Does Harvard consider weighted or unweighted GPAs more?

[anddespair]

This question is likely futile to ask, considering Harvard’s admissions are holistic, but I figured somebody on here would know.

[hola1997]

Almost all colleges will take in UNWEIGHTED GPA (if your school does not release GPA, like mine, then they consider the letter points e.g. A, B, C, etc.) and evaluate the rigor of the course. The admission officer of the region would be familiarized with your school workload to know what course is hard and what isn’t. Because each school treat AP and Honors courses differently (weighted differently), colleges will almost always recalculate the GPA and consider the UNWEIGHTED GPA.

[gibby]

Harvard reports the GPA of accepted student’s on a 4.0 scale in their Common Data Set, so if your high school reports weighted GPA’s, Harvard would seem to recalculate the GPA to an unweighted scale – at least for the purposes of reporting the C11 data of the CDS. I would therefore assume that’s also how Admissions evaluates GPA’s. See C11 data point: http://oir.harvard.edu/files/huoir/files/harvard_cds_2014-15.pdf?m=1457640342. However, the C12 data point reflects a 4.03 average high school GPA of all degree-seeking, first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted GPA. So, I don’t really know the answer to the question, as they seem to be reporting both weighted and unweighted GPA’s. You could always call Admissions and ask.

[skieurope]

You could always call Admissions and ask.

More to the point, what does it matter? It is what it is.

[gibby]

^^ Correct. I would also further add the following from another thread

What’s important to remember in the college application process is that your grades are NOT directly compared to students at other high schools (at least not at first).

Colleges judge you in the context of your high school and your guidance counselor is asked to rate your academic program and GPA against all your college bound peers at your high school. Even if your high school has grade deflation, there are still students who are ranked in the top 2-3% of the class – and that is what HYPSM look for!

Sometimes a high school’s guidance counselor will NOT provide “in-house” GPA rankings to a college, in which case Admissions often reads all applications from a specific high school at the same time, placing applications in GPA order and comparing the rigor of each student’s curriculum so they can get an idea of the pecking order at your high school.

An admissions officer then rates all applications from a specific high school on a 1-6 or sometimes a 1-9 scale, directly rating YOU against YOUR classmates at your high school with 1 being the top score. (Side note: Your extra curricular activities and “character” are also rated on that same 1-6 or 1-9 scale.)

Admissions offices then compare your application ratings (1-6 or 1-9) against other students across the country and across the world.

When an Admissions Officer looks at your academics which include your GPA (weighted or unweighted), class rank if provided by your GC (or discovered by putting your application in rank order against your classmates) and SAT score, do you think you will be rated a 1? Do you think you will be rated a 1 in EC’s and ‘character’? That’s really the question student’s must ask.