Do colleges look at weighted or unweighted GPA? I have a 3.3-3.4 unweighted but a 4.2 weighted, which one is better? And which one matters to colleges?
On Common App, it asks for your weighted GPA. However, some colleges look at your transcript
^Actually the common app let’s you choose, but every college will look at your transcript. Generally unweighted is what matters, because weighting systems vary greatly from school to school
Anyone else? Does a good weighted GPA “compensate” for a low UW GPA?
It depends on the school. UC uses their wGPA system. UMich uses uwGPA. Nevertheless, they will look at your course rigor anyway. As there is no standard in wGPA, the adcom probably would not care what your wGPA is and recalculate in their own way anyway. Even with uwGPA, it is still hard to compare students from different schools (even from the same school but taking different classes). So it matters more how do you compare with the Naviance data of your school.
UW is what matters.
@ayprcwbjmy: Simply sated, the highly- and most-competitive institutions SEEK (demand) both excellent grades AND curricular rigor. There are no shortcuts, both of these hurdles need to be cleared. Those who believe they can “game the system” by taking less than the most demanding courses likely will not clear the “curricular hurdle” and those who take quite demanding courses but have indifferent grades probably won’t clear the “GPA hurdle.”
Unweighted GPA counts much more than weighted (for the reasons mentioned in earlier posts), however, don’t fall into the trap of not being challenged by your school’s “most demanding” curriculum.