"A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

In this post Joe Petito mentions how "Getting an "A" in the class will actually pull down your GPA if you as a student are on the Honors/AP track" and it got me wondering: How systematic of a problem is this? and Who has solved it and how?

In our district, Joe's description is spot-on. Our robotics team is comprised of a wide variety of students, but frequently attracts a handful of the very top students. These are the students taking many AP classes and many technical elective classes, straight A grades, well over 4.0 GPA, involved in leadership positions in other extracurricular activities, etc. When they join robotics, they are earning class credit for it. For some of them, it's three years worth of class credit. And they get straight A grades in robotics too, the highest grade achievable, the highest grade we can award. And yet, it lowers their GPA. Why? Because robotics is not an AP class, and it never will be.

So essentially, in the current system, Students who take MORE classes, and earn the highest grade possible in those additional classes, graduate high school with a LOWER GPA. It seems counter-intuitive, and I'm not convinced it's something the universities have even realized yet. Are we disadvantaging students by giving them more credits than typical, and by giving them an "A" grade in robotics?

While not a single college admissions representative will ever tell you that GPA is used as a primary discriminating factor, in the words of the great Karthik himself, "If they tell you GPA doesn't matter they are lying to your face." When you look at the numbers of applicants versus the numbers of reviewers, you can be fairly confident that GPA is indeed a primary discriminating factor in the application process. Yes there's weighted and unweighted GPAs (along with at least a dozen other ways it's calculated) but the fact that the "A" grade in the additional class actually brings down the weighted GPA concerns me.

We have observed the process for graduates from our own school. Students who take a minimal number of classes, the most of which are AP classes are the ones getting in to the state's top universities, even for degrees like Engineering, even if they have not taken a single engineering class all throughout high school. It's simple math, and they're using it to game the system.

Meanwhile, students who are really the top students in our school, who are on the robotics team, doing far more than the typical high school student, have somewhat lower GPAs simply because they have taken more classes, not because they have lower grades. As a result of the lower GPAs, they are not getting into these top universities.

Who else has this problem? Who has solved it? It seems counter-intuitive to stop awarding course credit for robotics.

I think the Dean's List award and FIRST scholarships are a good initial step toward solving this, but how to we do more to get universities to realize the value of students who participated in FIRST Robotics and other Career Technical Education programs in high school? Do they really want a freshmen class of engineering students who have never turned a wrench?

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

You are not alone on this topic, it's a serious problem. GPA and class rank are more of a game than any indication of intelligence or hard work. My class's valedictorian last year took the minimum amount of classes, all of which were AP or honors level, and had a near perfect GPA. This student also never did any elective courses or extra-curricular activities, because their goal was to get the highest GPA.

Many of my other fellow students (including the Salutatorian) who I would deem as better students took more classes (some of them took 8 compared to the valedictorian's 5), but these included non-honors courses such as band, engineering, woodshop/metal shop, art, etc. that kept them from being at the top. This also caused some of them to miss out on their top schools, while their less accomplished classmates with higher GPA's got into their top choices.

So why is this a bad thing? Due to the nature of college applications, GPA is really the only thing that matters. Having just applied last year, I know first hand that there isn't much quantitative information that you send besides your GPA and your test scores. By pushing the GPA game in students faces at the end of every semester, we are pushing students to stray from classes they are passionate about, and instead getting them to take more "core" classes that give them a huge GPA boost. I know lots of my friends didn't explore potential fields of interest in high school because it would hurt there GPA and chances of getting into the schools they wanted.

Another problem this is causing is that lots of kids are taking the honors level courses when they shouldn't be. Pressure from peers and parents to get the highest possible GPA forces them into classes where they struggle, and ultimately fail to actually learn anything in the class as they struggle to simply get by.

The good news? Since I got to college I have a strong feeling that unweighted GPA is used more often than weighted. My reasoning is that talking to my friends from all over the northeast, all of our schools used different systems to weight their advanced classes in regards to GPA, making weighted GPA a bad statistic to quantify and compare. My hope is that colleges know this and use unweighted GPA.

