<p>This isn't a question about AP/honors weights; as far as I understand, most/many schools will unweight all grades and then assign their own course rigor classifications.</p>
<p>My question is whether or not schools 'strip down' classes for GPA consideration. Do schools eliminate non-core classes (art, PE, drama, etc.) and/or pre-9th grade classes?</p>
<p>My school includes pre-freshman grades in its transcript report because we receive high school credits for those classes.</p>
<p>They do not look at pre-freshman courses at all. And I’m pretty sure that most only look at your core classes, with non-core acting somewhat as supplementals.</p>
<p>I’m going to ignore the non-core vs. core classes part of your question because I don’t want to accidentally type down misleading/wrong information while I’m half asleep, but as for pre-9th grade classes, I’d like to qualify what AnEpicIndian stated. Adcoms don’t look at pre-freshman course unless, as you stated in your post, you take courses in middle school that count for high school credit. Then they DEFINITELY factor into your high school GPA and appear on your transcript.</p>
<p>For example, my brother is in middle school, but he’s going through a special academic program that will allow him to graduate middle school with two foreign language credits, Algebra I and Geometry credits, and a Bio I credit, essentially enabling him to start high school taking mostly sophomore-level courses. There are a few hundred middle schoolers that are involved in this program each year. There would certainly be a lot of complaints from parents if all the hard work their children did in middle school to get ahead in high school was completely disregarded by college adcoms.</p>
<p>Each college will look at this differently. Some will use only core classes while others will use the published GPA from the HS. If the HS transcript includes pre-HS classes then some colleges will include them. Others will remove those classes. The accomplishment is still there since they start ahead of their contemporaries but the class grade would not.</p>
<p>My son is getting high school credit for Algebra I and geometry in 7th and 8th grade, but I can only pray to the college gods that what he does as an immature 12 and 13 year-old boy doesn’t count against him or counts the same as what he does in Calc BC or Calc III as a junior and senior. (A C+ one quarter because he suddenly thought homework was optional!) In fact, I can practically guarantee you that it doesn’t - it would make no sense. Credit, yes, but it would hardly be on the radar of most any sane college.</p>
<p>While I agree with the above posts that it depends on the college, and that many colleges will not use pre-9th grade classes or non-core classes in GPA calculation, there is one key point to consider: what difference does it make? Don’t spend time worrying about things outside of your control.</p>
<p>@MrMom62 our sons must be twins.</p>
<p>All college will consider these grades/ classes differently. Our hs puts 8th grade algebra snd earth science into students overall gpa. Recently this caused an uproar over final class ranking for students vying for sal and val. If you take algebra in 8th grade and get a 100 in it, you get a 100 calculated into your gpa. Advanced math students go this route. If you take algebra in 9th grade you can tskes honors algebra at the high school If you get a 100, it is calculated into your gpa as a 105 ( because it’s honors.) Same with earth science. So by not taking these </p>
<p>^^classes early (the fast track) someone had a higher gpa and moved ahead of kids who had been recommended to take these classes early. </p>
<p>Thank you to everyone for the replies! The information was very helpful.</p>