<p>advanced placement classes are graded out of a 5 in my d’s school–if you load up on those its not too hard! Totally not fair to the average student who cant compete and now looks like a slacker with a 3.5.</p>
<p>Yes, 4.3 is A+ at our school too. She had all A and A+ (math and science), one B+ for one semester in APUSH. The school didn’t rank, except for the Val, she had few more A+ than D1. </p>
<p>Girls are more of perfectionist. Even when it’s not their best/favorite subject they would still put enough effort in to get an A. Not to be too sexist, but boys tend to do what they want to do. If they are interested in an area, then they could spend hours reading or doing research, but would only do the minimum in subjects they don’t care for.</p>
<p>D1 & D2’s school doesn’t give out extra credits. Their AP grades mirror pretty well with AP scores.<br>
APUSH: 44 A, 42 AP 5; 34 B, 33 AP 4; 1 C, 5 AP 3.<br>
Total of 80 students and all 80 passed AP exam and no one had lower than C in the class.</p>
<p>SDonCC–I have not seen a lot of conversions from the 100-point scale to the 4.0 scale. My point was that a student in a typical public high school around here receives only letter grades (no pluses or minuses). 90 to 100 percent is an A, but the grade percentage does not appear on the transcript. An A is 4.0. I don’t think that I was clear. So a student who has all A’s on a transcript will have a 4.0 unweighted average (with perhaps a 91 average), but much higher if AP and/or honors are weighted.</p>
<p>Because our school didn’t rank, when D1 was applying to our in state school, they didn’t offer her honors or merit money, itt was all done by their computer system. Her counselor had to fax over a letter to give her approximate percentile.</p>
<p>Have to agree with MDMom: if all schools went back to the 100 scale (and then they could weight them as some Long Island schools do), it would be easier to distinguish between top students…</p>
<p>an aside, but an interesting add-on to this: the students from high schools that use 100 scale and weight have HUGE advantages in the admissions process at large stat-driven schools according to admission officers we have spoken to; while UMich, for example, used to unweight the GPA’s on the 4.0 system (A-F) they “never had the time to unweight the ones on the 100 scale; too time consuming…”</p>
<p>same comment from Binghamton…</p>
<p>Grade inflation runs rampant in a lot of public school districts. Also, some students take less rigorous courses instead of challenging themselves just to rack up the grades.</p>
<p>It always surprises prospective students at the independent school I am at when they learn we have never had anyone graduate with a 4.0 (and we have an excellent track record of getting studnets into the most competitive colleges).</p>
<p>The point I am trying to make is colleges understand grade inflation exists and at the most competitive colleges, they know where they can rely on the numbers as eveidience of academic rigor and where they can not. The one problem with grade inflation though is how it impacts merit awards - especially those based on formulas with GPAs. In these cases, students who benefit from grade inflation and by taking less rigorous classes may actually end up better off $ wide with a merit award than someone in a non-grade inflation school and who challenges themselve with a more rigorous curriculum. Thats not fair in my book but alas I don’t make the rules</p>
<p>After reading this thread it is so important for colleges to weigh a variety of factors when chosing applicants. GPA is often lower on the list due to the variety of high school grading systems. Our HS does not have weighed honors classes and 93 is an A. So the rigor of the classes taken should always be the number one factor in my humble opinion.</p>
<p>A 4 point scale simply doesn’t include a 4.3 (Recognizing that a 4.0 is excellent even on a 4.3 scale). So, to the OP’s question, some 4.0’s are apples and others are oranges. Our hs includes a school profile with transcripts it sends to colleges; I assume others do as well, otherwise it would be impossible to compare apples to oranges. If schools don’t send profiles, and their grading policies are not known to the colleges, that might explain why some of the great students (particularly those with unmatching test scores) get turned down at seemingly match-type schools.</p>
