<p>When you hear, "college X only counts core, academic high school classes in GPA," does that actually mean they pick out which classes are "academic" and recalculate your GPA like that? Or is it that they look at the GPA on your transcript, then compare it to your grades in significant classes? I've been confused about this for a while.</p>
<p>Some colleges recalculate based on their own formulas and classes, some don’t. Every college will look at the GPA listed on your transcript as well as the grades you received in each individual class. Some will also look at you based on the GPA they calculate (they may remove non-academic classes, weight certain classes differently, etc).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>State universities with predominantly in-state applicants are likely to standardize GPA calculation, and often have arrangements with in-state high schools to know which high school courses fulfill which university admissions requirements (e.g. [Doorways</a> for the University of California](<a href=“http://www.ucop.edu/doorways/]Doorways”>http://www.ucop.edu/doorways/)).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>According to a discussion in another thread, private universities using holistic admissions processes tend to just eyeball transcripts as part of the evaluation to make sure that the courses and grades are in the general area that they want to see.</p>
<p>I think that grades in individual classes tend to matter more…</p>