MU Financial Aid

[warriorchick]

That's not universal. The idea, yes. Your numbers, no.

My kids' high school didn't give out 6's for AP A's.  Honors and AP classes were both 5 for an A.  Some schools don't weight at all.  That is certainly not fair, either.  An A in PE shouldn't count towards your GPA as an A in AP Chemistry.  This has got to make it hell for admissions counselors.

[JWags85]

Wow, I (clearly) had no idea the UW School of Business for undergrads was that competitive. 

I remember kids that I went to HS with stressing because they knew people with 3.3-3.5s their first year at UW that weren't admitted to the business school, at least initially.  So I don't know if it has gotten more or less competitive since then.  Its interesting considering UW's undergrad business school isn't all that highly ranked, well behind the likes of Kelly or Ross's undergrad schools.

My undergrad business school was top 15 ranked and you applied after freshman year.  If you were below a certain grade cutoff, they had what they called the "portfolio program".  Basically it was an extended appeal during the first semester of sophomore year where you compiled relevant grades, work experience, and extra-curriculars to demonstrate why you should be admitted outside of pure GPA.  Most kids who had decent grades were accepted through that method pretty easily.  I knew one kid who had a 2.5 after freshman year, but became very involved, got a 3.8 his first semester of sophomore year, was admitted through portfolio, and ended up graduating with honors.

[drewm88]

My kids' high school didn't give out 6's for AP A's.  Honors and AP classes were both 5 for an A.  Some schools don't weight at all.  That is certainly not fair, either.  An A in PE shouldn't count towards your GPA as an A in AP Chemistry.  This has got to make it hell for admissions counselors.

5.0 for both honors and AP is much more common in my experience. Agreed that unweighted often isn't fair, but I"ll say that every admissions department worth its salt has figured out how to quickly translate GPA's into something that makes sense for them.

[forgetful]

I don't know why you'd suggest anyone is forced.   It's an enticement to take a harder class, and be rewarded. 

Possibly receiving college credits via AP classes/credits .. could be a quite significant reward, monetarily, and time savings later in college.

Many of the AP classes do not yield AP credits at the Universities.  The courses are becoming exceedingly watered down.  Also, students can only get so many total AP credits.

Also, as a consequence the non-AP classes that are equivalent (especially in the sciences) get so watered down that many of the students cannot succeed in the college course once they get there.  Even the AP courses are taught to try to beat the AP exam and not master the material; many of those students then struggle in the courses that require the AP course as a prerequisite.

Like many things, the AP courses were a nice idea, but they are becoming a sham of what they were intended.

[jsglow]

Pretty confident that admissions has all this AP/non AP stuff figured out.  But for those parents of HS kids just learning about the 'direct admit' undergrad angle (so different from our era 'back in the day') it's absolutely worth paying attention.  There's been some good info in this thread and hopefully it raises awareness levels as we try to gently guide our kids.

[jsglow]

Many of the AP classes do not yield AP credits at the Universities.  The courses are becoming exceedingly watered down.  Also, students can only get so many total AP credits.

Also, as a consequence the non-AP classes that are equivalent (especially in the sciences) get so watered down that many of the students cannot succeed in the college course once they get there.  Even the AP courses are taught to try to beat the AP exam and not master the material; many of those students then struggle in the courses that require the AP course as a prerequisite.

Like many things, the AP courses were a nice idea, but they are becoming a sham of what they were intended.

I probably wouldn't want AP credit directly related to my intended major.  But I can't tell you how many times my son's HS AP credit in Stats has shown up in his curriculum planner as a completed requirement thus allowing him to skip college level math and focus on other things.

[mu03eng]

Late to the thread but have a bunch of direct experience with the various topics.

First, weighted grades.  I think they need to either be eliminated or be 100% universal across the country.  I get wanting to incentivize harder classes(though AP gives college credit if you do well on the test, that should be enough)....but it doesn't really work that way.