<p>@MD Mom</p>
<p>I’ve never known a school to give a 4.0 for a 90, even without plus or minus grades. The cutoff for a 4.0 is usually a 95. So a 90 is actually a 3.5.</p>
<p>The colleges (via the school report) ask for an explanation of the grading scale including asking what the highest GPA was, what the grading system is, whether the reported GPA is weighted or unweighted (our high school gives both.)</p>
<p>Like many other NY schools we use a 100 point scale. The highest weighted GPA in older son’s class was 106 point something. I don’t think our high school has too much grade inflation. The 5% dividing line for younger son’s class is about 97 weighted GPA, 91 unweighted.</p>
<p>^^mathmom: can you imagine, then, a NYS school without class rank that uses that grading system if they do not record unweighted GPA’s? </p>
<p>lots and lots of kids with over 90 weighted averages…</p>
<p>applicannot–Our entire county school (Harford County Maryland) system does this. My daughter attended the local public for one year and finished with a 4.0 --no freshman classes are weighted. I can assure you that all of her A grades were not above a 93 percent. It looks as though you are a high school student, so I am guessing that your “never known a school” comment is based on very limited experiences. The public high school also does not provide a profile. When I asked about one, the guidance assistant told me that if a college is interested in a student, the college would look up the profile on the Web site. What a hoot.</p>
<p>If an A+ = 4.3 then the scale is based on a max of 4.3, not 4.0. Even with technology today, it is impossible to get an UW 4.1 if the max is 4.0. Still an amazing accomplishment, however.</p>
<p>@applicannot</p>
<p>My kids went to elementary school in a district in CA where 90-100=A and A=4.0. A 90 average for the marking period was absolutely a 4.0.</p>
<p>Woah, that’s extremely bizarre. Well, I only know about schools in the MD/PA/DE area, and then using common grading scales on the internet. That just seems so easy (I’m jealous). So what’s a B? 3.0? And then any C is a straight up 2.0? But what if a student gets an 87? Is that like a 3.0 too, or is it something like a 3.7? I don’t think it’s grade inflation, I think it’s grade scale inflation. Like at the end of the year at my old school, for finals, they’d change the grading scale so that 80-100 was an A, etc. until 35% was a D (passing).</p>
<p>^^ You are correct. Any A (89.5 to 100) is 4.0, any B (79.5 to 89.4) is 3.0, etc. It is a very old-fashioned way to grade, but no one has ever said that this county’s schools are progressive. However, it is probably more common than you think.</p>
<p>That’s right applicannot, an 87=3.0=80. That’s why my kid graduated from hs with a 3.8 (we moved out of state) and her old buddies in CA graduated with 4.2’s and such. C’est la vie!</p>
<p>Oh goodness! 89.5 even! Well, it does round up! 
(Such hairsplitting seems more new-fashioned to me…)</p>
<p>In PA, there is no standard grading system, every single district can do what they want, so for someone to say they are “familiar” with Pennsylvania schools would be a stretch. I’ve lived in three different districts and all have different grading systems. As you can see, we have more then a few school districts! [List</a> of school districts in Pennsylvania - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Pennsylvania]List”>List of school districts in Pennsylvania - Wikipedia) </p>
<p>No wonder colleges have to re-weigh the grades!</p>
<p>This has been a fascinating read. Thanks, everyone for sharing your various grading scales. I had no idea there was such a thing as 4.3 scale, and that 100 pt scales get interpreted in so many ways. This makes me even more skeptical about any consistency in GPA reporting by colleges.</p>
<p>Two of the colleges we visited told us that they use school-reported GPA compared to the highest GPA in the class (as reported on secondary school profile).</p>
<p>Our HS only reports weighted GPA on 100 pt. scale. (Honors = 1.1 and AP = 1.2)</p>
<p>I laughed when I saw the comment that some schools don’t even bother to un-weight the school-reported 100 pt. GPA’s because it is too much work. Perhaps this has worked in S2’s favor!</p>