GPA Concerns

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

So, I am a freshman at this great high school. All of my courses are advanced, and I’m doing pretty good actually with straight A’s to A+'s. So I got my first transcript today and I was pretty excited with it. I received a 4.0 uw gpa, BUT here is the thing. I only got a 4.06 w gpa. You may be wondering why, I mean I am taking all advanced courses with nothing lower then a 96 on them. Well, my school has this TERRIBLE weighting system. AP=1.2 Honor=1.15 Advanced=1.1. So they highest possible weighted gpa you can get is a 4.2 by the end of senior year. I really want to go to Harvard, and I’ve read all these threads about students with 4.5’s and not getting in. My high school only reports weighted GPA to colleges, so my question is, What do I do?

2

Relax.

3

Yeah, but I just want to know what to do?

4

Colleges look at UW GPAs for the most part. If you are taking a very rigorous course load, you are fine. Read “How To Be a High School Superstar” by Cal Nrwport. You will see you are stressing about the wrong stuff. And when you start actually visiting and looking at colleges, don’t fixate on prestige. Get the stars out of your eyes and look at fit, academics in your major, and cost – find some matches and safeties with a higher acceptance rate where you can be happy. Then put in a few reaches like Harvard with very low acceptance rates.

5

yeah, but my high school doesn’t give my unweighted gpa, can i make the?

6

Stop right there – 95% of students are rejected from Harvard, so you are just setting yourself up for disappointment if you go into the college admissions process with that attitude. You can be happy at any number of colleges, and often a college’s decision doesn’t come down to who has the highest GPA or test scores. Please watch this video. Although it’s about Stanford, everything in it applies to Harvard as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UYhTylqC9o

7

While the other posters are correct in that you should relax, and that 95% of applicants will get rejected, I’m rather surprised that nobody has actually addressed the question.

All high schools are free to assign weights as they please. For example, my HS did not weight courses at all. Colleges know that, and most HS’s send along a school profile with the Secondary School Report which discusses the weighting system, as well as what advanced courses are offered, median SAT scores, GPA distribution, and other fun facts. Additionally, most colleges will look at UW GPA and/or reweight according to their own parameters. So although your HS does not report UW GPA, all these AO’s went to college and know how to scan a transcript to ascertain UW GPA.

8

Thank you skieurope, for actually answering my question. So since your so knowledgeable about the topic, do yow know how Harvard reweighs gpa.

9

Good point! For example, here is Boston Latin’s High School Profile, which explains in numbers and graphs’s their grading system: http://www.bls.org/ourpages/auto/2013/5/24/55204166/2015-16%20BLS%20Profile.pdf. Most high school’s have their profile available on-line. If your high school doesn’t, ask your GC for a copy to understand how your high school explains their TERRIBLE weighting system to colleges. You might be very surprised by what you see!

10

gibby, I did and I got a link of the gpa report.
https://phila.schoolnet.com/outreach/content/serveattachment.aspx?outreach_content_id=5e9e2e3d-5377-4c81-a943-d74acbf85fe1

11

gibby, which I was in that school, they have a weighted gpa out 5.3 unlike mine which is out of 4.2

12

As every high school has a different grading system it would be unfair to compare your GPA to that of a student at another high school. When looking at transcripts, course rigor and GPA, Admissions compares you to all other college bound students at YOUR high school. So, colleges rely on your guidance counselor to rate the rigor of your course load and GPA against your peers at your high school in the Secondary School Report (SSR). See page 2, upper section, which your guidance counselor will fill out on your behalf: http://www.du.edu/apply/media/documents/2012CASSR.pdf.

So, your GPA – in whatever form it is reported in – will be compared to every college bound student at YOUR high school. So long as you are in the top 10% of your graduating class and preferably in the top 1% to 3% for ultra selective colleges such as HYPSM, then you’re okay. So, as another poster said, relax.

13

As a follow-up: Admissions will look at your transcript, course rigor, GPA, Secondary School Report and High School Profile and based upon how you stack up to your peers at YOUR high school, they will assign you a number from 1 to 6. Those numbers (1 to 6) are what get’s compared to student’s across the country and across the world. Here read this: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2006/05/keys-to-the-kingdom/

An excerpt

14

Ok, this all makes sense now. One more question, what happens if you school doesn’t rank

15

Then Admissions lines up all applications from a specific high school and puts them in GPA order. In that way they get a relative ranking and a better understanding of the pecking order at your high school.