Calculating the GPA (again!)

Parents Forum
1

<p>All right. Once again I find that I'm on the trail of the famous, yet elusive, "GPA." Legend has it that there are just two types: "Unweighted" and "weighted". Yet it's soon apparent that it's not that simple. Oh, no. Not that simple at all.</p>

<p>The unweighted GPA. The UW GPA is ostensibly quite simple: Assign a 4 for each A, a 3 for B's, 2 for C's etc. Add them up, divide by the number of classes, et voila: the UW GPA. (Oh, maybe there's a quibble over +s and -s - but that rarely makes much of a difference.) But wait! Do all classes count for the UW GPA? The "full" GPA includes PE, health, etc. The "academic" or CP (college prep) GPA excludes some classes. But which ones? PE, certainly. Art and music? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. So the "CP UW GPA" can vary significantly, depending on that factor. But that's still the easy one. </p>

<p>The weighted GPA. The (W)GPA shares the uncertainty regarding which courses are included in the calculation along with the UW GPA, and adds another level of uncertainty: Which classes are weighted, and how much? The University of California weights AP, IB, college level and selected "honors" courses with one extra point - 5 points for an A, etc. But UC caps the "weight" at 8 semesters. USC has no cap, but doesn't weight any "honors" courses. Some high schools weight different weighted classes differently: 1 point for "honors", 1.5 points for AP, etc. At some schools all classes are weighted. What does everyone else do? Who knows? Two years ago I calculated six discrete GPA's for my son, ranging from 3.5 to 4.0. What did it all mean? I have no clue.</p>

<p>I thought at least I had one quantum of clarity when I asked in another thread if the freshmen class GPA's reported in the various colleges' common data sets were weighted or unweighted. It was explained to me that they were unweighted, because not every high school weights their grades, so to compare "apples to apples" the colleges all report unweighted GPAs for that purpose. Makes perfect sense: problem solved, question answered.
Except they don't. At least, not all of them. Scripps reports an average enrolee GPA of 4.06. Weighted, obviously. Barnard reports an average enrolee GPA of 3.96 - but 31% of those students have GPAs below 3.75. So 3.96 has to be weighted. (Which I assume means that the 3.75 is, too.) Other schools? Hard to tell. My guess is, some do it one way, others the other (and others, the "other" other.) </p>

<p>It seems to me that since GPA has assumed a higher level of significance in admission than test scores (which are at least consistent, if nothing else) it would behoove some organization to take a stab at standardizing this method of measuring aggregate academic performance.</p>

2

<p>I agree that it would be nice to have some standardization -- but truthfully, I never bothered with it. The UC's did their own recalculation -- my kids had mostly A's in academic subjects, some B's & a C in non-academic subjects (my couch potato son didn't do so well in P.E.) -- and I figured that the other colleges would know what to do with the transcripts. Then again, my kids had high end UW GPA's -- I think my d's UW was about 3.85 -- so there really was no reason for us to sweat -- I knew the grades were "good enough" and I spent my time agonizing over my d's SAT scores instead. ;)</p>

<p>If you are trying to figure things out as far as "chances" -- I'd say look at the whole picture including class rank, if you've got that. You probably will have an easier time if you simply ball park your kid as an "A" student, "B+" student, etc. </p>

<p>I do know that when ad coms meet to make a determination, they look at the whole transcript (or whatever rendition of it has made it into their file), and correlate the grades with the classes. They like to see a rising trend, so they will be more forgiving of B's & C's in freshman or sophomore year. They also are going to look at the grades in context of the individual student -- if the student is leaning toward humanities, they will want to see strong grades in courses related to the students intended course of study (A's in Calc for prospective engineering students) -- but be more forgiving of weaker grades outside the area of strength. </p>

<p>So really, rather than compute the numbers, you are better off looking at the overall transcript to observe the pattern or trend, because that is what the college will be doing.</p>

3

<p>
[quote]
because that is what the college will be doing.

