<p>My son's school reports total GPA including non-core courses such as Art, Architecture, Health, and so on, which are generally quarter-long courses. In these courses he's generally gotten As or A+s. As a result, his reported GPA with these courses is 3.9 instead of 3.8. However wondering if colleges will recalculate or ignore these courses when evaluating.</p>
<p>Some schools only count core courses for GPA, while some would also skip the freshmen grades. So it depends on the school. Whichever way, you should just report the GPA as it is on the transcript, unless they provide an instruction and ask you to recalculate. They can recalculate the GPA their way from the transcript anyway.</p>