Can someone please explain GPA?

<p>... I do IB and I have NO idea what these GPA scores mean... unweighted/weighted etc. anyone care to explain? thanks in advance for your responses!</p>

<p>If its unweighted (Stanford looks at your grades and puts them in this form when it evaluates transcripts), then for each grade, its usually A=4 B=3 C=2 D=1 F=0. If its weighted, different schools might do different things to give certain classes more "weight" than others. For example, at my school, AP classes goes A=5 B=4 C=3 D=1 F=0, so getting a passing grade in an AP class helps your GPA more than a regular class.</p>

<p>So does Stanford weight grades like other schools or do they have some special system. Do they weight grades at all?</p>

<p>No weighing at Stanford. They recalculate your GPA using an unweighted, standard scale. You might say this is an unfair disadvantage for people who take the most demanding course load their high school offers (such as numerous APs or IBs, and whatever is the toughest at a high school). But on the other hand if you aren't doing the hardest classes that you won't have any chance of getting in, no matter how perfect your GPA is.</p>

<p>that's not quite true. They take your completely unweighted GPA and recalculate their own weighted GPA based on your school's profile to see the classes offered and how your school distributes grades.</p>

<p>Does Stanford (and other private universites) count A-'s or A+'s?</p>

<p>well, if they weight the gpa then some people are bound to get over 4.0s. However, if you look at the statistics, the highest GPA category of the accepted student body is 4.0, not 4.0+.</p>