<p>I would like to ask everyone what your high school's grading scale is.</p>
<p>Our high school is currently using a 7-point scale and considering changing to a 10-point scale with plus/minus system.</p>
<p>Have other parents found that the colleges you applied to recalculated your son's/daughter's application to be equivalent with everyone else applying?</p>
<p>Is there an advantage to having the 10-point scale over the 7-point scale or the other way around?</p>
<p>My D’s high school also uses a 7-point scale and I would personally love a switch to a 10 point scale, mostly because so many other high schools in our state have recently switched. Most of our state’s public universities, where most of our students apply, take the GPA straight off of the transcript, exactly as reported by the high school. Those same institutions award merit scholarships based on exactly as reported GPA’s and ACT scores. There are some states that by law have 10 point scales and it’s difficult to compete for admission to some out of state publics because of that. Most private schools will take into account the grading scale, however, many families can’t afford private colleges even with financial aid. </p>
<p>There is a lot of research available online from different school systems throughout the country who have recently changed…Virginia districts, northeast Ohio districts, etc. </p>
<p>This has been a big problem for my family in particular just based on the schools my daughters’ have applied to and the amount of money awarded (or not) in scholarships. </p>
<p>One other thing to consider is the potential discount from insurance companies for young drivers with good grades.</p>
<p>Now that there are so many high schools with a ten point scale, I don’t see very many positives about keeping a seven point scale.</p>
<p>My kids’ HS did not weight their grades (I don’t think any public schools in Washington State do). That is a disadvantage when scholarships are based on the GPA that is sent in (regardless of weight). My younger D looked at two universities that based their scholarships on the GPA that was submitted and didn’t unweight them. My D didn’t apply to one of them with guaranteed scholarships because she was put off by their policy (she took mostly honors and AP classes). </p>
<p>I just noticed that the school she didn’t apply to changed their policy to weight unweighted GPAs on a 4.5 scale. If a student applied on a 10 point scale (or even a 7 point scale) they’d still have a nice advantage over the students with unweighted GPAs. So, I can see why a school would raise the scale they are grading on.</p>
<p>Our Wisconsin district was A, B, C, D, F (4,3,2,1) with no extra points for Honors or AP, no +'s or -'s. Some of the local suburbs did weight. The University of Wisconsin does not use weighted grades- they will calculate their own gpa based on “academic” (definition?) subjects. Disadvantage for top students in class ranking.</p>
<p>I wonder- should freshmen who had 8th grade Algebra and taking the typical sophomore math class as freshmen get extra “honors” points for that in a weighted system? All sorts of ways to play with the numbers. Once in college it all becomes ancient history.</p>
<p>Here in Florida last spring I read some of the stats given for top two students of many local HS’s. Almost all had gpa’s in the 7+ to a max under 8 range. The number of AP classes likely made a difference between the schools.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider…again, especially for smaller publics…is that many schools have a hard GPA cutoff for honors programs consideration. With honors programs comes priority registration, smaller classes, potentially better instructors, better living arrangements, more scholarship opportunities, etc.</p>
<p>My high school doesn’t weight anything and their grading scale is 94-100 = A = 4.0, 85-93 = B = 3.0, etc. Colleges wouldn’t be able to recalculate our grades because only letter grades are reported on our transcripts. It’s stricter than most grading scales, but our classes are probably easier than they should be…I think someone who got a 4.0 on a ten-point scale at a better school would also get a 4.0 here even though we have a six-point scale (for As, anyway). I feel like they were trying to get rid of grade inflation without actually making the classes harder or changing anyone’s percent grades.</p>
<p>Colleges will figure out your GPA on a consistent scale…
My daughter did 2 years at a 0-100 scale high school and 2years at an IB school with a 1-7 point scale. Still have no idea what it is on a 4 point scale, but she got scholarship offers (except at our state flagship, so I emailed them more info to ask if perhaps she got overlooked for scholarships because her GPA was not entered. She did end up getting a scholarship offer.)</p>
<p>Our system was like Wis’ because UofM does not weight (or that is the reason whenever a parents asks why “we” don’t weight grades.) It is also reported like halcyon with no numerical representation on the transcript except 93 is an A and 92 is a B. My oldest son made a habit of accumulating 92s which were straight Bs. Almost killed me, he had lots of Bs on his transcript. It was not a problem with any Midwestern colleges for any of my 3 kids but I think it made a difference in their eastern acceptances where it feels “weighting” and non 4,3,2,1 GPA scales without pluses and minuses seem more prevalent. One western public, I called admissions and asked if they would recalculate my oldest son’s GPA so he would qualify for the “higher” posted merit by using his AP classes in the calculation…they did and bumped him up on merit. Colleges don’t “always” recalculate, but it’s “always” OK to ask if you are at one of the “strict” public systems.</p>
