year earlier with less maturity and no preparation.

This is very bizarre. Walk me through the logic behind this one please. Your kid hated Latin so much that they couldn’t bear to see it on their transcript so you expunged it, despite doing fine in the class?

I'm not the poster who wrote that, but I can totally see this. You can do fine and still expunge the grade if you hated the subject and wouldn't take the next sequence. It's better than showing a year of Latin, perhaps an ok to mediocre grade, and then showing zero follow-through to the next class. Keep in mind the classes you choose in HS is supposed to tell your story. Sometimes the inconvenient truth is, you took a class and thought you'd like it and would continue but it turns out you hated it and would prefer it to "just go away" from your composite story.

I don't think any college is going to ding a kid for dropping a language after 7th grade and moving on to another language. I also don't think that a college is going to ding a kid for a B or an A- in a language class that they ended up dropping because they didn't like it. We also hear about colleges telling parents that they drop any grade for a HS class before 9th grade and that some colleges, like the UC's and Cal State California, only count classes from 10-12.

It is a parent's choice, so do what you are comfortable with, but it does strike me as an unusual choice. I doubt it matters because I don't think it will appear on the transcript at all and is different then taking Algebra 1, expunging the grade, then taking Geometry and not having an Algebra 1 grade on the transcript. That would look weird but I don't know that the Colleges care if the math grades from 9-12 grade, or 10-12 gade, are all A's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges 100% don't care about the advanced diploma. It's literally a sticker stuck on the normal diploma and is not awarded until graduation so it's not something even indicated on college applications. You can choose to have the grade expunged from a high school course taken in middle school for any grade any reason. One of my kids took Latin and did fine but hated it and we expunged it. I'd worry much more about my child not getting a strong algebra base for all the courses to come over worrying about them getting a high grade in what likely will end up being a watered down course. Half the AAP kids isn't a high enough bar for 7th grade Algebra so it's certainly going to be a mess a year earlier with less maturity and no preparation.

This is very bizarre. Walk me through the logic behind this one please. Your kid hated Latin so much that they couldn’t bear to see it on their transcript so you expunged it, despite doing fine in the class?

I'm not the poster who wrote that, but I can totally see this. You can do fine and still expunge the grade if you hated the subject and wouldn't take the next sequence. It's better than showing a year of Latin, perhaps an ok to mediocre grade, and then showing zero follow-through to the next class. Keep in mind the classes you choose in HS is supposed to tell your story. Sometimes the inconvenient truth is, you took a class and thought you'd like it and would continue but it turns out you hated it and would prefer it to "just go away" from your composite story.

I don't think any college is going to ding a kid for dropping a language after 7th grade and moving on to another language. I also don't think that a college is going to ding a kid for a B or an A- in a language class that they ended up dropping because they didn't like it. We also hear about colleges telling parents that they drop any grade for a HS class before 9th grade and that some colleges, like the UC's and Cal State California, only count classes from 10-12.

It is a parent's choice, so do what you are comfortable with, but it does strike me as an unusual choice. I doubt it matters because I don't think it will appear on the transcript at all and is different then taking Algebra 1, expunging the grade, then taking Geometry and not having an Algebra 1 grade on the transcript. That would look weird but I don't know that the Colleges care if the math grades from 9-12 grade, or 10-12 gade, are all A's.

If you've got an HS (or MS) kid, you'd know it is way less about what you (the parent) feel as appropriate or not and way more about how your kid feels and wants to process his/her HS career. They're running the show when it comes to their transcript, and their decision is usually the final decision. So it's great to opine and tell a parent how to process something, but that's not the marker for making a kid understand what is important to them.