Daughter's AP classes do not allow extra credit work to count towards college grade

[Greenmonsters]

IME, college Admissions Offices are significantly better at evaluating academic talent than coaches are at evaluating softball talent.

IMO, if you do you best academically during HS and are objective during your college search process, you can expect to be successful academically at the schools to which you are admitted, while recognizing that you probably also probably could have been successful at the schools that didn't offer you admission.

 

[John T]

PA SB Dad,

Our school has eliminated the class rank because of the weighted GPA and it was so competitive that students were cheating on exams to be top 10 in the senior class. Now they use a Laude system. If I student takes X number of AP classes they get placed at either Magna, Suma etc. They will only put the students in percentile ranks (Top 5% or top 10%) for the purpose of getting into schools and of course you have a GPA from their transcripts and ACT/SAT scores.

My daughter is so much better prepared for college because of the academic rigor of the classes and I get the feeling her first couple years of college will be easy for her because of it. She will also start school as a sophomore by getting credit for the HS classes.

 

[Indiana]

^^^^^ Same. The top 10 or so kids were practically plotting each others untimely ends while they used formulas on their phones to real-time calculate their class rank after every quiz.

This became a minor issue for the Sparkler academic all-star games. Several girls on DD's team were from high schools which did not calculate class rank. Class rank was a requirement for the all-star application. Our coach called up Triple Crown and they said that in lieu of class rank, a note from the guidance counselor would suffice.

 

[vdubya]

She will also start school as a sophomore by getting credit for the HS classes.

John, I wish your DD the best during this great time in life.

One caution: Even if all of the credits are accepted by her college of choice, thirty credits out of HS does not a college sophomore make. There are exceptions. Check the chroinological structure of the core courses in her field of study and see if it is plausible or even possible to graduate after three years. I know that high schools like to 'sell' that "graduate as a college sophomore" stuff, but it is a bit misleading. It would be a lot more honest if they just said that the student will have completed X number of credits as they enter their freshman year of college.

The great thing about those credits is that they might lighten the load for a semester or 5 and that is nothing to sneeze at!

Congrats to you and DD!
VW

 

[John T]

vdubya,

You are correct on the credits, she will not quite be a sophomore, because not all of them will count for her general education credits. She is thinking of into the medical field and just about no matter what she goes into it will be 6 years plus. I know the workload in these classes (Advanced Placement) is way over what was required of me in college, and with an older DD in college, they are well above her classes as far as workload.

I started off as a "Nay Sayer" about the AP classes, but I have come around because of where she will be as a freshman in college.

As I have said in other posts...get the most out of your education because there is a hell of a lot more scholarship money for academics than there is for athletics. She will be cutting her room and board + tuition in half because of her academic ability and get another 20 percent from athletics at a DII school.

 

[SoCal_Dad]

I understand vw's point, however colleges use #units completed and being designated a sophomore will usually result in getting priority over freshmen when registering for classes.

 

[riseball]

I understand vw's point, however colleges use #units completed and being designated a sophomore will usually result in getting priority over freshmen when registering for classes.

And athletes are in front of everyone.

 

[SoCal_Dad]

And athletes are in front of everyone.

Not true at all/many schools. YMMV

 

[John T]

The ones that we have talked to (5) athletes are in front of most.

 

[MsDinosaur]

NHS is another thing that isn't worth worrying about or the time put in to qualify. Universities could care less, due the subjective selection process at the high schools. For many, it is a popularity contest.

Yeah, I'm still mad about DD not getting into the National Junior Honor Society in Middle School. She had met all the requirements, but apparently there's a super-secret extra list of requirements...like being popular with whoever's running it.