Under the change, each semester in yearlong courses will be weighted equally when calculating GPAs

By Shivani Khanna
Gargoyle assistant editor
Posted Friday, Sept. 22, 2006, The OG, news

BEGINNING THIS YEAR, Uni students' grade point averages will be calculated differently in order to simplify and expedite the process of generating transcripts. Unlike in previous years, all classes in both semesters will be weighted equally, and their respective grades will be calculated into the students' GPA.

Computer science head Greg Smith has been looking into such a change since 2004, and the new system was finally approved by the Curriculum Committee in May.

The school uses a software package called SDS School Office for all its record keeping. Each student's demographic information, schedule, grades, and attendance record are kept in this giant database. The administration has always wanted to use this software to generate transcripts, which are compilations of each student's schedule and grades. However, this was impossible because Uni's method of calculating grades was incompatible with the program's requirements.

Thus the school was faced with the cumbersome and incredibly inefficient task of having Student Services secretary Ellen Lindsey create an Excel spreadsheet for every student and manually enter each of their grades to produce their respective GPA.

The old GPA system worked as follows: First-semester grades were calculated into the GPA only for single-semester classes given in the fall, second-semester grades were calculated into the GPA only for single-semester classes given in the spring, and final grades were calculated into the GPA for yearlong classes.

The grades that were printed on report cards and distributed on a quarterly basis allowed students to know how they were progressing in a particular class but were not necessarily part of the student's GPA.

Think of it this way. Let's say under the old system you took a yearlong class and you didn't do well in the first semester. Say, for example, you got a C. That grade would be on your report card, but under the old system, it wouldn't necessarily determine your final grade in the class or affect your GPA, because your teacher might decide to put more weight on how you did in the second semester, when you received an A for the final two quarters. The teacher, using the flexibility of the old system, could give you an A for the year.

But under the new system, you would get a C for the fall and an A for the spring, and that's it. Both would factor into your GPA. No more uneven weighting of the semesters, and no more flexibility.

This difference in the way that semester classes and yearlong classes were treated was the main reason Uni was unable to use SDS School Office. With a new system of calculating GPAs in place, the school will finally be able to utilize the capabilities of this software.

Smith explained how the new system works: “In SDS we can specify as many grades as we want to count toward graduation credit and GPA. The rule is that the grades for all classes have to be calculated the same way. There is no way to use different grades for the GPAs of semester-long and yearlong courses. The grades of the two semesters are averaged together to calculate the GPA of a yearlong course.”

This means that for a yearlong class both the first-semester and second-semester grades count toward your GPA. They will be weighted equally. Final grades for yearlong classes will no longer be recorded. There will still be final-exam grades, but these will be treated as part of the second-semester grade.

As far as single-semester classes go, the new system will not create any changes in calculating grades. The only grade that will matter for GPA purposes is the semester grade the student receives.

Smith emphasized how this new way of compiling GPAs will be beneficial to the school as well as to college admissions officers.

“The advantages of using the two-semester grading system means that the calculation of the GPAs and the production of up-to-date transcripts after any semester are possible; originally they were only accessible after fourth quarter,” he said. “It is also a simple and consistent system that is easily understood by college admissions officers as well as the students and teachers at Uni. And it's also the common practice in other high schools.”

But this new policy is a double-edged sword.

“The disadvantage is exactly what the advantage is in the sense that semester grades are equally weighted in calculating GPAs for a yearlong course,” said Smith. “This means that there is no cumulative grading, so students are not entirely able to overcome a poor first-semester grade. So some teachers may need to rethink their grading policies. Also teachers can't put extra weight on final projects or exams in second semester.”

Teachers will be collecting grades according to this system from now on for all classes. The sophomores and juniors will be the only ones who will have to recalculate their GPAs (if they've been tracking them individually) to take the changes into account.

The reason for this is that only classes taken during a student's freshman through senior year affect the high school GPA. So, for current freshmen and subbies, the grades they have received during their subfreshman year do not get calculated into the GPA.

Seniors have to have first-semester grades on their transcripts because colleges require it for applications. So for the classes that have a mixture of the old and current system, a letter will be sent out to college admissions officers with each student's application explaining the change in how the GPA is calculated.

“This is an important change that students need to be aware of,” Director/Principal Kassie Patton said about the new system, “because if they are used to slacking off first semester in yearlong classes and then picking it up during second semester so that the final grade is still an A, they can no longer do this. Now the first semester matters just as much as the second semester does.”