GPA Scales

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>My school measures GPA on a 5.5 scale. (5.5 being an A+ in an honors or AP class) On a 4.0 scale, would a 4.0 be an A or an A+? I'm not sure how to convert my GPA to a 4.0 scale. </p>

<p>Also, will colleges use the scale provided by my school or calculate my GPA using their own methods? Because my school has mandatory classes for graduation that bring down my GPA because they are not honors. </p>

<p>Thanks :-)</p>

2

<p>A and A+ are both 4.0. </p>

<p>You can’t directly convert your GPA to a 4.0 scale. You have to look at your individual grades.</p>

<p>Take each individual grade out of 100 and assign it either 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 “grade points” according to the following scale, regardless of whether it’s an honors class or not:</p>

<p>A = 4 points
A- = 3.7 points
B = 3 points
B- = 2.7 points
C = 2 points
C- = 1.7 points
D = 1 point
D- = 0.7 points
F = 0 points</p>

<p>This assumes every class you’ve taken is worth one credit. For half-credit classes, divide the number of points by two. I’m not sure if the grade point amounts for “minus” grades are as standard/universal as the grade point amounts for regular grades, but I’ve seen this scale several places and it will probably give you a pretty good approximation. </p>

<p>Now:

  1. Add up all the grade points.
  2. Divide this number by the number of credits attempted. If you’ve never failed a class, this is the same as the number of credits you’ve earned. If every class is worth one credit, this is the same as the number of classes you’ve taken throughout your high school career, excluding pass/fail classes. This is your unweighted GPA. </p>

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<p>They won’t just look at your numerical GPA without any context. They look at your grades/transcript, and some colleges do recalculate. An A in a non-honors class only brings down your weighted GPA, and your weighted GPA only matters for class rank because every school calculates weighted GPA differently. You’re not going to be penalized for taking required non-honors classes. All they expect is that you take the most challenging (or close to the most challenging) schedule possible at your school. </p>

3

<p>Thank you so much you answered all my questions!</p>