My D22 just created her common app account & we were looking through the questions. I know the question has been asked many times about how to report a GPA, but I didn’t see these twists. Apologies if I missed it when searching.
Her school’s weighted scale is out of 4.5 (.5 boost for honors or AP). It doesn’t seem like the common app allows for anything but whole numbers? What does she do with that?
neither her final report card this year nor the transcript she has list a GPA, so she needs to figure it herself. Maybe her guidance counselor will tell her but not sure. Her school considers a an A+ a 4.0 (or 4.5 weighted) and A’s are 3.7 (4.2) and so on, so her GPA will look lower as she has a mix of A’s & A+'s (and one A- from 9th grade). I think most schools consider an A a 4.0 & that is what the college board says too, but not sure what she should do in this case. If she gets the calculated GPA from the school it is what it is, but I don’t want her to report an unweighted 3.8 or equivalent weighted and make it look like she’s gotten a couple of B’s. Also her school-generated GPA only includes the 5 major academic subjects so is that what she should do also? She has lots of A+ in art, gym & music classes . Without the A+ being worth more she has a 3.98 unweighted and presumably over a 4.4 weighted (haven’t figured that one out yet) but it will look much lower if she counts A’s differently from A+'s.
I know this is all nitpicky & they will really be looking at her transcript, which leads to one more question. For some reason now forgotten they gave her a copy of her transcript earlier this year. It’s impossible to tell from that transcript what she really took as the courses only have about 8-10 characters (e.g., foundations of art shows up as foundation). Please tell me the transcript they send to the colleges has more detail? I assume it does since kids seem to get into college every year, but it’s a very small public school & we aren’t sending kids to the tippy top schools for the most part (occasionally, but not regularly). Not that D22 is looking at tippy top either, but she is looking at some selective schools and I want to know that they will know what classes she actually took.
Do any of her schools require her courses be loaded in CA? If not, no reason to enter all of that. If so, the GPA is out of 4….how the HS weights doesn’t matter.
I wouldn’t enter any gpa from the transcript…the school/AO is going to look at the transcript and do what they do.
Ok, that is helpful. No, none of them require her to list her courses/grades (at least of those she’s looked at so far) except the state flagship. But if it’s unweighted out of 4 should she count the A’s as 4.0 or do what her school does and count them as 3.7?
Not a UC.
Her first two years the school put a weighted GPA on the final report card, but they didn’t this year. Not sure why, but assume like everything else this year they were all sideways. So you’re saying to leave it blank on the common app where they ask for the GPA?
You are correct! If you change the scale to “none” it’s no longer required. However, given her good GPA I’m reluctant to suggest she leave it blank. But we’ve got a few months to figure it all out. Thanks.
Admissions sees the transcript, so entering anything is irrelevant. I would strongly advise not listing anything not explicitly backed up by the transcript or counselor rec. Same concept would apply to rank for any other users with a dilemna.
This GPA thing is messed up for many students in the Class of 22!
Our school (like many others) did Pass/Fail the second half of 2020. There were no grades/scores - so it impacted the cumulative GPA. Anyone else having this issue?
I agree- I had asked in a thread if anyone knew what % of schools actually had letter grades the spring 2020 semester. Our school in CA only allows 1 AP class for the first 2 years, and there is no weighting for the majority of honors classes for those first 2 years as well (except Enhanced Math III). I guess the answer is the schools look at the context of your kid’s grades to the others in his school applying to the same university, but it doesn’t really give me much comfort to hear that explanation when applying to other kids from High schools that may not have the same policy or rigor. I feel the kids at our high school are at a disadvantage, aggravated by a P/NP spring semester. We are in CA so the UC GPAs have to be lower, maybe?
We had letter grades last quarter of 2020 and they got final grades in all classes which is all that counts. I believe the final grade were not allowed be lower than that seen through the first three quarters which may have benefitted some kids who just stopped engaging, but overall given the hardships some were facing made sense. My daughter actually went up in one class and her final grade was better than it probably would have been otherwise; the others stayed the same. So, not to add to your anxiety, but our kids’ GPAs shouldn’t have been affected. I’m
Sure the colleges know what a screwy few months that was though and will make allowances.
Sorry to hijack the thread but my daughter is stuck on this point too. Would cummulative be unweighted? So couldn’t we put weighted in the GPA category and unweighted in the cumulative one?
Whatever you use needs to be backed up by what your HS provides. Ours ranked but did not weight and used a 100-point scale. Our HS gave every single student an unofficial transcript stating class rank and cumulative GPA through the end of junior year, with an explanation that cumulative GPA and rank would not be recalculated until after the close of the second semester. Each student had exactly what was on record as of any application due date, and that was what they were instructed to use on their applications. Once mid year grades were updated in January, the school communicated the new data to colleges on the report they sent. Don’t go trying to recalculate anything thinking it will give any edge. If your HS weights and that is what is on the transcript, use that. If they don’t, don’t try and figure out what it would be if they did. If you don’t know what gets reported, ask and feel free to ask for an unofficial copy.
GPA Scale reporting asks for the type of scale your school uses (A=4, A=5, A=6, out of 100, etc).
Cumulative GPA asks for your actual GPA on that scale.
Weighted/unweighted asks whether the score you entered is weighted or unweighted.
If your school has a 4.0 scale, with 1 bonus point as weighting, and you have a 3.89 unweighted and 4.55 weighted, you can put either:
4.0. 3.89 Unweighted. or
5.0 4.55. Weighted
If by “GPA Category” you mean the “GPA Scale Reporting” question, that is not a place to put an actual GPA.
The actual GPA only goes one place - the Cumulative GPA question. Everything else is descriptive.
So again, since I started this thread, my question was not about “gaming” the system, but that the dropdown menu did not adequately represent my D’s school’s weighting system. It is out of a 4.5 which is not an option (only whole number options on the drop down). So her 4.43 which is excellent out of a 4.5, will not only look much worse out of 5, but will simply be wrong, while choosing 4 is equally misrepresenting. I still don’t know what she should do, and I forgot to remind her to ask her guidance counselor since I assume every kid at the school has the same issue. But I’m afraid an AO will take a quick glance, see 4.4, assume it’s out of 5 and not think much of her rigor (her school weights honors classes & AP classes the same at .5; they consider their honors classes equivalent to AP).
. Without the A+ being worth more she has a 3.98 unweighted and presumably over a 4.4 weighted (haven’t figured that one out yet) but it will look much lower if she counts A’s differently from A+'s.