Getting Started with GPAs

Modified on Wed, Feb 28 at 10:48 AM

Below is a brief overview of some of the most common types of GPAs in Genesis.

They are SCHOOL YEAR, SUM, MARKING PERIOD, and SEMESTER.

 

Note: There are MANY options in Genesis that can alter the way any of these GPAS are calculated that may not be covered in this article. For simplicity sake, we will assume all GPAS in this article are non-weighted GPAS.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


SCHOOL YEAR

SCHOOL YEAR GPAs are based on grades from a single school year.

They are calculated by dividing the sum of the (Quality Points *Attempted Credits) by the sum of the attempted credits.

For example:

Course

Grade

Quality Points

Credits

QP*Credits

Math

A

4.0

5.0

20

English

B

3.0

5.0

15




10.0

35

35/10= 3.5 GPA

What Grades are used in the GPA?

The grades that make up a SCHOOL YEAR GPA are Final Grades (FG) and optionally, Semester 1 (S1) Grades. (In very special cases a school may want to use Semester 2 grades as well).

Note: An S1 grade is defined by your district in the Grading > Setup module. Here a district would create the desired calculation for the S1 grade. For example, your district may want the S1 grade calculation to be 40% MP1, 40% MP2 and 20% Mid Term Exam. How you set the calculation is completely up to you.


A district may optionally select to manually post S1 grades rather than have Genesis calculate it for them.

By default, each time a SCHOOL YEAR GPA is calculated, Genesis will look to each course the student is taking and see if that course has a FG posted for the student.

If a FG has not yet been posted then Genesis will look to see if the course has posted an S1 grade(so long as your GPA allows for S1 grades).

How are Credits and Quality Points collected for the calculation?

The amount of Credits used by S1 courses is configurable.

They can either use the full attempted credit amount of the course, or half.

Courses that meet only three Quarters can also be setup to collect only for the Quarters that have been completed.

The amounts of Quality Points used by the S1 are the QPs associated with that posted S1 grade.

Credits for FGs are the full attempted credit amount of the course.

Quality Points for FGs are taken from the QP associated with that posted FG.

 

SUM

SUM GPAS are calculated by summing together multiple GPAs. Which GPA is completely up to you. You may set up as many GPAs as your district requires.

Let's say a district had 3 SCHOOL YEAR GPAs called 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20.

You might them create a SUM GPA called CUM to be the sum of those three particular GPAs.

Lets imagine a student with the following two GPAs:

GPA

Attempted

Attempted*QP

2017-18

40.0

149.0

2018-19

36.0

128.0


 In this case when the CUM is calculated, the student will wind up with a GPA of:

(149+128)/(40+36)=3.6447

 

SEMESTER

Semester GPAs work like SCHOOL YEAR GPAS only they are calculated from the grades of a set number of semesters rather than grades from a single school year.

The most common type is the 7 SEMSTER GPA. This takes all the Final Grades from a student's previous 6 semesters, and the S1or FGs (if available) from the student 7th semester.

Calculations are identical to the SCHOOL YEAR GPA.

 

MARKING PERIOD

MARKING PERIOD GPAs are the only GPA type that will use individual MP grades to calculate a GPA.

They are based on a single MP in a single school year. MP GPAs do not use S1 or FG in their calculations.

Quality Points are derived from the posted grades and Attempted Credits bases on the attempted credits for that single MP.

The default MP GPA calculation is identical to that of the SCHOOL YEAR GPA.

 

Description of the GPA Types:

School Year
This is a GPA that uses all of the Final Grades of the specified school year. Can also use S1 and S2 with options.
Sum
This is a GPA that is a sum of other GPAs. Specify the from and thru seq of other gpa records that you would like to combine.
7 Semester
This is a GPA that uses all of the Final Grades from grades 09,10 and 11 and first semester of grade 12.
5 Semester
This is a GPA that uses all of the Final Grades from grades 09 and 10 and first semester of grade 11.
3 Semester
This is a GPA that uses all of the Final Grades from grades 09 and first semester of grade 10.
Max
This is a GPA that will copy the highest GPA in a range (from seq to thru seq).
Compare
This is a GPA that will copy the higher of 2 GPA's given that the first GPA is greater or equal than a value.
Place in the option field: OriginalGpaCode,SubsetGpaCode,minimumgpa for example: (2006-07,2006-07S,5.00).

Combine 2 Ranks
This is a GPA is the sum of the rank in GPA1 and GPA2. The GPAs that are combined are specified in the OPT field. For example CUM,WCUM

Description of the flags:


Weighted
       This flag will cause the GPA to be calculated using weighted grades. The weights are set in the school curriculum.


Locked
       This flag will cause the GPA for any student to never be re-calculated (even when request to do so).


Lock Rank
       This flag will cause the Rank for any student to never be re-calculated (even when request to do so).


