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The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) has proposed rules requiring schools to use a uniform calculation when computing a student’s high school grade point average (GPA) for purposes of admission to institutions of higher education, including in top 10 and top 25 percent admissions. The THECB was directed to develop the standard method as a result of legislation passed in 2007. The rules provide, among other things, that only "academic" courses in certain subject areas shall be used in calculating the uniform GPA, regardless of when the course was taken. It is unclear which courses in the specified subject areas would be considered "academic."
Since the rules do not contain a definition of “academic,” it is unclear which courses under the five broad subject areas will be included in the uniform GPA calculation. Also of note is the fact that the rules don’t include courses in the broad subject areas of Career and Technology or Fine Arts to be counted in the uniform GPA calculation.
The legislation requires that the standard method assign additional weight for each honors course, advanced placement course, international baccalaureate course, or dual credit course completed by the student as the board considers appropriate, taking into consideration the academic rigor of each course completed by the student, and be based on a four-point scale, with an exception for courses assigned additional weight. Accordingly, the rules provide for additional weighting of 1.0 points to be given to advanced placement, international baccalaureate, and academic dual credit courses that are part of 19 TAC Chapters 110-114, but not to pre-advanced placement courses. The rules also provide that the uniform GPA will be computed by the general academic teaching institution:
(A) By multiplying each grade by the semester or quarter credit hours earned per course and totaling the products, and
(B) The total of the products shall be divided by the total semester or quarter credits.
(C) The result is to be calculated to no more than three decimal places, giving the official cumulative uniform GPA. The legislation also requires that the standard method established for computing a student's high school GPA applies to a student applying as a first-time freshman for admission to a general academic teaching institution beginning with admissions for the 2009 fall semester.
Pending final adoption of the rules, the THECB requested an attorney general opinion asking whether the method adopted by the THECB must or could provide a transition period so the uniform GPA calculation would not retroactively apply to current high school students, and possibly adversely affect them because they did not have notice of the method or a reasonable opportunity to plan their high school academic choices based on the new GPA method. The Attorney General responded, in an August 26, 2008 opinion, that the THECB should provide for a transition period. As a result, the THECB filed proposed rules providing that the uniform GPA calculation shall apply to the calculation of such averages for all students who enter the ninth grade for the first time from May 1, 2009, onward and that the GPAs of students already in ninth grade or higher as of April 30, 2009, or before, shall be calculated on the same basis that would have applied to such students before the adoption of the uniform GPA calculation.
TCTA submitted comments urging the Higher Education Coordinating Board to include career and technology courses in the uniform GPA calculation and to delay adopting the rules until soliciting more stakeholder input with the goal of arriving at more of a consensus and determining a clearly understandable definition for which courses should be included.
Posted: 10/03/08
