Don't colleges want to see kids excelling at foreign languages?

This is just our experience. DC made an A at TJ in Spanish I. Has a B+ in Spanish II— very possible for him to end the year with an A/A-. He is finishing his Spanish requirement this summer online through FCPS— which has the reputation of being much easier than the TJ version. If we think he is going to struggle to get a solid A (A-or lower) in Sp III on line, he is going to take it pass-fail. If a solid A seems likely, then he will take for a grade.

General rule of thumb seems to be that if you can get a solid A don’t pass-fail. The A looks better than the pass, even if it slightly pulls down GPA. But if you kid might have trouble getting an A, and P-F is an option, go for P-F.

For example, if your kid takes PF for Lang 1,2,3, the college has no idea if they learned something, or if they finished with a D-. But, out kid hate language, an d it is not an area of strength. So, he will take an A in I, A-/B+ in II, and PF III, rather than rush a grade below an A.

Agree that PE and genuine electives (band, art, drama orchestra) are another place to use PF.

You can’t use PF for the 4th history at TJ, even if taken in the summer. It’s considered a core class.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neat trick! Do a lot of kids do this? It would seem to benefit anyone who has over a 4.0 weighted GPA.

However, it will lower your unweighted GPA (unless you already have a perfect 4.0 unweighted).

Most kids DO NOT do this beyond the required EPF class. College admission officers want to see grades for academic classes. Take a look at the excellent admissions blog of Dean J Associate Admissions at UVA: http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/ and this post on her Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/UVaDeanJ/status/950549871936835584 where she says "I'm looking at applicants from one of my schools in GPA order. The programs are all over the map. Remember that transcripts tell stories that GPAs don't. #UVA #UVA22 #collegeapplications"

Per the description other PP posted, you can do one class per year.
So, if you make these classes all P/F:
9th: PE
10th: PE
11th: Band or 3rd year Language
12th: EPF

Something like that. I only see upside here... it raises your GPA (which gets you more careful looks at your transcript).
I guess I am not really seeing a downside (except maybe lowering the unweighted).

Some of the top colleges use software to automatically re-weight GPAs by stripping out PE and Band and similar courses so they can better compare apples to apples. It's probably OK to take PE and EPF pass/fail but would caution about taking substantive classes like foreign language that way.

So there are benefits to taking band/drama/orchestra all 4 years of HS after all!

This practice is widely prevelant in other states. In IL for instance we know of a couple of kids with close to 4.7 weighted with 10 APs. Seems impossible until you realize that they have been playing this game from MS.

One of them got into Harvard, BTW. Not saying it's because of this but as another PP pointed out, the high GPA gets a closer look at the application package. Likely also that parents hired a coach who must have recommended this approach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neat trick! Do a lot of kids do this? It would seem to benefit anyone who has over a 4.0 weighted GPA.

However, it will lower your unweighted GPA (unless you already have a perfect 4.0 unweighted).

Most kids DO NOT do this beyond the required EPF class. College admission officers want to see grades for academic classes. Take a look at the excellent admissions blog of Dean J Associate Admissions at UVA: http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/ and this post on her Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/UVaDeanJ/status/950549871936835584 where she says "I'm looking at applicants from one of my schools in GPA order. The programs are all over the map. Remember that transcripts tell stories that GPAs don't. #UVA #UVA22 #collegeapplications"

Per the description other PP posted, you can do one class per year.
So, if you make these classes all P/F:
9th: PE
10th: PE
11th: Band or 3rd year Language
12th: EPF

Something like that. I only see upside here... it raises your GPA (which gets you more careful looks at your transcript).
I guess I am not really seeing a downside (except maybe lowering the unweighted).

Some of the top colleges use software to automatically re-weight GPAs by stripping out PE and Band and similar courses so they can better compare apples to apples. It's probably OK to take PE and EPF pass/fail but would caution about taking substantive classes like foreign language that way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neat trick! Do a lot of kids do this? It would seem to benefit anyone who has over a 4.0 weighted GPA.

However, it will lower your unweighted GPA (unless you already have a perfect 4.0 unweighted).

