GPA Questions

[Anonymous]

How is your high schooler doing with GPA? Did it vary from year to year?
What is considered a "good" GPA, weighted and unweighted?
How many kids are taking all Honors/AP and have a 4.0 unweighted GPA?
I know FCPS includes electives and PE in the GPA, but what do you think? Are these elective non-language courses important?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is your high schooler doing with GPA? Did it vary from year to year?
What is considered a "good" GPA, weighted and unweighted?
How many kids are taking all Honors/AP and have a 4.0 unweighted GPA?
I know FCPS includes electives and PE in the GPA, but what do you think? Are these elective non-language courses important?

In general, the GPA increases each year if the student gets the same grades because he/she takes more APs junior and senior years and Honors freshman and sophomore years. Students do have normal ups and downs that also change their GPA.

In DC's graduating class this year, about 100 out of ~480 had 4.0 or higher as that is the threshold for an award. This was helped by a bump up in senior year. I noticed that teachers tended to grade harder sophomore and junior years and much easier senior year- especially after 2nd quarter (AP physics C being the exception) Naviance is based on the final GPA so subtract a bit. DC's GPA went from ~3.8 to just shy of 4.0 from end of junior year to end of senior year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is your high schooler doing with GPA? Did it vary from year to year?
What is considered a "good" GPA, weighted and unweighted?
How many kids are taking all Honors/AP and have a 4.0 unweighted GPA?
I know FCPS includes electives and PE in the GPA, but what do you think? Are these elective non-language courses important?

In general, the GPA increases each year if the student gets the same grades because he/she takes more APs junior and senior years and Honors freshman and sophomore years. Students do have normal ups and downs that also change their GPA.

In DC's graduating class this year, about 100 out of ~480 had 4.0 or higher as that is the threshold for an award. This was helped by a bump up in senior year. I noticed that teachers tended to grade harder sophomore and junior years and much easier senior year- especially after 2nd quarter (AP physics C being the exception) Naviance is based on the final GPA so subtract a bit. DC's GPA went from ~3.8 to just shy of 4.0 from end of junior year to end of senior year.

You're talking weighted, right? What was that unweighted? From my understanding, colleges often throw out things like gym and run an unweighted average of core courses for comparison purposes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is your high schooler doing with GPA? Did it vary from year to year?
What is considered a "good" GPA, weighted and unweighted?
How many kids are taking all Honors/AP and have a 4.0 unweighted GPA?
I know FCPS includes electives and PE in the GPA, but what do you think? Are these elective non-language courses important?

In general, the GPA increases each year if the student gets the same grades because he/she takes more APs junior and senior years and Honors freshman and sophomore years. Students do have normal ups and downs that also change their GPA.

In DC's graduating class this year, about 100 out of ~480 had 4.0 or higher as that is the threshold for an award. This was helped by a bump up in senior year. I noticed that teachers tended to grade harder sophomore and junior years and much easier senior year- especially after 2nd quarter (AP physics C being the exception) Naviance is based on the final GPA so subtract a bit. DC's GPA went from ~3.8 to just shy of 4.0 from end of junior year to end of senior year.

You're talking weighted, right? What was that unweighted? From my understanding, colleges often throw out things like gym and run an unweighted average of core courses for comparison purposes.

Yes, it is weighted, but Naviance shows weighted too- so you compared your student's weighted GPA to other student's weighted GPA.

[Anonymous]

Why is this in the AAP forum?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is this in the AAP forum?

Honors, AP and IB classes are all AAP.

[Anonymous]

Do you really want to maximize the GPA, or is learning and sanity important?

Maximize GPA = take electives pass/fail since they aren't weighted.
Take only weighted classes and get all A's (well, as a goal)
Know that high schools differ re: the bell curve, grade distributions. A's may be limited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is this in the AAP forum?

Because kids in Gen Ed don't care about GPAs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is this in the AAP forum?

Honors, AP and IB classes are all AAP.

No, they're not. Honors, AP, and IB are open enrollment for any student interested. They are not part of elementary/middle AAP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is this in the AAP forum?

Because kids in Gen Ed don't care about GPAs?

Really hoping you're being facetious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is this in the AAP forum?

Honors, AP and IB classes are all AAP.

