Cumulative Unweighted GPA for ROTC App

txpotato

5-Year Member
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Second son decided to apply for an AROTC scholarship. While filling out the form, he put in 4.0 (he has a 4.16 weighted GPA). He has never gotten anything other than an A in his life. Anyway, his Dashboard is now showing Academic Information "Approved" because I electronically sent his ACT scores. However, his GPA is now showing a 3.9. What?!? We also uploaded his transcript and it is showing as received, but it shows all As, some A+s and one or two A-s. Nothing lower. Any ideas?
 
If this is high school, A- is not a 4.0. I have an A- GPA. On the 4-point scale it is a 3.6. Perhaps those one or two A- grades prevent a full 4.0.
 
Well this is frustrating. We home school, and therefore we set the grades and the scale. I'd be happy to send his actual grades (numbers not letters). He has never made a B! I believe that his lowest actual grade is a 92. I wonder if this can be remedied....
 
Did you round up? If I remember correctly they drop the 2nd digit after the point (ie 3.98 is not 4.0, it's 3.9).
 
I think the problem is in the scale. I have always assigned number grades when I turn my grades in to our cover. They, in turn, assign letter grades that are reflected on the transcript. As I stated, he has never had a grade lower than a 92. That is an A- and results in something lower than a 4.0, apparently, to Cadet Command.
 
At my kid's school an A- = 3.7
A=4.0
A-=3.7
B+=3.3
B=3.0
etc.
 
We moved from Missouri to North Carolina between my son's Sophomore & Junior year. We had a heck of a time getting his GPA fixed between the states... in NC you have to have a 93% or above to be considered an A. To get a 4.0 in a class, you have to be above 96%. In Missouri they use the classic 90% and above for a 4.0. His GPA took a pretty hefty hit, and we where very worried about it. Eventually we got a lot of it hammered out with the school, but he still had a worse GPA than at his old school. We stressed on it at first, but his JROTC commanded offered some great advice.

"Being well rounded is going to matter more than .1 on his GPA. GPA is just one portion of one of the criteria used."

A kid with a 3.75 GPA and solid athletic and leadership experience seems to have a better shot than a kid with a 4.0 or better, but no athletic and leadership experience.
 
We found that colleges had the same differences when it came to GPA calculation.

My son's school does not use -+, get an 80-89.0% and you get a B/3.0, same for the other grade values.

This can work for or against the student when it comes to GPA. My son told me once that most of his A's were around the 90 to 92%, these all still counted as 4 points on the grading scale. Had the school used the +- system, his GPA would have been lower in the end.

Of course if all your B's are in the 88 to 89% then it can even out in the end.
 
He's a pretty good kid. He's got a superscored 30 on his ACT. He's captain of his club swim team. He's a Scholastic All American, Junior National Qualifier, record holder, top recruit in the state, etc. He also works 20+ hrs a week. He also plays five different instruments. Hopefully they will see that as well rounded. He put an instate public as his first choice. He should interview well. He actually met the PMS this weekend. His brother is a 4 year scholarship winner at the university already. We went down there to tailgate and took the opportunity to meet him. The PMS home schooled his own children, so we joked about making our own soap and grinding our wheat. I guess much will depend on funding as well.
 
He's a pretty good kid. He's got a superscored 30 on his ACT. He's captain of his club swim team. He's a Scholastic All American, Junior National Qualifier, record holder, top recruit in the state, etc. He also works 20+ hrs a week. He also plays five different instruments. Hopefully they will see that as well rounded. He put an instate public as his first choice. He should interview well. He actually met the PMS this weekend. His brother is a 4 year scholarship winner at the university already. We went down there to tailgate and took the opportunity to meet him. The PMS home schooled his own children, so we joked about making our own soap and grinding our wheat. I guess much will depend on funding as well.

Given all that I wouldn't worry about .1 on the GPA. Sounds like a typical home-schooled over-achiever! :biggrin:
 
At my kid's school an A- = 3.7
A=4.0
A-=3.7
B+=3.3
B=3.0
etc.

That is how our school grades. DD has had a couple A-'s and the rest are A's which gives her a GPA of 3.963. Cadet Command assigned hers at 3.9, as well. Many schools in our state don't use the +/- and give an A with 90%. There is definitely grade inflation going on around here, too, in most of the schools.
 
Same for our kids...the cgpa was taken out to 1/1000. I.E. if your DS has a 3.949. it would be a 3.9, but if they had a 3.956 it would be a 4.0. because it would now be a 3.96 and .96 would round up to 4.0

At our kids HS they went out that far because it was that close for Valedictorian. They had 7 kids with a 0.003 difference.

I also know if you look at the bottom of your SAT hard copy with the colleges that he selected they will have the cgpa that the college has determined to be his cgpa by their individual college calculations. Our DS saw his have a 0.25 swing for his 5 choices. Only 1 was identical to his hs., (AFA), but it was because his hs. only gave the exact cgpa. If you had a 95 on a 4.0, it was a 3.8. It didn't matter what the point scale was, i.e A is 93-100, thus a 93 would in other schools be considered a 3.6, but in his it was considered a 3.72.

Our DD graduated from a different school in a different state, and it was a 10 pt scale. A 90 was a 3.6. An 80 was a 3.2., as simple as that.

