Do Colleges look at Unweighted or weighted GPA's?

Applying to College
1

<p>I have a 4.1 weighted GPA currently and somewhere around a 3.8 unweighted. I'm really shooting for some reach schools, MIT, JHU, Dartmouth, Caltech, along with some safety's like VCU, VTech, and JHU could be considered one as well given my essay. But I was wondering if these schools look at weighted or unweighted. I had a 3.125 my freshman year and a 4.14 soph and 4.85 junior. I've taken 7 AP's so far and have a bunch of extracurriculars and like 450+ volunteer hours. Could that sway their decision my way?</p>

2

<p>I’m wondering about this too, especially for Ivies. I’m ranked 1st weighted but 6th unweighted.</p>

3

<p>It depends on the school. One of my daughter’s choices unweights and re-weights generously, another unweights and doesn’t re-weight, and a third unweights and re-weights less generously. You can definitely ask.</p>

4

<p>Yeah, my rank is high weighted but I don’t even know what it would be unweighted! Hopefully, I’ve also heard that some schools don’t look at Freshman year but I find that hard to believe!</p>

5

<p>" One of my daughter’s choices unweights and re-weights generously, another unweights and doesn’t re-weight, and a third unweights and re-weights less generously. You can definitely ask. "</p>

<p>How do you know what the schools do? Can we just call Williams College and ask somebody in Admissions how they treat grades? Or is it on their websight somewhere? My D’s school reports a really crazy GPA that only includes junior and senior year. Do the schools notice and recalculate?</p>

6

<p>Anecdotal evidence suggest that either a) colleges reweight according to their own standards or b) consider the unweighted more heavily (along with factors such as class rank, ect…) when trying to determine your high school performance. </p>

<p>The sheer variability of how weighted GPA is computed at different schools makes it a less credible indicator of academic performance. Basically, my college counselor told me that my weighted GPA was my “fantasy GPA”, whereas my unweighted GPA + rigor(my school doesn’t rank) was what adcoms consider.</p>