<p>alright so I have a question about how much an unweighted GPA matters..
I have challenged myself throughout high school and taken many honors classes and havent always done fantastic. I always thought that the weight in my GPA would be there no matter what, but my junior year i learned that it may not. </p>
<p>overall i have a 3.92 weighted GPA, 4.2 in my junior year
I am happy with my weighted GPA, but my unweighted GPA is MUCH lower (embarrassed to say it is around a 3.3) </p>
<p>how much will this affect me, and will colleges only take my unweighted GPA into account? also will they look at that and be thinking about the rigor of my courses and the fact that I have been enrolled in a challenging school? </p>
<p>Thanks!!!</p>
<p>Colleges will either look at your unweighted GPA and/or weight your GPA according to their standards. They will take into account the rigor of your schedule and of your school, and how your performance was compared to others at your school.</p>
<p>does it help me significantly that i was constantly challenging myself with my classes</p>
<p>acollegea - Colleges will use their own weighting system. They also request and store “school profiles,” to get a sense of how difficult a school is. The most elite, selective colleges will want everything to be nearly perfect, but every college I have ever visited with my sons stated explicitly that curricular rigor is the first thing they look for in an applicant. There would be no advantage at most colleges to compromise rigor for a higher grade: the 3.3 in an AP or IB class will be weighted as a 4.3 most places; the 4.0 in a standard-level class won’t be weighted. My younger son just finished up the college admission process, and his GPA looked very like yours (3.3-3.4 unweighted, 4.0-ish weighted - depending on weighting system). It worked out to be pretty comparable with his ACT/GPA scores (31/2060). He did not apply to any Ivies, and was rejected by his 3 reaches (UNC-CH, from out-of-state; UC Berkeley, out-of-state; and Claremont-McKenna),but he was accepted at ten good colleges (he was waitlisted at one low-reach, and one match), including Tulane, Pitzer, UCSD, and Occidental. He received some generous merit scholarships. The Ivies, MIT, Stanford, et al will be inundated with applications from students who have 4.0+ unweighted GPAS, with weighted GPAs maxing out at 5.0, but be assured that you are competitive at the overwhelming majority of American colleges with your GPA.</p>
<p>OP, it will help that you challenged yourself. BUT when they see that you challenged yourself and really struggled, that will hurt you. </p>
<p>Schools appreciate a student that challenges him or herself, it indicates that you would rather take a risk than play it safe all the time and never know your true potential. That being said, I do wonder why you didn’t scale back the rigor a bit once you realized you weren’t doing that well. Skieurope also makes a great point, how is your GPA compared to others at your school (your class rank)? Also, what schools are you targeting? </p>
<p>It really is all about you vs others at your school. Even schools that don’t rank often report the grades of the top Ten percent for " scholarship purposes". At some schools that can be a 3.9 at others a 3.7 or lower. School use these things to suss out where you rank even if your school doesn’t rank. </p>
<p>Washington and Lee is my dream school, any thoughts on my chances?
SAT score of 2100, decent but not great number of extracurriculars, no hook, will apply ED</p>
<p>Not a great fan of Parchment, but the data there is the best I have access to, and sadly, there are very few admits with your GPA. I would guess the very few you see around 3.3 are probably an athlete.or other hook. You need a Plan B. </p>
<p>Take a look at SMU, you’d stand a good chance there, somewhat similar school in culture, though bigger. SMU is an EA school, so you could easily to apply ED to W&L and EA to SMU.</p>