No, they're not. Honors, AP, and IB are open enrollment for any student interested. They are not part of elementary/middle AAP.

Honors, AP and IB classes are all AAP. They are on the FCPS website under Advanced Academic Programs (AAP). Link:

http://www.fcps.edu/is/aap/continuum/hs.shtml

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is this in the AAP forum?

Honors, AP and IB classes are all AAP.

No, they're not. Honors, AP, and IB are open enrollment for any student interested. They are not part of elementary/middle AAP.

AAP= advanced academic curriculum and AP, IB and Honors are part of that definition. While this forum is primarily for FCPS AAP formal program, it is not exclusively for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is your high schooler doing with GPA? Did it vary from year to year?
What is considered a "good" GPA, weighted and unweighted?
How many kids are taking all Honors/AP and have a 4.0 unweighted GPA?
I know FCPS includes electives and PE in the GPA, but what do you think? Are these elective non-language courses important?

I have a peripheral question: what does the bolded sentence mean exactly? If you're getting extra points for Honors and AP, how do you calculate your unweighted GPA?
I've also heard that colleges unweight your classes and then recalculate your GPA. Does that mean they're effectively not giving you bonus points for taking honors or AP? What is the point, then? I'd understand if you were learning harder stuff, but I have one child who took Algebra 1 Honors this year while the other took regular Algebra 1. Beyond some "extension units" that introduced a few additional topics, the only difference between the Honors class and the regular one is that there is more work. Not more depth, but more work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is your high schooler doing with GPA? Did it vary from year to year?
What is considered a "good" GPA, weighted and unweighted?
How many kids are taking all Honors/AP and have a 4.0 unweighted GPA?
I know FCPS includes electives and PE in the GPA, but what do you think? Are these elective non-language courses important?

I have a peripheral question: what does the bolded sentence mean exactly? If you're getting extra points for Honors and AP, how do you calculate your unweighted GPA?
I've also heard that colleges unweight your classes and then recalculate your GPA. Does that mean they're effectively not giving you bonus points for taking honors or AP? What is the point, then? I'd understand if you were learning harder stuff, but I have one child who took Algebra 1 Honors this year while the other took regular Algebra 1. Beyond some "extension units" that introduced a few additional topics, the only difference between the Honors class and the regular one is that there is more work. Not more depth, but more work.

You calculate your unweighted GPA the old-fashioned way by taking away the extra points given for honors, AP or IB classes : A is 4 points, B is 3 and so on.

Many colleges, particularly elite ones, unweight your GPA for comparative purposes to create a level playing since some schools don't have advanced courses or offer very limited ones. The colleges still consider the rigor of the course you're taking as well, so what they're basically asking is did you do as well as you could in the most advanced courses available to you. Even though an AP course gives 4 points for a B, for example, you're still doing B work, not A work, which says something about how you meet challenges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is your high schooler doing with GPA? Did it vary from year to year?
What is considered a "good" GPA, weighted and unweighted?
How many kids are taking all Honors/AP and have a 4.0 unweighted GPA?
I know FCPS includes electives and PE in the GPA, but what do you think? Are these elective non-language courses important?

I have a peripheral question: what does the bolded sentence mean exactly? If you're getting extra points for Honors and AP, how do you calculate your unweighted GPA?
I've also heard that colleges unweight your classes and then recalculate your GPA. Does that mean they're effectively not giving you bonus points for taking honors or AP? What is the point, then? I'd understand if you were learning harder stuff, but I have one child who took Algebra 1 Honors this year while the other took regular Algebra 1. Beyond some "extension units" that introduced a few additional topics, the only difference between the Honors class and the regular one is that there is more work. Not more depth, but more work.

You calculate your unweighted GPA the old-fashioned way by taking away the extra points given for honors, AP or IB classes : A is 4 points, B is 3 and so on.

Many colleges, particularly elite ones, unweight your GPA for comparative purposes to create a level playing since some schools don't have advanced courses or offer very limited ones. The colleges still consider the rigor of the course you're taking as well, so what they're basically asking is did you do as well as you could in the most advanced courses available to you. Even though an AP course gives 4 points for a B, for example, you're still doing B work, not A work, which says something about how you meet challenges.

Yes, but taking only regular level classes shows that you're not up for a challenge, and would rather coast along. That may look worse to a college than a few Bs.