@bluebayou I have been involved on periphery of a couple of admissions offices in different (low level usually) functions, one was an ivy that is not Harvard (so it is possible Harvard does not recalculate, but I would be surprised.) But rather than going through anecdotes, I’ll link some colleges that explicitly state they recalculate.
I thought this was pretty common knowledge BTW.
Truth is they all have to at least in some instances. Every school does it differently. My kid’s school uses + and -. Some don’t. Some schools include “Athletics” or “Religion” grades in GPA. Competitive colleges tend to drop those unless clearly academic. Some schools use 100 pt. scale, Some use 5.0 point scale.
As far as weighted, often - and everyone does it differently - the weighted GPA gets dumped too, and the AP (and honors) info goes into the “rigor” basket - along with “degree of difficulty” of the school, if known, etc.
Here are some schools that explain how they do it: (I just posted the first few that popped up for my google.)
UGA: http://ugaadmissions.blogspot.com/2013/11/calculating-uga-gpa.html
"So step one is to look at the GPA(s) on your transcript, and then completely ignore it. Scratch it out, mark it out with a Sharpie, rip that section off the transcript, but do whatever you need to do to get it out of your mind.
Step two, understand that UGA re-calculates all high school GPA’s, and it is based upon the individual grades…"
Purdue: http://www.admissions.purdue.edu/apply/coregpa.php
“Each year Purdue receives applications from high school students across the United States and around the world. Each applicant’s school makes decisions about how it calculates grades for students, what scale is used, and whether some grades are reported as weighted or unweighted. Because of such variances we calculate the student’s academic core GPA to use as one factor in admission and scholarship decisions. However, the strength of the student’s curriculum (in the context of the coursework that is available at his or her school) also is a factor.
The core GPA is calculated using unweighted grades from only the academic coursework reported on the applicant’s official high school transcript - courses in English, college preparatory math, lab science, social studies, and foreign language.
For the recalculation, we use the same grading scale that is used for Purdue students, which is as follows:”
Florida: http://www.scoreatthetop.com/blog-1/florida-schools-change-their-gpa-calculations-for-admissions
Colleges rarely use the GPA that you see on your transcript; rather, they recalculate it using criteria that are essential to their specific admissions decision-making process.
Old WSJ article, but mentions a number of schools: Emory, Hopkins etc.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB105899458688282900
To try to cut through this hodgepodge, colleges around the country are coming up with their own formulas to recalculate each applicant’s GPA. One strategy – used by Emory University and the University of California system, among others – is to drop the pluses and minuses alongside letter grades. (So a B-plus in trigonometry becomes a B.) Another approach is to disregard the applicant’s entire freshman year of high school. Some schools, like Haverford College in Pennsylvania, now go a step further – throwing out the GPA altogether and relying instead on the student’s class rank.
The high-school transcript of a student with lots of pluses next to his grades, for example, could mean more to Johns Hopkins, which takes those shades into account in its recalculation. At Carnegie Mellon, by contrast, “an A is an A is an A,” says Michael Steidel, director of admissions, regardless whether there was a plus or a minus alongside it.
In addition, since colleges like Emory don’t give credit in their formula for difficult courses, it may not make sense for a student already taking a decent dose of APs to overload on them and risk a low grade.
http://www.collegeadmissionspartners.com/college-admissions-counseling/recalculating-gpa-at-michigan/
article on Michigan that mentions it is stopping the recalculation, but says this:
Recalculating a GPA can mean one of several things. Some colleges eliminate the grades from all courses that are not considered core courses. Under this system, grades in classes like music, phy ed, health, theatre, are not counted in the GPA used by the college for admissions purposes.
Another way to recalculate GPA is to eliminate all of the score increases that high schools give for honors, AP and IB classes. Here is how it works. If you high school gives a 4.0 for an “A” in a typical class, they may give a 5.0 for an “A” in an honors class and a 6.0 for an “A” in an AP class. Each high school awards these higher grade points according to their own policies and there is no uniformity in these policies. At some high schools, there is no extra GPA bump for an honors course or an AP course. At other schools, the bump is substantial.
Anyway, there’s no single list I’ve found, but tons of information out there. Trust me, recalculating GPA is one of the easiest thing an admissions committee has to do with an application. Try trying to evaluate the “authenticity” of EC commitment. Or how much “help” an essay writer got…
