<p>Currently AP and accelerated classes are weighted .5, the school is thinking about weighting some or all of them(not sure yet), with a weight of 1. </p>
<p>I am not sure where I stand on this issue. Will this basically just create grade inflation? We are having a meeting in the near future, so I guess I will find out the rationale at that time. Any thoughts on this? </p>
<p>Do most high schools weight those classes with 1 or .5 ?</p>
<p>My school was on a 12 point scale. But if you took a weighted class, an A+ would be a 15/12 (5/4), so it was a 1 point weight. It really didn’t cause any problems in terms of grade inflation, and it was useful because we had a large class size. I’ve heard stories of schools that have 10 people tied for 1st in class rank. We never had this problem because there was more room for variation.</p>
<p>Our High School weights AP’s 1.0 and honors at .5 They do have many pre-rec’s that help keep the slackers out, including required summer reading and homework and teachers and parents must sign off that the student will do the work. It’s also pretty tough to back out of once the class starts.</p>
<p>Schools vary. And some colleges either do their own weighting or use your unweighted GPA. Some of the most selective colleges opt for unweighted GPAs thinking that applicants are taking challenging course loads–so it evens out.</p>
<p>Weighting in high school does affect course selection. In my son’s case for instance he opted to play in the school band as an EC rather than take the band class. The band class is weighted as a non-honors class, and if he doesn’t take the class he can list it as an EC on his college application.</p>
<p>If this is a public school it should be decided on a district level, and ultimately the district should attempt to conform with whatever the norm is in the state. Otherwise, your kids will be at a disadvantage in admissions to state schools, and for merit money, scholarships, etc. at state schools. If one were to fight this, this is the route that I would suggest. (This has been a big issue in VA and if you google it, you can find relevant citations which might help you should you choose to pursue this on a district level or higher.)</p>
<p>Our state has uniform grading standards…all public schools use the same grading scale where honors and AP/IB classes are weighted above 4.0 so for instate schools everyone is on same page (or as much as possible). College admissions are not dumb. Some recalculate, some take the unweighted and all the ones we applied to required a HS profile along with transcript which I assume helps them put grades into perspective.</p>
<p>My kids have all gone to schools that don’t weight grades at all. The one time it caused a problem was for my son’s scholarship at Indiana University - it’s an automatic scholarship based on SAT/GPA and they accept a weighted gpa but don’t recalculate. He had 9 AP classes which translated into a difference of $4000 per year. In his case we were able to have his highschool produce a document that recalculated his gpa and he did get the scholarship but from what I’ve heard they don’t accept that anymore. So - a solid pro argument!<br>
Here in Michigan there is no consistency - our district does not weight but the one 15 minutes down the road does - they have many more kids go to top schools but it’s hard to show that’s because of weighting…</p>
<p>Our school does 1 for AP and .5 for honors. In truth, I think it really only helps with class ranking and identifying most rigorous curriculum. Academic letters are specifically given for unweighted GPA so it isn’t just the Honors kids that earn them, and it rewards hard work. A straight A average letter is recognized even if it was earned in the beauty school or day care courses, which I like. Class ranking is based on weighted GPA still. We only had 5 AP classes, so it was not impossible to be in the top 10% with only 1 or 2 APs. Next year there will be 8 AP classes adn 4 dual enrollment offerings that are weighted with a 1 as well, so it wil be interesting to see how it affects the rankings.</p>
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<p>That seems strange of IU to accept unstandardized weighted GPAs, since that gives incentives for high schools to use weighting method that inflate weighted GPAs (e.g. some students here have reported weighted GPAs >5 or even >6).</p>
<p>^ I think IU just doesn’t want to bother with recalculations. It is an auto merit scholarship.</p>
<p>However, a high school can game the system for its students by using a very inflated weighted GPA calculation and a generous definition of what courses are weighted.</p>
<p>Our HS doesn’t weight at all either. The vast majority of kids in the National Honor Society take few AP’s and some don’t even honors level. When my D wanted a math tutor, I suggested the NHS as they offer free tutoring, but not a single kid in the NHS had had honors precalc/analysis.</p>
<p>I have done some college advising for liberal arts colleges. NONE of them used weighted GPAs. When they saw them, they just threw them out. They did weigh strength of academic challenge, but only against what might have been available at that particular school.</p>
<p>For high schools, I believe this is a private school vs. public school issue. Competitve private schools generally do not weight since their expectation is that everyone will attempt classes that are most competitive. Everyone knows who the smart kids are since they are defined by the rigor of their classes rather than class rank. In public schools however, especially larger diversified schools, weighting is necessary or the school would face the prospect of a vocational student being named valedictorian - or at least taking a valuable spot in the top 10% of the class from a college-bound kid who would be hurt.</p>
<p>What mini says is true, but with a caveat. They sometimes pay attention to rank, especially for scholarships, but also to boast about the percentage in the top 10% so sometimes a disadvantageous system can hurt you. I think most schools have unweighted grades on the transcript and then report either or both a weighted and unweighted GPA, so it’s pretty easy for colleges. The top colleges will be looking for evidence that a student has taken a challenging curriculum in the context of the school. </p>
<p>Our school system ranks honors and AP courses the same amount and it’s only 5% better than a regular course, which seems pretty minor. (We report grades on a scale that without weighting is 0-100.) The end result is that a B generally becomes an B+, not that a B becomes an A. My older son mostly was slightly hurt by our system (best grades in AP courses, more APs than honors) in terms of rank, our younger son was helped (some stellar grades in non AP courses).</p>
<p>I was confused about this, so I asked a few admissions officers. They are all over the board. Some take whatever the school sends, some recalculate with their weighted scale, and some recalculate unweighted. Send an e-mail to specific schools if you’re worried.</p>
<p>For the record, my daughter’s school does weight 1 point for dual and AP. No weight for advanced or pre-AP (“honors” designation is not used). Her GPA on her transcript is 3.3. It could be recalculated using above guidelines from a 3.0 to a 3.7.</p>
<p>One of the downfalls of weighting is that it discourages high schoolers from taking classes that might interest them, but would hurt their GPA. I personally know a handful of people who, years after graduating, bemoan losing valedictorian status because they chose to take Band (or Latin I, or Astronomy, etc.) during their senior year. They still earned straight A’s, but the lack of weight in this non-mandatory course pulled their GPA below someone who stuck to all AP classes. In one of these cases, my friend took Band instead of lunch, so he was overscheduled. His course load was more demanding than the eventual Valedictorian who enjoyed her lunch and even included a study hall every day.</p>
<p>In my opinion, this “testing of the waters” and “enjoying the high school years” should be encouraged and certainly not penalized through the arbitrary and controversial weighting system.</p>
<p>Re IU - I have given advice on this site to other non-weighted gpa IU applicants and have been informed that they no longer accept anything but the gpa as reported on the transcript (regardless of whether it’s weighted or not). That seems totally ridiculous to me but I am thankful that they allowed my son’s private international school to send a recalculated weighted gpa - he was able to get the $9000 a year scholarship (which I see is now $11000) and for us that made the difference in attending.<br>
This is the only school I’ve heard of that does not recalculate so really not relevant unless it’s on your list.</p>
<p>Talk about inflated - if you get an A+ in an AP class at my D’s school, it’s weighted at 7.53.</p>
<p>We were told that college strip and re-calculate weighted (if at all), so it seems that it does not matter.</p>