<p>Our school currently uses a 1.2 multiplier for AP, CIS, and PLTW courses. Honors courses are not weighted. The weighting of certain types of courses is a newer thing. What was happening with out the weighting was very few high ability kids were willing to take AP courses because of fear of getting a B and kids taking grade level or even remedial courses had an equal shot at valedictorian/high ranking than GT kids with a full AP courseload. </p>
<p>But the change to giving the weighting to the AP and few other college level courses has not come without a problem. Now what is going on is the parents with kids who either don’t want to take the most challenging courses or have students where those courses are not appropriate are upset. They do not think it is fair that their straight A kid in regular courses has a class rank of, for example, 120 out of 500.</p>
<p>It’s hard to keep everyone happy, eh?</p>
<p>All I can do is speak from the experience of my own high schooler and she works her tail off in AP courses. The courses require an incredible amount of dedication and sacrifice. To me, class rank and valedictorian are academic honors bestowed upon students who are…oh, I don’t know…smart and willing to put in what it takes to rise to the top. At least in our school setting, the weighting seems appropriate but if there started to be a push for the weighting of honors classes, I would probably work against that. In our school system, honors classes are basically the same curriculum but the class moves at a faster pace for kids who are bothered by the slow pace of a varied ability classroom. So it isn’t really harder, it’s just “more” because they get through more material.</p>
<p>From listening to the adcoms from the most competitve universities that grades have almost become a minor consideration on the application. They are now far more concerned with the rigor of the classes and taking the most challenging curriculum available.</p>
<p>It seems to me that they can easily forgive an occasional B in an AP classes, but they will look quite harshly on a student who doesn’t take calculus or stops foreign languages after two years.</p>
<p>^That probably was the reason why our school allowed only 3 AP’s / year and only starting with junior year. If you think that kids were at disadvantage in comparison, they were not at all. In addition, some regular classes were harder than AP’s at other schools and prepare them better for college. That was definitely the case with at least one class - Chemistry. AP Chemistry and AP Physics were not offered at all, teacher did not believe in APs. This was very small private prep. HS that always placed 100% into 4 year colleges.
So, many factors depend on specific HS and many colleges are aware of it.</p>
<p>No weighting in our district and A+ doesn’t exist…so GPA on straight 4.0 scale. But really I’ve said it before it doesn’t matter what a transcript says as it is not at all difficult to look at the transcript and guess pretty closely what the unweighted GPA on a 4.0 scale actually is if latter grades are reported or numbers (like a 98 or 87 etc.). SanSerif that is a silly thing and quite a silly school…call it the Lake Woebegone school where everyone is above average!</p>
<p>At our high school AP and Honors are weighted 1.0. I have heard of schools that weight AP 2.0 and Honors at 1.0. While other schools weight Honors 0.5 and AP 1.0. </p>
<p>Personally, I believe districts should compare unweighted GPAs of their students with SAT/ ACT scores and AP test results to see what kind of GPA weightings create consistency. In other words, there is something wrong with a weighting system, if kids who rank in the top 2% nationally on ACT/ SAT and score 4 and 5s on AP tests are consistently unable to make GPAs that place them in the top 25% where kids who rank below 90 percentile on standardized tests, without taking AP classes are in the top 10%.</p>
<p>thanks for the input…kids’ school weight ap and accerated courses .5 . I am not really concerned, as my kids attend a very competitive school. My D has a 3.87 unweighted gpa, and she is only ranked 85th out of 420. She is one of those kids that doesnt test well, but started AP classes as sophomore. So hopefully colleges will look more at grades and curriculum, as opposed to rank and test scores.</p>
<p>This could be addressed by basing class rank on weighted grade points, not grade point average, so that an extra course can only help, if one gets the same grades in all of the other courses.</p>
<p>[ I think it really only helps with class ranking and identifying most rigorous curriculum]</p>
<p>I agree. My kids went to large public and definitely needed weighting to highlight the academic kids (might not be a problem at private). For instance, we had AP, Honors, College Prep and then another level of some core classes at a level below college prep (geared mainly toward vocational kids). Needless the say, I feel that the kids that took honors and AP deserved the academic honors. Yes there is a problem for kids who want to do band, theatre etc but while that might keep you from being valedictorian, I don’t think it affected many as far as achieving top 6% (number for highest state lottery sponsor scholarship) or top 10%.</p>
<p>Again, I think colleges figure this out. They can tell the difference between a 4.0 student who took college prep and 4.0 student who took honors or AP. Transcripts generally show if you took hardest curriculum at your school.</p>
<p>As others pointed out, it varies by school, but 2 of the colleges we applied to not only looked at unweighted GPA but actually recalculated to only include core academic subjects.</p>
<p>Our schools weight AP and some DE at +1. Really, though, the total number of weighted courses is pretty low, maybe a dozen total. Weighting means diddly outside a particular school/system because each school does it so differently. We have honors, for instance, but they’re not weighted. You cannot take the upper division weighted course in some areas, however, if you weren’t in the honors sections as a fresh/soph. lot’s of GPAs tossed around on cc aren’t even possible at my kids’ schools.</p>
<p>A NACAC survey from a few years ago concluded that about half of colleges recalculate GPAs. In my state, the top 25 or so high schools were evenly split between 1/1 and 0.5/1weighting for honors/AP. Exceptions are magnet schools that do not weight because every student takes the same course level. Our HS did not weight, and it hurt kids taking more rigorous courseloads-they lost out on rank-dependent merit awards.</p>
<p>Colleges often do not care about weighting. That affects class ranking more than anything. I am frustrated because at my teens’ current high school, students rarely make A’s in AP courses. I have found myself telling them do not take AP here or there, because of the fact that in those classes, it is rare for anyone to earn an A. Weighting is appropriate. Even if the school curved the grades (ours does not), it should be weighted. When I was in school, there was no weighting. So, the valedictorian was a girl who never took a single honors courses and took a lot of home ec. Meanwhile, all of us who took straight honors or accelerated courses with a few APs (AP was not as extensive as it is now, at least, not at my high school in the 80’s). I do not think that someone who has never taken a hard course should graduate at the top of the class, above those who busted themselves all 4 yrs.</p>
<p>I agree, high schools need to figure out that colleges refigure “weighted” grades anyway. Our school has 2 rankings they use so kids that take AP/honors classes have a higher class rank than those that do not. That makes the GPA’s real for colleges and for scholarships gives the kids that take harder classes a leg up. Seems to me that it’s a better system than weighting grades. Also, you see it here all the time 'my child has a 4.8 weighted but a 3.5 unweighted and didn’t get into any of his top choices" type theads. That’s because the college sees his GPA as a 3.5, not a 4.8.</p>