In regards to your question including robotics when it comes to GPA, my school and many others don't even receive credit for our hours put into the team. The amount of time we spend with the team probably hurts our GPA's but in a different way than you are talking about.

As to what we can do to solve the problem: the biggest thing is to stop making kids think that their GPA is all that matters. I know in my high school the only thing our administration told us was to get the best scores and grades possible so we could get into the best colleges out there (and in turn make our school look good.) I hope there is a better solution out there, but I fear that playing the GPA game will only become more common. I hope we can become a society where a passion for excellence and constant learning is the norm.

To any high school students out there reading this, study hard and get good grades no matter what classes you're in. Follow your dreams, explore your interests, and put in the work. When it comes time to apply to college, you'll understand that grades and test scores really are everything, and a lot of colleges may not see FIRST as important as an activity as we do.

Apologies if this seems like a rant, just getting out my frustrations with the system. It's a lot more frustrating when you have to be a part of it.

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

This is what I've heard oft-repeated - colleges will recalculate your GPA using their own system, to even out differences between the GPA calculations from different schools.

Perhaps this is not always true, and students who take more non-weighted courses really are at a disadvantage. Anecdotally, I know that four years of Jazz Band lowered my weighted GPA (compared to an alternate reality in which I'd taken more Honors/AP classes instead), but I never thought that this somehow put me at a disadvantage in the context of college admissions compared to other students. Perhaps I was just naive.

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

I'm pretty sure that this is true. Less than half of the schools I applied to even asked for unweighted GPA. This is probably because different schools calculate these things differently. I don't have any firsthand knowledge of selection criteria, but I bet most colleges look more at your whole transcript than any numbers that your high school churns out based on your transcript.

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

This was a huge concern when Citrus Circuits first put together a class that we offered, the overwhelming student voice was everyone that had AP classes would not take the class because it would lower their GPA. What we have done to partially resolve this is offer our robotics courses to our students as EITHER a A-F graded class or as a Pass/No Pass course. Our students that are AP takers can take it as Pass/No Pass and not have their GPA adversely affected while still getting elective credit. Our students that do not take AP can then still freely take it as a graded course to bring up their GPA.

The underlying issues surrounding AP/Honors courses is not an issue I am qualified to discuss, but I feel that our solution is not a bad one based on the system we have to work with.

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

As a current high school senior and an active member of Team 2468, I cannot express my frustration enough about exactly the issue being covered in this thread.
My school is a very competitive high school where being in the top 10% of the school means taking as many AP classes (that means 5-7 per semester) and getting consistent 95+ grades.
As a student who is actively engaged in Band (which is unweighted), Robotics (also unweighted), and taking foreign language classes (first two years unweighted), I am always at constant stress of trying to juggle my time effectively between the ridiculous amount of homework from the AP classes, marching band practices, and robotics meetings to where I was forced into quitting band for my senior year to make sure that I was able to continue being an active member and a leader in the robotics program.
Spending hours on homework after getting home late from a robotics meeting and then waking up at 5:30 for a band practice has yielded me a class ranking that is barely in the top 10% of the class and I cannot express my disgust with this system enough. I pursued my interests through the activities I engaged myself in (which were time consuming and taught me useful life skills) and the result is a punishment for not taking the "easy-APs" that other take to ensure a higher rank for themselves.
I think a clear solution lies in allowing multipliers for only core-classes (English, Math, etc.) and not for elective courses, but having a higher minimum number of credits necessary to graduate, thereby ensuring that all students are only allowed to take a certain number of grade-enhancing classes and evening the playing field a little more, while decreasing the gap created by students who do not taking as many classes overall to benefit their GPA.

Sorry about the rant, but this issue has been a major source of stress for me in the last several years of my life and I really hope future students don't have to go through the same issue I had throughout my high school years.

Wish me luck as I begin applying to colleges! Maybe they'll value my time spent at robotics and band!

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

GPA is completely different from school to school and as a result, I don't think as much stock is put in the literal number outputted by your school as you would expect come college admissions time. If you have nothing but A's and you're clearly taking challenging classes, a college isn't going to look down on you for not taking 400 AP courses.

