<p>I'm currently a junior in high school and I'm just gathering information on GPA and how colleges look at it. I've heard that some (probably most) colleges recalculate the GPA in some way, but could anyone point me to the pages of a school's website that says that? I've read <a href="http://www.myfootpath.com/CollegePrep/RecalcGPA.php%5B/url%5D">www.myfootpath.com/CollegePrep/RecalcGPA.php</a> but that's only for Oberlin College. Could you please post how the top tier schools consider GPA (either a link or a brief description)? (For example, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Duke, etc.) Also, do those colleges consider academic grades only (igorning PE, Health, etc.)? </p>
<p>I've heard that Harvard doesn't recalculate GPA's but rather claims to take a more holistic approach. Stanford apparently does recalculate based on 4 core academic classes + foreign language. What about MIT?</p>
<p>OK.. I've called MIT and they say that they do NOT recalculate your GPA, however they went on and on about how they would consider other factors as important. In fact, I'm beginning to doubt some of the stuff they said, like not having a set minimum GPA or SAT requirement etc. In any case, generally from what I've heard, whenever a college does recalculate they treat Honors/AP the same as normal classes. However, they say that they will "look" for courseload etc.</p>
<p>I, for one, am encouraged to hear that top colleges treat grades holistically. When high schools weight honors and AP, they can intrinsically penalize students who participate in "regular" classes -- such as orchestra, dance, theatre, art, etc., which may or may not be included in GPA but almost never are weighted. Thus a high-achieving student looking for val. status doesn't dare sing in the choir. :(</p>
<p>What's your opinion on those orch/choir/band people? Should they take the courses for 4 years ("dedication")? Or should they abandon it for a higher GPA, with the possible loss of EC activities?</p>
<p>Shoot, at my school it's all about what classes you can get out of or take without them counting on GPA. </p>
<p>If you want to be Val. you basically just need to make As in your Pre-AP and AP courses, be an office aide or leave campus early senior year, take athletics since it doesn't count and Health is included credit, and take Government, Economics, and Speech during the summer before your Senior year. You'll pretty much only have two or three unweighted classes for the entire four years.</p>
<p>i'm sorry to be an ******* but gpa's should be recalulated and wieghted, too many of us bust our butts taking hard classes and our gpa's go down because of it and we deserve credit for that,unlike the people who have 4.0's but yet never taken an honors class. so in my opinion colleges should recalculate gpa's and weight ap's,honors, and ib grades, not just look at our courseload.</p>
<p>My GPA was even wrong on the transcript! My high school does them 90=3.0, 91=3.1...99=3.9, 100=4.0 and their dumb computer program managed to come up with a 3.3333 unweighted GPA when it should have been 3.6ish (I only had two 93s and a 91...the rest were 95+). My weighted one was slightly off from what I calculated, but that could have been because the computer uses non-rounded scores or something. So not only was the GPA colleges look at wrong, but it also made it look like I made a lot of Bs when I had really made all As. Thank goodness all of the grades are listed on those things.</p>
<p>Point being...GPAs are dumb as mess and I'm glad that I'm finally going to be attending a school that can add and divide correctly.</p>
<p>Your argument is good; I think we can agree that taking "hard" courses should be reflected somehow. But forget for a minute about ECs and college admissions, and all of that. Does it enrich humanity to eliminate the arts from high school so everybody has a shot at a 5.0?</p>