What Your Transcript Says
By Andrew Nowak '01
What is a high school transcript and what does it say? To many people it is nothing more than a list of classes taken and what grade was received. That is exactly what a transcript is until it is put into the hands of an admissions counselor. We look beyond the obvious and deeper then just the grades. That piece of paper is the key to better understanding the applicant.
Here in the Norwich University Admissions Office the counselors will use many pieces of paper to determine if an applicant is acceptable or not. The application itself, SAT/ACT scores, a short essay, letters of recommendation (not required but highly encouraged), and the ever important transcript (to include the first quarter grades) are all needed to make a completed application packet. This is when the review process begins.
The transcript can tell the Admissions Counselor quite a bit of information about the applicant. Was the student in an honors/AP track, college placement or general studies? What is the students rank in class and GPA? Did the student take a ton of easy electives (also known as “fluff”) or did they challenge themselves?
One of the very first things that will be looked at on your transcript is going to be your GPA. We will recalculate what your school reports due to the fact that some schools add weight to AP/Honors courses while some do not. We calculate the GPA in two different ways Overall GPA and Academic GPA.
Your overall GPA consists of all the classes you have taken to include your “fluff” electives. It is recalculated in order to remove any added weight the school may have given to the higher level classes and put all applicants GPA on the same scale. This will allow for an apples to apples comparison and not apples to oranges.
We will then calculate your Academic GPA. This is important because it will allow the counselor to determine success only within the main academic courses. To get this number we will take all of your science, foreign language, math, social science, and English grades. After all, it is these areas that you will need to continue taking in your college career, not basket weaving.
One of the best things that a counselor can learn from a transcript is how a student performed over the full four years of high school. Counselors pay particular attention to this. Did the student start off slow their freshman year and continually bring their grades up until graduation? Was the student a steady performer? Or was there a case of decline over the years?
Each one of these trends can have a vastly different effect on a students GPA. Although Norwich does not have a specific GPA requirement it will depend on what area of study the student is trying to get into. For instance if a student is trying to get into the Electrical Engineering program the counselor will be looking for a higher GPA in math and science courses, while the counselor reviewing a Political Science application will be looking more closely at the English and History classes taken. Steady improvement can help offset a lower GPA while a sudden drop in performance can hurt an individual with a higher GPA.
Although it would seem that the transcript is the end all be all of college acceptance it is not necessarily the case. Because we go on the “Whole Person Concept” we will not only look at your transcript. Letters of recommendation or the essay can help to fill wholes within the transcript. Each person is reviewed individually on their talents, merits, and performance. The only way to tell is to go through the application process and allow your counselor to make that determination.
