Archives For GPA

Kids at summer school

Summer School Is A Good Thing

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Summer school has gotten a bad rap. Back in my day, summer school meant that you didn’t do so well during the school year and had to make up a class or two. For most folks, that’s probably still the way summer school is perceived today. However, there are several compelling reasons to consider summer school activities for your child, and in this post we’ll take a look at some of those.

1) College courses offer a head start on college. Summertime is a great opportunity for your high school junior or senior to pick up a course. Local community colleges and universities have programs for kids this age to get some of their introductory courses out of the way. In addition, summer terms at college are usually a little more relaxed because the number of students on campus is way down. Taking a course in the summer is also a good way to get introduced to the college classroom.

2) High school credit can be earned ahead of its scheduled time. If college classes aren’t your goal, but you want to take advantage of the summer break, then why not use summer school to get an upcoming class completed ahead of time? Any class offered can generally be taken as long as you meet the prerequisites and pay the required fees to attend. This just might get you out of school early during your senior year, or if you play it properly you might even graduate in three years instead of four.

3) Remedial programs aren’t just for those kids who failed a subject. Maybe your son or daughter struggled with the concepts in one class and might benefit from an accelerated approach. Some schools also allow a grade received in summer school to replace a poor grade received during the year, thus boosting your grade point average.

4) Put together you own creative summer school activities at home. Attending summer school can be a pain because of the hours and rigid schedule, plus it costs to attend these classes. Doing it yourself keeps it flexible and allows you to make it fun. Here are four ways to get started:

  • There are so many resources available online for parents to create their own program and help their kids get a step ahead for next year. To find ideas like this, use search topics like “fourth grade worksheets” or “lessons for fourth grade” but tailored to the grade that your child is going into. You can also add specific subject areas to your searches if your child is struggling in a specific area.
  • You could also search for field trip ideas and take your kids on day trips during the summer to experience some of these places.
  • Find a few crafts and tap into your kid’s creative side. The big box stores like Lowes and Home Depot often have free projects on Saturday mornings for kids. And Pinterest and other mom-friendly sites contain thousands of ideas that you might use.
  • Encourage reading through summer library programs. I posted on this last year and my daughter is currently doing this for her third consecutive year. It’s a great way to read without the pressures of study and homework.

Summer school isn’t just for underachievers anymore. Nor is summer school strictly defined as a formal program any longer. If the summer break is used strategically as part of an overall academic plan, students can move ahead of their peers both literally and figuratively. And at home, it’s just a good idea for parents to do some kind of activity during the summer break to keep their kids motivated towards learning.

Application Question: What can you do to keep academics and learning alive for your child during the summer months? Comments are welcome!

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Scholarship Secrets Every Parent Should Know, Part 1

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In the world of scholarships and every parent’s struggle to pay for college, there is a dizzying array of choices and options marketed to juniors and seniors. This post reveals some of the most valuable secrets that every parent and student should know in order to maximize their scholarship offers.

Scholarship Preparation Begins Before High School. In way too many schools and homes, administrators, teachers, parents and students start talking about scholarships about halfway through high school. By then it is too late. Grade point average (GPA), extracurricular activities, and service and volunteer opportunities demonstrate what you’ve accomplished through high school and are extremely important to scholarship selection committees. The best time to begin preparing for scholarships is in middle school or junior high. The second best time is now.

Make Sure That You Know The Deadlines. Colleges have strict deadlines for priority scholarship consideration, usually December 1 of your child’s senior year. Plus, if your school requires the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) then there is a separate deadline to have that paperwork submitted. Be sure that all applications and paperwork have been submitted prior to the stated deadlines.

Some Scholarships Are Automatic. We tend to think of scholarships as awards which have many applicants with only one recipient. Almost every college has merit scholarships for incoming freshmen, which are awarded based on academic achievement. To qualify, you must generally meet a GPA and entrance exam score combination. Know what those limits are by checking the scholarship information on each school’s web site.