I also agree that there is grade inflation going around at a lot of schools.
 
All schools grade differently. My ds's private school has a tough curriculum and grading scale. They grade on a 7 pt scale, so:
93-100 = A
85-92 = B- to a B+
and so on

He has missed out on a few B-'s because his grade was an 84 in a class. Now I assume that the boards see the schools grading scale with his transcript and this should correspond to his slightly lower GPA.
 
I know for at least AFROTC when the official sealed transcript is sent, they are informed of the gpa scale (7 pt or 10) via the school profile submitted.
~~~ Nosy Mom here and I ordered an official transcript from DS's HS. In it, the profile showed the uwcgpa scale and the weight for classes like Honors and APs. It also showed the amount of APs offered, pre-reqs needed for APs, the amount of students taking APs.

It also gave the % of students that went to Ivy, 4 yr Private, 4 yr Public, 2 yr, and directly into the workforce.
~~~ I think they may also use this to determine grade inflation. I.E. if 30% go Ivy, and a 3.8 places the student at the top 10% rank, obviously there is no grade inflation, compared to a 3.8 top 30% rank and 0% go Ivy.

degli,

His cgpa may move up if they use a 10 pt scale or if they did what they did for our DS (AFROTC in 08), and use the exact %, thus an 83 would be a 3.32
 
His guidance counselor emailed me this morning and told me that she inputted a 4.0 for his unweighted GPA. Whether or not CC will change it on his Academic Information I don't know. We use a 10 pt scale.
 
Pima: I was told that my ds's school is moving form a letter grade to an actual number grade. They realize that even though they have a "tough" curriculum, grade on a 7 pt scale, and show this in the transcripts, it does our students a disservice. Most of the school in our area grade on a 10pt scale. Colleges in our "area" take this into account, knowing the school that my ds goes to. But, remote colleges may not.

I know for at least AFROTC when the official sealed transcript is sent, they are informed of the gpa scale (7 pt or 10) via the school profile submitted.
~~~ Nosy Mom here and I ordered an official transcript from DS's HS. In it, the profile showed the uwcgpa scale and the weight for classes like Honors and APs. It also showed the amount of APs offered, pre-reqs needed for APs, the amount of students taking APs.

It also gave the % of students that went to Ivy, 4 yr Private, 4 yr Public, 2 yr, and directly into the workforce.
~~~ I think they may also use this to determine grade inflation. I.E. if 30% go Ivy, and a 3.8 places the student at the top 10% rank, obviously there is no grade inflation, compared to a 3.8 top 30% rank and 0% go Ivy.

degli,

His cgpa may move up if they use a 10 pt scale or if they did what they did for our DS (AFROTC in 08), and use the exact %, thus an 83 would be a 3.32
 
Don't sweat the small stuff.

TX,
First off, your DS sounds like he has all the qualities needed to succeed and be happy at whatever he chooses to do. Don't waste your time fretting over one tenth. My DS got one B in a weighted class, all else A's (including a bunch of AP's) and was ranked 151st out of 375. Why? Because he spent his junior year of high school in Brazil with nothing transferring other than PE.

We took the attitude that if a school was going to simply paint by numbers then he should want no part of it.

Pima, Kinnem, etc. are much better clued into your DS's chances of an ROTC scholarship, which look awfully good to me. I would have to believe that he is a shoe-in for his IS public, maybe including a scholarship kicker of some kind. If he is applying to a competitive OOS public or private, they won't be asking about one or two tenths on a CGPA. They will be looking for verifiers of the 4.16/4.0, like Pima's stats, or AP tests, or ACT's and SAT's (including SAT subject tests).

In particular, they will look for verifiers in those subjects related to his intended major, math=engineering, Writing/verbal=History, etc. They won't look only at a single super-scored standardized test score, but also look at the components.

I really don't mean to add to your anxiety, but rather show you how it looks through the rearview mirror.

This family's experience, two successful xROTC applicants, ROTC boards were really looking for our DS's strengths, while the college admission boards were the bigger p***ks.
 
cb -- Thanks for your encouraging words. Sometimes when you're right in the thick of things, it's easy to get mired in the muck.

Our other son is an MSI on scholarship there, so son #2 is dying to get there as well. Acceptance shouldn't be a problem. As I tried to explain to my son, scholarships depend not only on his stats, but on the stats of other outstanding candidates and their school choices and government funding issues.
 
tx,

You know that it comes down to every candidate that requests the same college.

The cgpa is only a part of the PAR, which is only part of the WCS, 3.9 and 4.0 are insanely close.

If he gets the scholarship, it may be due to the fact that he had an amazing interview. If he doesn't get it, it may be due to the fact someone else had a more amazing interview.

I would also say that sequestration was not a 1 yr issue. Right now, the DoD has to cut their FY14 budget by 10% from the FY 13 budget that your DS1 entered AROTC this past fall.
~~~ ROTC is going to take a hit if they have to cut money.

It appears he has every square filled. Maybe clarkson can tell you the max points for cgpa. It may be a 3.9 or 4.0 = the exact same points.

I agree with cb7893...Don't sweat the small stuff!
~~~ Many posters would kill for a 3.9 and 30 ACT. 4.0 compared to 3.9 to me is the small stuff!
~ Meant with the utmost kindness, but that is how I feel.
 
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