Other Options

     MP - Marking Period GPA Options:

  • Place the Marking Period in the option field (for example: MP1)
  • To include multiple MP and SEM grades, use option SUMXX,YY. For example: SUMS1,MP3,MP4 would include S1,MP3 and MP4 grades in the GPA. Courses with FG's are excluded from GPA.
  • To include multiple grades (but INCLUDE courses with Final Grades) use option SUM2XX,YY (for example: SUMS1,MP3 which would include S1 and MP3 in this GPA).

    xSEM - Semester GPA Options:

  • Enter the MP Collections to be used in the SEM GPA (for example: MP1,MP2). S1,S2,FG used by default if left blank.
  • 7SEM Only - entering SENIORS in Grade Levels field will only allow GPA to calculate for 12th grades (and PG).
  • SENIORS - will only include Seniors in the 7SEM.

    School Year GPA Options:

  • NCAA_CORE: only courses flagged as NCAA Core Courses will be used in the GPA.
  • FGONLY: will cause the GPA to only use FG grades (instead of S1 if no FG exists).
  • S1ONLY: (for schools with Final Grades) will cause the GPA to only use FGs earned from Semester 1 courses.
  • S1ONLY: (for schools with no Final Grades) will cause the GPA to only use S1 grades.
  • S2ONLY: (for schools with Final Grades) will cause the GPA to only use FGs earned from Semester 2 courses.
  • S2ONLY: (for schools with no Final Grades)will cause the GPA to only use S2 grades.
  • FIRSTSEM: GPA will use FG grades for Q1, Q2, and S1 courses only. S1 grades for FY course. For School Year GPA.
  • SECONDSEM: GPA will use FG grades for Q3, Q4, S2, and FY courses only. For School Year GPA.
  • EXC_TRANSFER: GPA will exclude any grades marked with an Original School value. For School Year GPA.
  • MPEXAM: GPA will use MP and EXAM grades in place of S1 grades for courses (until an FG is posted)
  • ALLMPS: GPA will include all available MP grades in GPA. MP grades will be replaced with FG when posted.


Grade Levels

      Only include grades with the specified grade levels. Example: 09,10,11,12.


1, 2, 3 and 4

      Only include curriculum courses with flag 1, 2, or 3 set. You may combine multiple flags.


S

      Only include courses that students select on their Student Data > Current Year Schedule tab.

District GPA Options

  • SUM GPAs Include All Student's Schools: If you check this off, when you run SUM GPAs for students, it will include grades from ALL schools they were in.
  • Show checkboxes on Student Data.Current Year Schedule and Student Data.Grades.Transcript Screens for Student Selectable GPAs.

Parameters on The Screen

Code: Distinct code for each GPA.  For example, UCUM would be your Unweighted CUM GPA.

Description: The full name of your GPA code.

Type: Where you can specify which type of GPA it is, such as SUM, School Year etc.

Seq: This dictates what order the GPA code is on the screen.  This could affect which GPAs will pull into a SUM GPA.

Weight: This specified whether your GPA code is weighted or unweighted.

From / Thru: If you have a SUM GPA set up, this is where you will indicate which other GPA codes you want to include (based on their SEQ numbers.)  For example, for a CUM, it'll pull in the sequence numbers for each School Year GPA. 

  • So, if you start with School Year 2017-18, and that SEQ number is 100, and you end with School Year 2020-21, and that SEQ number is 106, your from and through values for a SUM GPA would be 100 as the From and then 106 as the Thru.

Hide: Check this off to HIDE the GPA on this screen.  You can toggle the "Show Hidden GPAs" in the top left on and off as well.

Opt: Enter specific OPTIONS for the GPA code.

Lock:  This flag will cause the GPA for any student to never be re-calculated (even when request to do so).

Locked Rank:  This flag will cause the Rank for any student to never be re-calculated (even when request to do so).

Top: 

Grade Levels: Only include grades with the specified grade levels. Example: 09,10,11,12.

1: Include grades from courses with User Flag 1 checked off.  (User Flags are set on the Curriculum file.)

2: Include grades from courses with User Flag 2 checked off.

3: Include grades from courses with User Flag 3 checked off.

4: Include grades from courses with User Flag 4 checked off.

S: Only include courses that students select on StudentData.CurrentYearScheduler

H: Hide GPA from Students' GPA Screens.


QUICK FAQ

How do I run GPAs for students? And how do I run their RANKS? And is there a report out there to gather this info?

The process to do this would be:

  • Go to Grading>GPA/Rank>GPA Calc. Select the GPA code that you need in the "GPA(s) to re-calculate" dropdown and click "Calculate."
  • Then, go to Grading>GPA/Rank>Ranking. Select the same GPA code you need in the "Rank(s) to run" dropdown and click "Calculate."
  • Then, if needed, you can run report 40500 Class Rank / GPA Report via Grading>Reports. Make sure to select the same GPA code you need as you run the report. (*Rank* needs to be run for this report to work.)

How do I audit a student's GPA to check out the calculations / verify the information is correct?

You can pull up the student in question via Student Data>Modify Student>GPA. Click on the GPA code in question, and you'll see the GPA audit. This includes all of their courses, their weight etc. This allows you to see how the calculation was made.

If something is missing, and you need to modify a curriculum file, you would most likely need to run grade maintenance via Grading>GPA/Rank>Maintenance first to get the latest grade info, and then re-run GPAs, and then re-run Ranks.  That will allow you to get the updated grade information for the kids. (You can also always run grade maintenance for individual students via Student Data>Modify Student>GPA, as well as GPAs.)

 

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