You Must Enter To Win. This is a mistake that I made during my high school years. In order to receive a scholarship offer from a given school, you must be accepted as a student at that university. Schools don’t just send out scholarship offers to all students who qualify; you must go through the application for admission process in order to be considered. This means that you must complete the application for admission, pay the required application fees, and submit your high school transcript and entrance exam scores for each school that you’re interested in. Don’t overlook this very important step.

Bigger Is Not Always Better. It is easy to look at the monetary value of all scholarship awards and take the one with the highest value. That’s not necessarily the best approach. A better way to look at it is to figure out the total cost of attendance at each school and determine how much will not be covered after all scholarships and financial aid has been applied. The “right” choice from a financial standpoint is the one with the smallest deficit.

In the next post, I will reveal four more secrets that parents and students need to know. By equipping yourself with this knowledge and paying attention to all of the deadlines, you will find yourself miles ahead of the pack and in a position to maximize your scholarship opportunities.

Application Question – Have you begun to research scholarship opportunities? Are you facing upcoming deadlines for your high school senior? Do you talk with your child about rounding out their resume as they approach scholarship time?

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Entrance Exams

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Two components are most critical in the search for academic merit scholarships – grade point average and entrance exam scores. The entrance exams, namely the ACT and the SAT, are standardized exams given approximately six times per year. These exams are usually given at high schools across the country and there is a fee each time you take these exams. The ACT is generally the exam of choice for southern schools, and the SAT for schools throughout the rest of the country. Most schools specify one or the other but generally will take results from the other exam.

As of this writing, the SAT costs $49 per sitting and the ACT has two options – with writing ($49.50) and without ($34). On the ACT, most schools now require that you take the writing section at least once.  Each time you take either exam you can have your results mailed to four different schools for free, and you can have score reports sent to more schools for an additional fee. On the ACT, the maximum section and composite score is 36, and the composite is an average of the four section scores. On the SAT, there are three sections in which you can score from 200-800 points in each, and the composite score is a sum of the three section scores.

So a lot rides on your performance on the entrance exam; in fact, there are a few schools who will award scholarships based solely on your entrance exam scores.  Each school will recognize the highest score on a single exam.  And, a limited number of schools will do a “super-score” which means that, once you’ve taken the exam multiple times, they will take the top score from each section to create their own composite score. 

In order to maximize your performance on either exam, I’m recommending the following three-exam plan:

Choose which exam you will take
Use practice tests to prepare for the first exam during the summer before your junior year
Take it the first time during the fall of your junior year
Add an exam prep study guide to prepare for the second exam during the winter of your junior year
Take the second exam during the spring of your junior year
Use an individualized coaching service to prepare for the third exam during the summer before your senior year
Take the third exam during the fall of your senior year

This might sound a little costly, but for less than the cost of one college course plus fees plus books, you could improve your score enough to earn some additional scholarship dollars.  If you’ve done the work to get a good grade point average, don’t let the exam hurdle dash your scholarship hopes.  Make the time and money investment to do the best you can on these exams.

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How important is your college pedigree?

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Even in this era of modern learning, a lot of stock is still placed in the college name. Why does it matter? Colleges tout the average GPA and entrance exam scores, which only says something about the student population when they enter college. Why don’t they publish statistics about how the students perform after college? Stats like how long it takes to matriculate, percentage of graduates with jobs after six months, average starting salary, number of CEOs among their graduates would be a lot more meaningful in college selection, wouldn’t they?

Employers don’t really care about where you go to school – they just care that you learned something while you were there. When your major is offered at a public in-state school and you’re also considering the big-name private college that’s two states over, think twice about which choice will be worth more five years from today.

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Why is Grade Point Average So Important?

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So in our last posting we talked about grade point averages (GPA) and how to calculate them.  In this posting I’ll talk about why I spent so much time to make sure that everyone understands how they are calculated.  The merit scholarship, by and large, is awarded based on a combination of your GPA and your best college entrance exam score.  The higher each of these are, the more you are eligible to receive.  However, one or the other is usually not enough to save you if the other is not good.  The exam score generally measures aptitude to perform well at college-level courses while the GPA shows the amount of discipline and good study habits; in other words, it is a measure of just how serious you are about school.  Scholarship award committees take a huge risk when they award a full-tuition scholarship to a student, and they want to be sure that they are making a sound investment.

