Does Wellesley care about weighted GPA?

<p>I have taken only honors classes throughout my high school career. Many of my honors courses are AP and college. The only non-honors courses that I took were electives, and they weren't easy electives. Unfortunately, I messed up during freshman year. I also messed up a little during sophmore year. Consequently, my unweighted GPA is only a little bit higher than 3.25. Will Wellesley consider my weighted GPA (nearly 4.0)?</p>

<p>I can’t say for sure but I think that most schools recalculate everything to an unweighted GPA to be fair to everyone. They’ll probably take both into account though, depending on what you reported on your app and what shows up on your transcript.</p>

<p>I’m sure they will take both into account. Since you mentioned that many of your courses were AP or college-level, they’ll be sure to take the rigor of your coursework into account. As long as you didn’t stray too far from the average performance of your peers, you’ll be fine. If anything, you can also explain in a respectful paragraph (in the supplement section of the common app) why you “messed up” and what has changed since then.</p>

<p>I didn’t have the best unweighted gpa (~3.6), but I was accepted anyway. Seriously, don’t sweat it. If Wellesley sees that you’re a great fit here and that you’ve matured, they’ll accept you. Good luck!</p>

<p>The fact that your GPA has gone up since your first two years in high school is a positive sign for colleges because, as ILUxpssh suggested, it shows you’ve matured and gotten your priorities straight. If, on the other hand, it had been a downward progression, that could spell ruination. As for the actual weighted G.P.A. assigned by your high school, each college will recalculate it according to their own standards. Apparently, many schools disregard subjects they consider “fluff” and only look at core academic G.P.A. Colleges look at the overall rigor of your course work, the rigor of your high school, the range of G.P.A.s and test scores reported on the school profile for your class, your class rank if available, where you fall in terms of the middle 50 %ile of SAT and ACT scores, etc. </p>

<p>Everything is evaluated in the context of your own particular circumstances. There are no absolutes, except for a few schools like HYP, where you have to have been virtually perfect across the board from day one. Wellesley wants to make sure you will be a vibrant contributor to the classroom and campus, and that you will be able to handle the conceptual sophistication and large amount of work you are given.</p>