I have a cumulative UW GPA of 3.35, and if I took and got an A in a 3 unit class at a local community college, would that factor in and help my cumulative GPA that colleges see?
Depends on how colleges evaluate your GPA.
If your are applying to UCs and CSUs, a semester long college course counts as two courses in the GPA calculation, and may count as honors courses. See https://secure.csumentor.edu/planning/high_school/gpa_calculator.asp for GPA calculation, and see http://doorways.ucop.edu to check courses to see if they count and if they are honors for UC and CSU purposes.
For other colleges, check their web sites to see if they have any information on how they evaluate college courses taken while in high school.
@ucbalumnus Thank, this was helpful.
This is interesting. In the application, the university asks for high school courses and grades, and college courses and grades. I did not know how they were evaluated until I read this post (I still did not see it for UC, and have just an idea for CSU- count 1 semester for 2, add a point for honors up to a limit of 8 points).
When you sign up for a class and fill out the form for approval at the high school, we were able to request High School credit where it shows up on the high school transcript, or College Credit where you get no units towards graduation and the grade is recorded instead on the community college transcript. I thought there was an option for “both,” but I don’t recall and I am not sure how that would be counted. For most high-achievers, it would make sense to count it as college credit or both, since typically high school graduation requirements have already been fulfilled.
However, if it is taken for High School credit it could probably influence your HS GPA that the HS reports on your transcripts. If it is taken for College Credit, it does not appear on your transcript and does not count in your High School GPA from your high school. Apparently, Universities (at least the UC’s and CSU’s) calculate it as a part of your incoming GPA (which makes sense).
This should be a heads-up about how to report GPA (if asked for a single number) for other institutions.
Most information about UC and CSU weighted GPA indicates that they are the same, although it is not clear about whether UC double counts college semesters like CSU does. UC also calculates unweighted and fully weighted (no 8 semester cap on honors +1 points) variants of the same GPA that its admissions readers can see.
UCs and CSUs do not use GPAs calculated by high schools – they do not require transcripts at application time. Self-reported courses and grades are verified for matriculants using their final high school transcripts.
If it gets factored into your HS GPA depends on your HS (my county does not do this). If it does get factored into your GPA, even if colleges recalculate it, it will still help by boosting your class rank.
Our HS does not factor in classes taken in other schools into their GPA. It is up to the college if they choose to recalculate your GPA using the additional class. I’d send the transcript from the CC directly to each college you apply to.