By Michael Beeli
Staff Writer
Manhattan Beach Unified School District’s Education Board approved the weighing of all advanced placement classes last May, implementing a retroactive policy that requires a revision of transcripts containing Advanced Placement classes. Mira Costa administration plans to finalize the updated transcripts prior to February 2016, a delay that will have little effect on the admission process, but proves as an inconvenience to many students.
According to the Costa College and Career Center, the new policy updates shift the grading scale maximum from 4.0 5.0, which is only obtainable through AP classes, This new grading policy additionally replaced valedictorian and salutatorian statuses with a Latin Honors System. The CCC said the decision to weigh grades was to ensure students’ AP classes were being properly recognized during university admissions; however, the delay leaves many students without their finalized transcript.
Indicated by an administration email released to seniors earlier this year, all universities have their own weighing systems when looking at student transcripts. Due to this, the vast majority of students should not be concerned regarding their GPA as all universities weigh GPA individually.
As said by Costa’s Secretary Heather Hoffman, currently there are about eight universities across the country that do not individually weigh admission transcripts for scholarship considerations, requiring unnecessary effort from students.
The email advised senior students who were affected by the policy to apply to college with their current unweighted transcript, but to accompany the application with a notice stating that they will be sending their weighted transcript in February. Although the process may seem redundant and dragged-out to students it will have minimal effect on the admissions process.
According to CCC Counselor Caryn Ramirez, the delay is a result of technical complications with powerschool. Costa administration’s email instructed students whose unweighted GPA does not meet scholarship requirements but do qualify with their weighted transcripts to inform the school they are applying to and their situation and resend the weighted transcript when it is available, allowing students overcome the inconveniences.
Expressed by Ramirez, initial worries regarding the delay of transcripts manifested in relative uncertainty. The primary concern was that early decision and early action applications would be disrupted by the lack of a weighted transcript; however, this was proven to be untrue. Since college’s use their own weighting systems for undergraduate admissions, any changes to Costa’s grading scale or the rolling out of transcripts will prove inconsequential for students.
According to Hoffman, students will find themselves mostly unaffected by the delay in transcripts, and will have no hindrances to their actualization of university admissions. Weighted transcripts will allow more students to receive scholarships from a selective group of universities if they choose, making the weighted transcripts worth any minor delays.
Weighing transcripts allows students to handle their college applications with a clearer sense of themselves, is crucial for certain scholarships, and removes general confusion from the admissions process. Despite the minor difficulties they carry, the negative effects are easily circumvented, and prove largely beneficial to students.
Leave a Reply