[/quote]
- ah, but there's the rub. What will they be doing with it? While past performance doesn't guarantee (blah, blah, blah) a prospective applicant can look at a college's overall treatment of prior year students with different levels of test performance, and determine the scores at the 25th and 75th percentiles, and have a clue as to whether that school is a reach, or match, or safety on that basis. But with grades - a more significant part of the decision making process - an applicant has very little clue where he or she stands in comparison to last year's admitted students. Obviously, there are no guarantees - but is it too much to ask for a clue?</p>

<p>(Actually, UC is easy - you can readily calculate the student's exact "UC GPA" and see where it stands in relation to each UC campus's prior year's admissions by looking at their freshman profiles. It's all those other schools that have me baffled.)</p>

4

<p>I don't know how you tell where you stand, b/c not all hs are created equal either. I think this is where naviance may come in, if you know how those gpas were calculated (ie: unweighted, weighted, including or not including PE etc.).</p>

<p>I have been to some info sessions where they state that they recalculate gpa according to the classes required for admission. I wonder if a student had 4 years of math, and 3 are required, which 3 classes they choose to use in that calculation, or do they average the 4 years for a student that took calculus in their 4th year, and 3 years for the student that ended with algebra II?</p>

5

<p>And then figure out other variables--- comparing an A from one high school (or state) that figures A = 90-100% vs. A = 93-100% is another one that skews things.</p>

6

<p>I'm with Calmom on this one -- I don't think calculating GPA is worth all this brain power. What's important is how your school calculates GPA, and how your kid does relative to other kids if that is available. There are schools that do GPA out of 5 and 7 and 9 and schools that give a numeric average out of 100. There just is not a standardized national GPA. </p>

<p>For schools that do a holistic admissions review, like the Ivies and most LACs, knowing your kid's precise GPA isn't going to help you figure out his/her "chances." Too much else goes into the consideration.</p>

7

<p>Between my two kids, they applied to 12 colleges. Each college recomputed GPA using a different formula. To be honest, I also do not believe that GPA has taken on more importance than standardized test scores. If that were the case, my daughter would be rolling in merit money. It all depends on the schools. And to add fuel to the fire, high schools also have multiple and varied ways of computing GPA. Some of you may remember a thread here (a few years ago) where I challenged the GPA calculations at my kids' high school because for some odd reason the weighted GPAs for honors/AP kids was LOWER than the unweighted. Their calculation had been wrong for 20 years. It was changed. However in their research (which they shared with me and I had done myself as well) I found 20 different ways to compute hs gpa and that was just in this very small region of this state. I wouldn't worry a lick about GPA calculation unless it looks wrong (like my daughter's did). Aside from that...it's just one more number.</p>

8

<p>This is an exercise in futility. The fact is that few people actually KNOW how colleges make their admissions decisions. And the fact is that many colleges play games with the numbers they report.</p>

<p>Take admissions. Over the past 6-7 years, solid academic research has shown that the things adcoms talk about are often not reflective of their practices, especially at elite universities. And the list of half-truths (at best) is a long one.</p>

<p>Take reported data. A number of colleges over the years have reported numbers such as SAT scores that excluded groups of students such as foreign students.</p>

9

<p>I also have a question about CDS GPA. What grades are those GPAs from?
9-11, 9-12 including first semester, or 9-12 (assume they count 9th grade). Does anybody know? it's probably different from colleges to colleges.</p>

10

<p>Yes....the formulas vary from college to college.</p>

11

<p>One of the issues buried in there is that some of the really nifty private schools don't offer "AP" or "IB" or "honors" designated classes, and yet somehow their students regularly gain admission to selective colleges.</p>

<p>I suspect GPA is important, but more in terms of comparing students within a school, or comparing a student to past candidates from the same school. And even there, the colleges probably compute their own GPAs to take account of whatever they think is important, and to wring out the effects of whatever other algorithm the high school uses.</p>