4.6 GPA.. are you serious?

That is a bunch of garbage - the school your son is going to is stealing money from the kids in scholarships. I am all for having high standards and having the kids accomplish something but those kids have no chance.

How in the world can an A- be only 3.7? I would look into forming a parents protest group and get information on scholarships and the requirements to get them from local schools or even nationally. Put some pressure on the board of education in the news media. Stuff like that seems to work wonders.

Many colleges do not consider weighted grades at all. Weighting is so random across the country some school districts score on a 7.0 scale. Stanford turns down something like 80% of all Valedictorians, so they must be looking at something else. Like the quality of the courses your son is taking. If he is really interested submit an application let them make the decision.

A little twist on bb1's comment. Many schools take the raw grades and recompute GPA based on their own systems. I think you can feel pretty confident that your son will get the appropriate recognition for the difficult course load he carries.

Don't fret. Most colleges are aware of the different grading scales and they take that into account when making decisions. No worries!

quillgirl


You are correct---I can get a reading from many college coaches when I tell them where a player attends HS---they know the story about the schools and the grading---which systems are weak and which school systems are strong

Relax Bum. It all comes out in the wash! TR Hit made a great point; many of the coaches (or school administrators) seem to know if your son goes to a strong or weak academic HS.

Bum:

Your concern is well founded, but I think the advice that was offered by bb1, Holden, quillgirl, and TR is correct.

You may want to turn the bummobile around and take another look at Stanford.

And a 3.7 for an "A"? How many of your school board members were members of Spinal Tap..."turn it up to 11?"

If they allow room for an "A+" do they then, in turn, allow for an "F-"?

College admissions offices actually keep track of students who came there from certain high schools, and how they fared vs. how they looked as applicants. If you come from a strong school, they know it.

I support the concept of extra points for advanced classes, because otherwise the incentive is to take less challenging classes in order to protect your GPA. So I understand where you're coming from with your complaint.

With the extra points systems, no matter how high the GPA number gets inflated, in the end your class rank will tell the tale. But if your school doesn't give the extra points, don't despair. The known caliber of your school and the toughness of the course load your son took will pull him through, esp. if he aces the SAT's/ACT's.

Before Midlo Son made his decision, he had some discussions with Stanford (lots of e-mails and a couple of very long phone calls). One thing the Stanford recruiter told us was, they LOVE kids who take challenging courses! And if you look at their baseball roster, and then look up those kids' HS info on PGCrosschecker, there are plenty of sub-4.0 kids. But you can bet they took tough courses and went to tough schools, just like your son.

Sounds like your son might be EXACTLY the kind of kid they're looking for -- as long as he can play, too! So don't give up on that dream too soon.

Bum - Stanford recomputes your son's GPA based on their own criteria...in other words the way your HS computes it will not matter to them. He should be fine...or at least evaluated evenly with other kids.

BTW, if he ends up there they do use the +/- system and compute their in-college GPAs just like your HS.

Our HSs give credit for an A, B, C, etc. There's no such thing as minus or pluses. However, there are "weighted" GPAs included on your transcripts... but that's in addition to your regularly calculated GPA. As stated earlier, some schools consider weighted and some won't. Regardless, when they see the grading scale, they'll translate those grades into one they consider fair and accurate. Sounds like your son is taking care of business in the classroom and that's all he has to do... don't need to worry about that funky system.

When universitites look at the "Core Classes" your son took, those core classes are defined by the institution itself. Therefore, they not only know those "core classes" but also other vital information such as weighted courses, and grading scale. It all comes out in the wash as was already pointed out. A lot of that other stuff is really fluff and colleges know it.

Grade inflation, etcetera is the reason that standardized tests are so important. And that classroom "security" is so high while it is being administered. And that ACT and SAT prep classes are not only expensive, but big business.

I knew a senior from a high school with more than 8000 students and his rank was in the top 10 of his class of over 2000. I was very impressed until he told me that he scored a 25 on the ACT. While a 25 is a good score, it was not what I expected a student near the very top of his class to score....

As much as I hated to take standardized tests, I understand the importance of them.

Gaming the grade system is now big.

Bright kids avoid course such as Drivers Ed where the top grade possible is "only" an A.

My school does both weighted and unweighted. I have a 4.0 unweighted (straight A's through HS) and about 4.5 or so weighted (ive taken some AP classes worth 5 points.

They really should standardize it.

A local baseball pitching star played for Duke for one year. PG said he had a 3.9 HS GPA and an ACT of only 22. (and 90 mph fastball)

Last I heard he transferred to a local JUCO. Don't know about his grades there, but his ERA was above 7.

Things change.

Thanks all for the great input! No, Bum Jr. is not "Bummed" out. In fact, the bum is on MySpace right now oblivious to it all.

That's good to hear bum...

Your concerns are my concerns...we've got to stick together!

...and...

This is a timely topic for me. In my sons frosh and now spoh year the classes are ranked as follows – Top to bottom.

Gifted
Honors
College Prep
Technical

There is no weighted average. So given the above – baseball talent excluded, which student would be accepted to an ACC or SEC school:

Student 1 – Gifted – GPA= 3.0
Student 2 – Honors – GPA=3.2
Student 3 – College Prep – GPA=3.5

I realize the factor of SAT is not included and one would assume a Student 1 would score higher then Student 2 and 3. But lets just speculate they all have a good score.

Bum....my son's school has weighted and unweighted numbers reported on his transcript, and these schools know what to look for. Also, what most schools look at is what is called the "Carnegie GPA", which is the unweighted GPA in core courses. For example, my son is in a special arts magnet program and has been throughout high school. However, despite the fact that he had to audition to get in and there are limited slots, and the courses that he takes in visual arts are advanced, those don't count for him when it comes to his high school GPA. Too bad, really, cause he's REALLY good at it