Last week a teacher friend complained to me about her grade-obsessed juniors:
I asked, “So – let me get this straight – you think that getting a 97 rather than a 95 in this class might make the difference as to whether you are accepted into the college of your dreams?”
Resounding answer: “YES!”
I have to admit that my first response wasn’t to feel sad for the high schoolers who have been convinced that every little thing can and will be used against them in the court of college admissions. My first thought was much more literal: the 97 over a 95 makes no difference. Either a 95 or a 97 as a semester average grade will go on their transcript and earn them four grade points—five if it’s an honors class. Whether it’s a 95 or 97 makes no difference to their GPA. Plus, the colleges will never see the single-cycle 95 or 97, just the overall final semester grade based on two cycles and a final exam.
But that’s the thing. I used to work in the same school district and know how the grades are entered onto the final transcript. The students almost certainly don’t know how the final transcript works, because they will probably never see it! They see their report cards four times a year—which do show those 95s and 97s—but probably will not ever look at their official transcript that gets sent to colleges. That seems like a problem.
In fact, many students never see the two most important documents that their high school will send to colleges for their applications: their transcript and the high school profile. Understanding what these documents are and how they relate to you can help calm down some of your anxiety about college admissions, and they can help you concentrate your energy and worry onto things that really matter.
Transcript. Your transcript is the official document that shows all the classes you’ve taken, the grades you earned in those classes, and the average grade for all of them—your GPA. It will also show your test results from standardized tests given to you by your school—your school district may or may not also put PSAT, SAT, ACT, or AP exam grades onto your school transcript. If your school district has different diplomas with different requirements, that will also be noted on your transcript. The transcript is not same as the report card you get several times a year.
There’s no single, universal way that grades are given or that GPAs are calculated. Some use letter grades, some numerical grades that go up to 100. Some use a narrative description and no numbers at all. Likewise, there are many ways to calculate a GPA. Some use a four-point scale, some a five- or six-point scale, some a 10- or 12-point scale. It’s useful to know how your grades are recorded on the transcript and how they’re translated into a GPA. This is information that’s sent to colleges, so you want to know what that information is.
Depending on the policies of your school district, you may have easy access to your transcript. It may be something that is occasionally given to you, or something that is easy to request and look at. However, you may not. Some schools don’t like to make it easy to see your transcript until it’s final, especially if it includes your class rank. It may take some help from a parent to be able to see your own transcript or even a sample to understand how your school district formats transcripts. Whether you have easy access to your transcript or not, it will be extremely helpful to have a school counselor explain what information it contains, how it’s formatted, and how your GPA is calculated. If this isn’t something that your school does regularly, ask them to begin.
School profile. When a university that uses holistic admissions looks at your application, they think about you in context of the school you attend. They want to know how you fit into your own environment, not some abstract idea of the perfect student. For example, even if they prefer that you’ve taken AP classes, they’re not going to hold it against you if your school doesn’t actually offer AP classes. And how do they know what your context is? High schools send a school profile along with your transcript. It gives the colleges a sense of your school, even if they’re not familiar with your school. Here’s an example of a school profile.
Ideally, your high school’s profile they send to colleges should be readily available on the school website. Anyone should be able to see it. If it is, great! Look over it occasionally to think about how your transcript and application will look within that context. If it’s not, ask your school administration to make it available to you. (Again, you may end up needing parental help with this one.) If the profile looks good, by which I mean it’s thorough, accurate, and professional-looking, then ask the administration to make it available publicly. If it’s incomplete, out-dated, or sloppy, then a group of students/parents/teachers may want to volunteer to make it better. If some of the improvements involve compiling confidential information, then obviously the school will have to do that part. But at any level, I’ve found “I would like to help you, the school, present yourself better” will go more successfully than “I need you to immediately fix things to make me, the student, present myself better.”
I sincerely hope that this post is useless to lots and lots of students. I hope you have easy access to your own transcript and understand what all the facts and figures mean. I hope your school has an appealing and up-to-date profile that presents you and the entire school community in the best possible light. But I know that isn’t always the case. Trying to fix bureaucratic documents isn’t fun or easy. But it will have a greater payoff—for you and your classmates—than stressing about the imaginary difference between a 95 and a 97.
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