I started school in Florida in the International Baccalaureate program and those were considered honors classes so an A was 4.0 with a 0.16 adder for honors.  When I moved to Illinois half way through my freshman year I went to the local high school (only IB program was an all girls school 60 minutes away....believe me I tried to get in) and the GPA set up was 4.0 for an A 0.5 adder for honors and 0.83 for AP (0.33+honors).

Not knowing any better they just took my GPA number (4.16) and used that instead of recalculating it in their model(4.50).  It didn't matter because I got into all the schools I wanted to, but that difference turned out to be the difference between me graduating top 5 in my class versus top 20.

Grade inflation is a problem and that's why so many schools rely on the testing because they don't trust the GPAs and nobody has time for the transcripts(other than a quick once over).

[mu03eng]

My wife went PT through Madison and has a bunch of recent grad MU PT co-workers.  PT is a very hard major to get into, especially through direct admit regardless of school.  Anything south of 30 on the ACT is very likely not going to cut it.  On top of that, your kid should be very sure PT is what they want because if they have to change majors, could be very tough to stay away from a 6 year track because a lot of the courses are pretty unique.

[Coleman]

There's no need to weight grades. Schools see your transcripts. They know what classes you took. If you got a 3.7 in honors classes they can see the difference between a 3.7 in all woodshop and auto classes. It isn't that hard. Weighting just makes students even more apples to oranges against students who are not weighted.

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

See our entire high school was made up of honors or AP courses. There werent any regular classes to take besides PE. So everybody at my school was at least on a 5 point scale. I dont mind it at all, really dont see what the big deal is.

[GGGG]

My kids' high school didn't give out 6's for AP A's.  Honors and AP classes were both 5 for an A.  Some schools don't weight at all.  That is certainly not fair, either.  An A in PE shouldn't count towards your GPA as an A in AP Chemistry.  This has got to make it hell for admissions counselors.

None of this matters.  Colleges look at the curriculum you take and grade it accordingly.  My kids high school didn't weight grading and they weren't hampered in any way.

[mu03eng]

None of this matters.  Colleges look at the curriculum you take and grade it accordingly.  My kids high school didn't weight grading and they weren't hampered in any way.

I'll take your word for it, then what the hell does GPA show up on college applications?  I mean it's gotta have some sort of impact.  If I have someone with a 3.0 taking honors classes and someone with a 4.0 not taking honors courses....how does that get compared?

[GGGG]

I'll take your word for it, then what the hell does GPA show up on college applications?  I mean it's gotta have some sort of impact.  If I have someone with a 3.0 taking honors classes and someone with a 4.0 not taking honors courses....how does that get compared?

Probably just as a quick reference point. But most of the time the course grades are plugged into a program that weights them according to the metric that the college wants to use.  So if one student gets a weighted 4.6 GPA, but took the same courses as the unweighted 3.8 GPA student, there is a method that they use to judge them side by side.

[mu03eng]

Probably just as a quick reference point. But most of the time the course grades are plugged into a program that weights them according to the metric that the college wants to use.  So if one student gets a weighted 4.6 GPA, but took the same courses as the unweighted 3.8 GPA student, there is a method that they use to judge them side by side.

Cool, good to know, thanks for the insight.  Haven't talked to my admissions friends in a while.

[StillAWarrior]

Grade inflation creates similar issues for employers (and probably for colleges too).  There are two local law schools.  We know very well that one has very inflated grades and a generous curve, and the other does not.  We have a general idea how GPAs from the two schools compare.  However, it's one of the reasons I really like to see class rank, because it lets me know how someone compares to their "competition" at school.

I would imagine that colleges are also pretty well-versed on how to compare students from weighted and non-weighted schools.  Also, some schools don't weight nearly as much as others.  My kids' school tops out at 4.8 for an A+ in an AP class, but other area schools go higher -- as high as 6.0, I think.  But, of course, the standardized tests are the great equalizer.

I can see the reason for weighted grades, but like Sultan said, I suspect that college admissions people are sharp enough to know that if a kid has a 4.0 in a bunch of honors/AP classes, he or she has a stronger academic record that a kid with the same GPA in a bunch of remedial classes.