You'll be okay - remember that lots of students come from 4.0 schools where GPA is unweighted, yet they aren't penalized compared to 5.0, 6.0, 12.0 schools. (I have no idea how the 12.0 school worked)

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

Such an intense focus on the "grade" and getting in to college. Roll it forward 4 or 5 or 6 years and you get this problem.
http://www.macleans.ca/education/uni...pr=12707004769

Robotics and the First program are great at helping with the above problem.

Students. Companies hire stem trained people to solve problems in the "real world" not a virtual text book world. Devote some of your time to jobs - internships and gain experience solving problems in a real job setting.

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

Our school district has the "pass-fail" (Page 5) option where students can elect within the first few days of a class to take the class such that it does not affect their GPA. It's mostly used by people who want to take AP/Dual Credit classes and are afraid of failing them. The rest of us use it for non-required classes that are not weighted so that they don't kill our GPAs. This only works for classes that aren't required for graduation. For example: I can do this with my elective rocketry class, but not my required art 1 class. The year that we had robotics as a class, I used this option and it helped tremendously.

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

In my high school you got the same GPA numerical value for the same letter grade regardless of class. Looking back, yes it made it so the AP or IB classes weren't graded according to their difficulty or the level of the material, but it was never really an issue. No one ever complained to the point where changing things was taken seriously.

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

Colleges really don't care much about your GPA per se. I have done enough alumni admissions rep work (and talked to friends who do admissions work) to have learned this lesson. This is particularly true for the top tier colleges and universities. They care in that they want students who have taken some of the most challenging classes available. But they are well aware of how weighted grades can make a GPA a more fuzzy measure of academic quality. Admissions counselors are also good at spotting the students who strategically take the "easiest" weighted courses and a little lighter load in order to have the best possible GPA. A friend who is in admissions at a very good school said to me "Tell them to take enough of the most challenging courses to show they can succeed, not so many that they start to get overwhelmed, and after that take the classes that interest them." She said they routinely get inquiries from people who say something like "I had a higher GPA and as good/better test scores than X, but he got in and I didn't. Why?" They obviously can't discuss other students, but she said in many such cases she wants to tell them "Your transcript reads like someone trying to get the best possible GPA and not like someone interested in learning as much as possible."

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

Same here. In my graduating class, I was #6 (after the five valedictorians) having taken AP Chem, AP Calc AB, and AP English (don't remember which one), with one quarter of AP English being the reason I was #6. It was never a problem that you didn't earn a bonus to the GPA.

One possible advantage is that many students will dual enroll at the university, so instead of taking lots of honors classes, many just start on college classes senior year. So I got out of high school with just shy of a 4.0, 20 direct college credits and another 14 credits from AP. And I was never interested in the top-tier schools.

PS. Robotics isn't a class here.

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

Don't worry too much about this. GPA is recalculated by the college.

In the eyes of Michigan, my sparkling 4.14 was only worth a 3.97. Get the A, carry on.

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

Our school has solved this problem in a not so good way but it works for some. So if your GPA is above a 4.0 this class would lower your GPA but if it was below a 4.0, this class could help your GPA. The way they solved this is for every student who has a GPA above a 4.0, they award them 1 flex class. This flex class can be used on any class that is not on the 5.0 scale. This could be computer programming, business, engineering classes, music classes, etc. Our school does not have a robotics class but this flex idea could be used on a 4.0 robotics class. The only issue with the flex program is the fact that a student could only take 1 class with a 4.0. Many robotics kids at my school are also in Band or Orchestra. This would force them to choose robotics , music, or a drop in the GPA. The flex class does help the student's GPA to an extent.

Re: "A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?
 

In my real life job as a school counselor I see this issue FAR too often.

Some but not all schools DO recalculate GPA.
Some but not all schools do use GPA as a significant factor in determining admission.

This has all been brought upon us by wanting to provide a "trophy" to all students. The simplest solution is to eliminate the weighting of grades and force a much more holistic approach when making admissions decisions. An even easier solution would be to eliminate class rank altogether thus making the weighting unnecessary.

None of those changes is easy to implement (see "trophy" above).