Starting in middle school, parents and students alike can work to develop this discipline and study regime that prepares the student for the challenges of high school.  I have always told my kids as they approached high school that “this is where it all counts”.  It is so much easier to start out with a high GPA and remain there than it is to crawl your way back up.  One year of 3.0 GPA must be accompanied by a year of 4.0 GPA to balance out to a 3.5 average.  Many of the state schools use 3.75 as their top-level benchmark for the GPA side of the merit scholarship equation, ranging down to 3.25 and occasionally as low as 3.0.  These lower numbers will be rewarded at a lower level.

As you begin to apply to colleges during your junior year, you will be asked to submit an academic transcript.  Your high school GPA at that time will be used to (a) determine your admission status and (b) determine your eligibility for merit scholarships.  This is not the time to ease off, however; all colleges require a final transcript as a condition of enrollment.  Colleges have pulled previously-offered scholarships when a student’s GPA falls below the set criteria, so it is extremely important to follow through till the end.  My oldest child, for example, was #2 in his high school class up till the very last semester.  He played through till the end and moved into the #1 position of class rank, which qualified him for an additional $2000 from the college that he ultimately attended.  While not everyone can be top of their class, this is an illustration of how important GPA can be in factoring the amount of scholarship money made available to you.  Students and parents, let’s work together to polish that GPA and keep it as high as possible!

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Know Before You Go – Calculating Your Grade Point Average

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As mentioned in the last blog post, merit scholarships are non-competitive awards that schools make available to the highest-achieving students.  Typically, two components make up the merit scholarship award criteria – standardized test scores using the ACT or SAT and grade-point average (GPA).  Today we’ll focus on GPA.  To ensure that all readers understand what GPA refers to, I’ll briefly explain.  GPA is a mathematical calculation of the summary of a student’s grades.  It is calculated by assigning a numerical value to each letter grade, adding up all of the numerical values and dividing by the number of grades in the calculation.  Usually, the following table is used in assigning numerical values to a letter grade:

A = 4 points
B = 3 points
C = 2 points
D = 1 point
F = 0 points

So, as an example, let’s say that little Johnny brings home the following on his progress report:

English – B
Algebra – C
Science – A
History – B
Music – A
Phys Ed – B

Using the values given above, you would calculate Johnny’s GPA as follows:

3+2+4+3+4+3 = 19 divided by 6 = 3.16 GPA

High schools and colleges calculate an overall GPA for all classes attempted.  In most high schools, this simple calculation above would accurately reflect the GPA because one class equals one credit.  However, for colleges, another component is added.  Because college courses can have different credit hours earned, another step is factored into the calculation to include the credit hours per course.  The numeric value assigned to the letter grade for a class is multiplied by the number of credit hours to determine what is typically called the number of quality points for that class.  All of the quality points earned in a semester are added up, but instead of dividing by the number of classes taken you divide by the number of credit hours attempted.  Note that I said attempted, not just passed – most colleges calculate every attempt at a class. This becomes important if you have to pass a class with a C or better to move to the next class in sequence but only get a D this time around – you’ll have to take it again in order to move forward and both attempts will factor into your GPA and cost you tuition dollars.  Another example is shown below for college students:

English 101 (3 hours) – A
Pre-Calculus (3 hours) – B
Psych 101 (2 hours) – B
Biology (4 hours) – C
Biology Lab (1 hour) – A

The calculation for this college freshman would be as follows:

(4×3)+(3×3)+(3×2)+(2×4)+(4×1) = 39 divided by 13 = 3.00 GPA

Hopefully this gives you a little understanding as to what is involved with the GPA calculation.  As GPA is one of the major components of determining scholarship eligibility, both parents and students need to be aware of this number, how it is calculated, and more importantly how it is used in the admissions and scholarship awards process.  In the interest of time I won’t perform any additional calculations, but parents sit down with your students and show them how their GPA is calculated.  It might be beneficial to show them what happens when one or two C’s or D’s sneak into the mix and how hard it becomes to recover from a bout of laziness.  Start fast with a high GPA and keep it there!

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