<p>Why does it seem like there are high school juniors and seniors who have difficulty calculating an average, specifically their own GPAs? As in "I don't know my unweighted GPA, since my high school does not put it on the transcript", or "how well do I have to do this year to raise my GPA from X to Y?".</p>
<p>Their parents probably can’t calculate an average either.</p>
<p>Scales are not uniform. At my school, we ONLY had weighted GPAs- the idea of “unweighted” was foreign to us. We also only used 4.0s, 3.0s, etc for calculating. Others use 3.7s, etc for “In between” grades. </p>
<p>It’s not always cut and dry.</p>
<p>I have no idea what an A in an AP class means vs. an A in an honors or CP class at my son’s school. I don’t care, either.</p>
<p>For unweighted grades, of course, calculating the GPA should be a lot simpler. Except that it isn’t. For example, do you calculate that A in art or that A in gym class into your GPA? Both classes took up a lot of hours of outside work, because that sadistic gym teacher made you do a term paper on Title IX in addition to pushups. Or perhaps you should use only the serious academic classes, which means that B in physics is going to make your GPA a little lower than if you could use those gym and art grades.</p>
<p>As romanigypsyeyes said, it’s not always cut and dried. (Well, she said “dry” but I’m sure she meant dried.)</p>
<p>I requested my daughter’s UWGPA after Sophomore year for athletic recruitment. I was redirected to our school district where they told me that it was an extremely complicated matter and it took them 2 months to provide it to me. It seems they have only one “expert” who knows how to do it.</p>
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<p>For athletic recruitment, wouldn’t it be easy to calculate GPA for NCAA purposes according to NCAA rules described at <a href=“http://blog.ncaa.org/GetTheGrades/”>http://blog.ncaa.org/GetTheGrades/</a> ?</p>
<p>We would rather provide colleges with the number produced by HS as opposed to DIY method.
Most decent colleges have much higher academic requirements for athletes than NCAA minimums described in your link, especially in non-helmet sports and it seems some recalculate GPA based on transcript anyway.</p>
<p>They don’t know because they don’t care enough to know.</p>
<p>I, former tenured science professor, do not know how to calculate a high school GPA. Do you count classes like gym and band? Or only the academic ones? And I only learned after my first child went through e college application process that only final year grades get figured in for year-long classes. Whereas in college, it’s by semester or quarter.</p>
<p>Motivation, motivation, motivation.</p>
<p>My most “I love humanities and hate math” child had no problem figuring out how to calculate her average and how every potential grade might affect her overall weighted GPA, unweighted GPA, and class rank. She also regularly calculated the potential GPA and class rank of every other person in range of her, based on which courses they might take.</p>
<p>My mathy children didn’t care about such things and had no idea how to figure out GPA. I never thought to show them.</p>
<p>Our high school puts both on the transcript. However I can’t seem to figure out how they figure out the weighted GPA. Something about using a 5 point scale instead of a 4 point scale however it’s not explained anywhere that I can find. All I know is that getting a A in an AP class really doesn’t raise the GPA that much however it does help with admissions. 
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<p>On the transcript, it will have B+. So what is that numerically? I don’t think each HS has a consistent definition.</p>
<p>How can this possibly be difficult? I agree with ucb alumnus. It’s a simple math calculation that takes two minutes tops. Look at your kid’s report cards and ask what the weighting scheme is. If you’re so worried about whether gym is included, do it both ways and see what the difference is. </p>
<p>Our high school actually has a page on their website describing how to calculate your GPA (weighted and unweighted) so you know what rules they follow. I used a simple spreadsheet when my daughter was in HS to keep tabs on her GPA. The spreadsheet took maybe 5 minutes to create.</p>
<p>Why is it somebody else’s problem if some cannot do it. If they cannot do it, then it is their problem (or maybe not even that, it iwll be calculated anyway, who cares how)</p>
<p>The problem is that so many students ask about how to select reach/match/safety colleges to apply to, but only give their weighted HS GPA (without describing the weighting system), so others cannot give good suggestions.</p>
<p>When a student’s math skills are so weak they cannot do GPA calculations, it’s a problem. When I was in school, the report card would be mailed home and I’d find out what my grades were. Not so today. Every single teacher from 6th grade on sends home a sheet with detailed info on how kids will be graded and this has to be signed and returned by parents with a copy also given to the kids. Kids also receive “grading rubrics” for major project detailing the percent contribution that each aspect of the project will contribute to the grade. With this much attention being paid to grades, I cannot believe that it is at all difficult to find out how a high school calculates its GPA. Ours is in the course handbook, on the college info page and also in the student handbook. Schools these days do not want unhappy parents; it’s clear from these actions they want complete transparency and no lawsuits.</p>
<p>“The problem is that so many students ask about how to select reach/match/safety colleges to apply to, but only give their weighted HS GPA (without describing the weighting system), so others cannot give good suggestions”
-Oh, but here, the real prblem is the flaw in selecting college process, not in calculating GPA. Focusing on this calculation making this process even further from finding a true match, the school where student truly belong and have a higher chance of success. There is so much research into personal fit, GPA is not the criteria to focus on. </p>
<p>There is a huge difference between not being able to calculate a GPA and not knowing a “standard” scale. </p>
<p>If I were to say that grades for a semester were A, A, B+, B-, B, A+ - standardize that, you might get a whole slew of different responses.
At my high school, that would’ve been a 3.5, my partner’s high school that would’ve been a 3.55. This isn’t even including high schools that use 6 pt, 9 pt, 10 pt, 100 pt, etc scales. </p>
<p>OTOH, if you are to say that all A’s (regardless of +/-) are 4.0s, all B’s 3.0s, etc and they still can’t calculate, yes there is probably a problem. </p>
<p>Honestly, I think there’s a classist undertone to this thread. The assumption that students should just KNOW about this mythical standard scale to use to calculate their UW GPA is elitist IMO. Think about students who don’t really know about other grading scales. Why should they? They’ve had the ones the schools have used and why should they think that there are different ones in different school districts? Think about those whose parents didn’t go to college. How on earth should they know that there are UW and W GPAs when their schools only use one or the other. </p>
<p>So they turned to CC for help. Is that not what CC is for? To help students who need it? I honestly don’t understand why people are bothered by this. If you don’t want to help, move along. </p>
<p>^^Yes but if I do it in my head in 30 seconds it’s a 3.5, give 4 to an A and 3 to a B and divide by 6. No one, literally no one cares if it’s a 3.54 or a 3.56 and kids SHOULD be able to do this in their head, without benefit of calculator. I agree with the original post and 4,3,2,1 is the “classic.” If you are a real naval gazer you can add or subtract .33 based on pluses and minuses but I’d bet my bottom dollar the vast, vast majority of admissions do it the way I just did - look and compute in the fraction of a minute it takes and compare to the transcript. </p>