<p>Our official transcripts also only include letter grade but for schools where it might matter, our guidance counselor included documentation of the percentages earned as well. My daughter is the queen of earning grades 90-92, B or B+ on our scale. Some schools took that into consideration; some didn’t. Miami of Ohio, for example, will only use straight GPA even if the school provides percentages for awarding scholarships.</p>
<p>For those that have applied to colleges already, could you state the schools the DO NOT recalculate GPA based on different scales. </p>
<p>I am trying to get a list for our school board of some of the schools that simply take the GPA right off the transcripts without recalculating.</p>
<p>I want to start advocating for North Carolina or our school district to move from a 7-pt to a standard 10-pt grading scale. Our preferred school, Brigham Young University, does not consider grading scales when reviewing applications. I was told they just review the GPA that is on the transcript.</p>
<p>I don’t think it makes any difference in college admissions what scale your school uses. Well a habitual A- student will obviously do better with a system that records any kind of an A as whatever the top score for an A is.</p>
<p>Our school reported class grades on a 0-100 scores and then did an overall weighted GPA which, if it were possible to take nothing but APs, (which it was not), would max out at 110. When my oldest graduated the Val. had the highest GPA ever in the history of the school and it was a little over 106.</p>
<p>Since our school also reports ranks for the student I assume that knowing they were in top percentiles were particularly helpful.</p>
<p>Ours is a percentage. 0-100%. No weighting, no letter grades.</p>
<p>Our school reports A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, etc. but no A+. Top grade is “A” which is 4.0. A- is 3.7 (I think), B+ is 3.3, B is 3.0, B- is 2.7, etc. (for calculating GPA). No weighting, no possibility of getting anything over 4.0 for GPA.</p>
<p>Sounds like there are all sorts of different systems out there. I can’t believe the colleges keep them all straight! Also, I would think GPA would not mean much, because even at our HS, an “A” from one teacher would be a “B” from another; some classes are much easier than others; etc. “Geology” is a full-year course but generally known as “Rocks for Jocks” - how would a college know that? They try to put “Honors” on things that are harder but will “Honors Philosophy” (a really, really hard class with lots of in-depth writing assignments, taught by a very good teacher who takes no excuses) really be given the same “weight” as something with an “AP” designation? We don’t have any “AP” courses but our kids do take the Calculus AP exams and sometimes chemistry or biology if they’ve taken ‘Advanced Chem’ or ‘Advanced Bio’ and done a little extra study with the teacher.</p>
<p>I am really surprised that colleges weight GPA so highly in there admissions decisions (and my son has a 3.93, but I have no idea how that would compare to a similar GPA from any other school, in this state or any other).</p>
<p>The high school in California that I attended used an A,B,C,D,F scale, with + or - possible on the grades other than F. However, + or - was not used for calculating GPA by either the high school or the state universities in California (where high school GPA of applicants was and is recalculated by their own weighting system).</p>
<p>Our high school uses a 100 point scale, with grades falling between 50 and 100. I think its ridiculous, and should be changed to conform to the 4.0 scale that everyone else uses. </p>
<p>Furthermore, if you look at our profile, it becomes clear that almost no one is awarded unweighted grades of above about 95. I have a great suspicion that the reason for this is that teachers have been instructed not to award high grades in the honors courses because the “computer system” that is used cannot deal with adjusted averages above a value of 100. Im not sure of that…its my conjecture. But it causes me to believe that our students are disadvantaged when admissions officers attempt to compare them to students who are on the 4.0 scale.</p>
<p>I’ve never believed our counselors when they claim that the admissions officers “know” our school. There is a lot of constant turnover in admission offices, and the larger and better schools have tons of applicants. My thesis is that separating yourself from others with an outlier grading system is not doing your students a service. </p>
<p>@dadx, “everyone” does not use the 4.0 scale. I believe the entire state of NY uses the 0-100 scale - because of the Regents tests being graded that way. (Could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure when this has come up before most NYers reported using the 100 point scale.) Colleges are smart enough to figure this out, though I think the more the high school explains their system the better off you are. As long as your school tells colleges that no one gets above 100 you will be okay. I’ve heard of systems that use a 6.0 scale.</p>