Most kids DO NOT do this beyond the required EPF class. College admission officers want to see grades for academic classes. Take a look at the excellent admissions blog of Dean J Associate Admissions at UVA: http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/ and this post on her Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/UVaDeanJ/status/950549871936835584 where she says "I'm looking at applicants from one of my schools in GPA order. The programs are all over the map. Remember that transcripts tell stories that GPAs don't. #UVA #UVA22 #collegeapplications"

Per the description other PP posted, you can do one class per year.
So, if you make these classes all P/F:
9th: PE
10th: PE
11th: Band or 3rd year Language
12th: EPF

Something like that. I only see upside here... it raises your GPA (which gets you more careful looks at your transcript).
I guess I am not really seeing a downside (except maybe lowering the unweighted).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neat trick! Do a lot of kids do this? It would seem to benefit anyone who has over a 4.0 weighted GPA.

However, it will lower your unweighted GPA (unless you already have a perfect 4.0 unweighted).

Most kids DO NOT do this beyond the required EPF class. College admission officers want to see grades for academic classes. Take a look at the excellent admissions blog of Dean J Associate Admissions at UVA: http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/ and this post on her Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/UVaDeanJ/status/950549871936835584 where she says "I'm looking at applicants from one of my schools in GPA order. The programs are all over the map. Remember that transcripts tell stories that GPAs don't. #UVA #UVA22 #collegeapplications"

Dean Jeannine Lalonde is an Associate Dean of Admissions at UVA assigned to much of Northern VA including FCPS.

Anonymous wrote:Neat trick! Do a lot of kids do this? It would seem to benefit anyone who has over a 4.0 weighted GPA.

However, it will lower your unweighted GPA (unless you already have a perfect 4.0 unweighted).

Most kids DO NOT do this beyond the required EPF class. College admission officers want to see grades for academic classes. Take a look at the excellent admissions blog of Dean J Associate Admissions at UVA: http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/ and this post on her Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/UVaDeanJ/status/950549871936835584 where she says "I'm looking at applicants from one of my schools in GPA order. The programs are all over the map. Remember that transcripts tell stories that GPAs don't. #UVA #UVA22 #collegeapplications"

Neat trick! Do a lot of kids do this? It would seem to benefit anyone who has over a 4.0 weighted GPA.

However, it will lower your unweighted GPA (unless you already have a perfect 4.0 unweighted).

Anonymous wrote:Because colleges know these tricks and most will calculate their own GPA from the students' transcripts. I personally don't think P/F looks good on transcripts

How would they do that in this case? A student has a "P" for say a non-weighted course (e.g. Spanish 1). What would the college do? Add it back in with a 4.0 GPA?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't realize you could do courses P/F during the school year. Why wouldn't someone just do all non-core courses on a P/F basis to improve their weighted GPA?

Because you can only take a limited number, maybe 2 for the entire time.

Apparently it's one per school year. Based on this and if played well, they could take all language courses as P/F (except AP) and one of the elective summer courses (e.g. World History), that's 4 courses. Each 4.0 course removed from your transcript (in an otherwise predominantly honors/AP transcript) adds 0.02 per course.

https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/forms/se119.pdf

1. With parent/guardian approval, high school students are given the option of taking one elective credit per school year to be
marked on a pass-fail basis. This may be applied to required physical education credits, world language credits, economics and
personal finance, to credits other than those required for English, social studies, mathematics, and laboratory science, and to
specialized courses such as Principles of Engineering and Senior Technology Research taught at Thomas Jefferson High School
for Science and Technology.

2. With parent/guardian approval, middle school students are given the option of taking one high school world language elective
credit or one ESOL course that counts as a high school world language elective per school year on a pass-fail basis.

Anonymous wrote:I didn't realize you could do courses P/F during the school year. Why wouldn't someone just do all non-core courses on a P/F basis to improve their weighted GPA?

Because you can only take a limited number, maybe 2 for the entire time.

Because colleges know these tricks and most will calculate their own GPA from the students' transcripts. I personally don't think P/F looks good on transcripts

I didn't realize you could do courses P/F during the school year. Why wouldn't someone just do all non-core courses on a P/F basis to improve their weighted GPA?

While discussing colleges, etc with some folks in other parts of the country, I found out that in some areas kids choose to go pass/fail strategically to boost their grades. For instance, they would do one or two of the non-weighted courses (language, PE, etc) as PF which helps boost their overall unweighted and weighted GPAs.

Question for the community - Is this done around here as well?
If one can do language on a P/F basis, why not do it P/F for two years and do the AP version as a regular course?
How do colleges look at this or do they even care?
Would the AP courses count towards total work load - Some posters claim that their kids have done 35+ High school courses starting in MS. Not sure how this matters for college admissions but if it does, will the P/F courses be part of that count or excluded?

Really appreciate inputs especially from parents of seniors who may have done this and its impact on college admissions..