<p>Do you know whether your state colleges give more weight to a gpa from a better HS, or treat all high schools as if they were the same? Some high schools are harder than others. Some HSs give more weight for AP or honors than others. Private college certainly recognize this. State schools find themselves tasked with allocating taxpayer-funded resources to various taxpayers' kids, and it may be politically important to compare applicants more numerically.</p>
<p>I recently found (on another thread) that "Illinois SU rep noted that "all schools' GPAs are equally weighted" as statewide university policy - ie a 3.75 GPA from a weak inner-city school w/no AP classes is equal to a New Trier 3.75 GPA w/all AP classes. Last year, UIUC rep said same thing. So rigorous curriculum may actually penalize students."</p>
<p>What else have people learned about the state college or state university systems in other states?</p>
<p>My state schools look heavily at unweighted gpa and transcripts. They see rigor through the transcripts. Also value class rank more than the gpa itself.</p>
<p>Do you have any information on whether they would treat a B from a strong, competitive HS as the equivalent of a B from a school where it’s pretty easy to get As just for showing up and not causing trouble?</p>
<p>I recall an associate dean of admissions at our state flagship stating that the school did not recalculate GPAs. They just took what the school sent, even though different school districts had different scales. But that does not in any way mean that a 3.75 from a demanding school is treated the same as a 3.75 from another school. They know the schools and they see the school profiles, so a given GPA from different schools may leave two very different impressions.</p>
<p>In California, up to 8 semesters’ worth of AP, IB, (transferable) college, or honors courses listed on <a href=“http://doorways.ucop.edu%5B/url%5D”>http://doorways.ucop.edu</a> with C or higher grades get +1 weighting in calculating high school GPA for public university (UC and CSU) admission purposes. This can effectively give a +0.3 to +0.4 GPA boost for a student who took that many or more in 10th and 11th grade.</p>
<p>Note that <a href=“http://doorways.ucop.edu%5B/url%5D”>http://doorways.ucop.edu</a> only includes listings for California public and private high schools. Out of state applicants can only count AP, IB, or (transferable) college courses for the +1 weighting. There are a few cases in California high schools where a course labeled as honors is listed as non-honors for UC and CSU admission purposes.</p>
<p>State schools in Massachusetts recalculate GPAs (weighted, and just core subjects). Admissions and scholarship decisions are based on GPA and SATs. Which H.S. you attend is not important.</p>
<p>The Illinois state flagship school is University of Illinois-CU.<br>
I cannot find the common data set for Illinois State, but from their website: </p>
<p>“Fall 2011 freshmen:
•Half of admitted freshmen earned ACT composite scores of 22 to 26. A quarter scored 27 or above, and another quarter scored between 18 and 21.
•The average high school grade point average was 3.43 on a 4.0 scale.”</p>
<p>FWIW: Colleges can calculate GPA any way they want.</p>
<p>When looking at a college’s admittee gpa data and trying to apply it to yourself, the relevant questions are: do they use unweighted gpa (letting the benefit of AP/honors be reflected in their overall view of the adequacy and rigor of the curriculum); do they recalculate to allow only “academic solids” in the computation of gpa; and do they treat all HSs as if they are equal, as if an A from one school is worth an A from another school. (On that last question, they could numerically enhance a gpa from a harder school, or they could decline to do that but give “soft” recognition to grades earned at a harder high school. Or they could truly behave as if all HSs were equal.)</p>
<p>Again, I think private colleges consider all factors – wondering about the public colleges.</p>
<p>UW uses unweighted gpa’s- and of “academic” classes (don’t know which are/aren’t academic). They also look at the course rigor- ie did students take the most rigorous courses available to them. They also look at standardized test scores- ACT/SAT/AP. Plus teacher recommendations and any essays and EC’s. I think the key is taking the best advantage of what is offered- students are not penalized for coming from a HS that doesn’t offer as much. You could say it also takes away the advantage of being at the elite HS. No extra points added to your gpa from uber elite HS. It also means if you had the chance to take many AP’s but only took two while another student took all two available to them they have an advantage over you. Levels the playing field for those who don’t have all of the advantages. This is fair in my book. There are many OOS applicants who don’t get in from elite HS’s because their grades weren’t as good as they could have been.</p>
<p>Short answer- yes. They use the rest of the application info to sort things out.</p>
<p>Decades ago, the SUNY where I worked recognized tougher schools, and kids from those tougher schools could have lower GPAs. Usually, the best schools’ kids SAT scores off set the GPA, which is one reason I have always been in favor of standardized testing. I don’t think state schools would ever announce that they do that, but I would almost guarantee that they do. </p>
<p>Regional admissions people are very familiar with the schools from their areas.</p>
<p>Some apparently consider standardized testing necessary to expose low quality or excessively grade-inflated high schools, even though they do not like the current standardized tests or prefer a situation where high schools have uniform enough quality standards to not need standardized testing.</p>
<p>I think that state u’s do know which schools are stronger academically and take that into consideration.</p>
<p>I suspect that your child attends a more rigorous school and that you are concerned that it will hurt him/her in admissions. It’s not something that you have any control over so why worry about it. My own high schooler attends a very rigorous school and I can only encourage him to focus on doing his best and not to worry about whether he would be at an advantage if he attended another school. It is what it is.</p>
<p>We live in the town of our state flagship. I know they look at class rank more than GPA. Of course GPAs are not comparable across high schools. And yes–they know the high schools they tend to draw from very well in terms of academic rigor.</p>
<p>I believe that students from less rigorous in-state high schools are given some weighting advantages at every state flagship. They want diversity within the state, so they aren’t going to just accept everyone from the two or three top academic counties within the state. They could fill a freshman class just from a few counties within my state, but want students from every corner of the state. The top students from each high school will be accepted even if their stats are lower than an average student from the most rigorous high school.</p>
<p>At college Honors info session, I have asked how they treat the fact that HS’s are different, some offer very few AP’s, have very small graduating class (it is not possible to reach top 2% in class of 33, as a top kid would represent top 3%) and do not rank. The answer was that they are aware of all these from HS class profile and do not pay too much attention to rank and weighted GPA as determined by HS, but recalculatee both. They know that some very rigorous small private prep. HS’s that always place 100% of graduates into 4 year colleges, simpy do not offer many AP’s as some of their regular classes are more challenging than respective AP’s at other HS’s.</p>
<p>It seems that in Ohio, some of our state schools consider only unweighted GPA (and re-calced to 4.0 if they aren’t already) and test scores. For example, OU’s scholarships are calculated using: [The</a> Gateway Award Program: Ohio University Admissions](<a href=“http://www.ohio.edu/admissions/gateway/]The”>http://www.ohio.edu/admissions/gateway/)</p>
<p>I see. Odd that they don’t for scholarships though.</p>
<p>Some parents at S’ school are feeling like their kids just missed a scholarship or admit because of somewhat lower grades in AP courses (our HS doesn’t weight). Since S has applied mostly to private schools that DO say they value rigor - as well as the difficulty of his school in general, I haven’t paid too much attention.</p>
<p>When S decided to take AP courses, he did so to get college credit or because he liked the teacher better or, to be honest, because his friends were. I wasn’t thinking ahead to college beyond credit either. D15 has the benefit of my newish knowledge in this area.</p>