<p>^ At UofM(ich), many GPA 4.0 students (21% total in the freshmen class this year) may find themselves to be just a B student in college. ;)</p>
<p>Some college even “weight” unweighted GPAs - probably for the purpose of reporting to make them look more selective. We saw this when my second son got a “merit” award letter from a smaller NE college with a GPA stated in the letter that was higher than his high school GPA was in actuality unweighted and reported on his transcript. Clearly they looked at the transcript and “added” points for his AP classes. We had a good chuckle about that letter. </p>
<p>@momofthreeboys If it is still at or below 4.0, they probably just remove subgrades, count core subjects and/or certain years (e.g. skip freshmen year). All these may change the GPA value. So it is not necessary a wGPA but a different way of recalculation. These are common practices. Nevertheless, they are schools that would recalculate GPA with weight too (e.g. UCs).</p>
<p>Our local HS grades on a 4.0 scale and does not weight classes at all. Someone with Bs in AP classes will rank in the bottom half of the graduating class.</p>
<p>@Magnetron what a foolish system… is your HS filled with kids who take mostly regular classes so their GPA looks good on transcripts?</p>
<p>Momto3: Don’t disagree when it comes to college apps at most schools. Since the schools recalculate GPAs on their own, it doesn’t really matter. However, that is not the only value of GPAs. As I said, they may be used for honor roll, valedictorian (our school doesn’t do this), or for local scholarships. In those cases, it is too difficult to “weigh” rigor when looking at two GPAs. It also is useful on Naviance since the rigor is built into the GPA. Otherwise, it would be much more difficult to evaluate the results. When the only kids getting into the top schools have a GPA over 4.0, you know those kids had almost all As AND took very difficult classes. </p>
<p>And I agree that comparing among schools with different scales is challenging. Recently I was talking to someone about her son’s chance for certain schools based on GPA and SATs. I didn’t realize that his GPA was based on a 5+ maximum grade level and was comparing to our school. In this case, the kid’s GPA was much more impressive if a 4.5 is the max possible grade. So, yes, weighting does present Apples to Apples issues. The bottom line is likely that whatever a school does, the kids and parents are used to it and can figure it all out pretty easily. </p>
<p>jarjar, you might want to get a copy of your high school’s profile which is an important piece of an application because it tells admissions what they need to know to put kids in context - with kids at their own high school and kids that attend other high schools. It’s a good idea to read that and understand what information admissions will get along with the transcript and national test scores.</p>
<p>So when colleges look at rank (do they really look at rank?), and the high school doesn’t weight GPA, has an IB program as well as being one lunch off title 1 status and ranks based on GPA, what do the colleges do to calculate? How can I get a copy of my kids HS profile? </p>
<p>You can ask your high school guidance office for a copy of the profile. Different colleges do different thing unfortunately - some recalculate everyone, some don’t recalculate. If you look at an individual college’s Common Data Set they divide up the things tha theyt consider in the application into: Very Important, Important, Considered and Not considered. That can give you an idea what might be important to that particular college. For example below for UofM. The information is on page 6 and you can see they don’t consider class rank, they consider GPA and rigor Most important and they have standardized test scores in the “consider” category. The reason a school profile can be helpful is not all schools have IB and some schools don’t subscribe to many of the branded AP programs. Some report a straight rank, some report a weighted rank, some report decides, some report nothing. As an example: the most rigorous class at the local high school is Anatomy & Physiology and it “says” that in the school profile. It tells the colleges which classes in the high school are “most rigorous” so a college can look at the transcript and understand if the student took a rigorous schedule. There is other information on school profiles that allow a college to understand an applicant “in the context of that kid’s high school.” </p>
<p><a href=“http://obp.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/pubdata/cds/cds_2013-2014_umaa.pdf”>http://obp.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/pubdata/cds/cds_2013-2014_umaa.pdf</a></p>
<p>Some colleges look at rank and they definitely like to report rank. Obviously if you attend an academic magnet, or an elite prep school most colleges will understand that you can be an excellent prospect without the tippy top rank. From our large comprensive high school, few students out of the top 5% were accepted to the colleges with single digit acceptance rates.</p>
<p>So do the universities look at the school profile, is this something the kid gets to put in his application? If I look at UT Austin rank and rigour are important with GPA not important yet rank is reliant on GPA at kid’s school irrespective of rigour LOL.
But thanks. I will email the GC. </p>
<p>Isn’t Texas the state that has the top 10% rule? If so, then yes Texas high schools would need to rank kids to determine who are in the top 10% and I would imagine “rank” would be a very important consideration for public universities if legally they are required to admit the top kids from each school. If UT Austin were to ignore or not consider “rank” they might be breaking a law or at a minimum be legally challenged.</p>
<p>Top 7% for UT Austin.</p>
<p>Sorry to sound dumb though, the top 7% rule, is that only in state? </p>
<p>
Yes.</p>
<p>If colleges recalculate GPA’s of applicants, do they also recalculate the GPA’s of all the other students at the applicants’ school so they can get a more accurate rank?</p>
<p>Yes, the top 7% auto-admission at UT Austin is only for in state. Other Texas public colleges still have the top 10% auto-admission for in state. There was a thread somewhere in this forum about these.</p>
<p>No, but if it’s something you are worried about and you are in the top 10% ask the GC to add it to his required notes or ask one of your recommenders to add that to their note especially if there isn’t a 3.8-4.0 GPA. On my kids profile all that was stated was the percentage of kids that were in each quartile (less than 200 grads). If you aren’t in the top 10% then it really probably doesn’t matter all that much - check how important it is to the college in the common data set. As I mentioned earlier. Also if high schools do rank, the formula for calculating that ranking should be in the profile unless it’s a straight unweighted rank, in which case it will be meaningless to admissions anyway. UofM doesn’t even consider rank and it’s a pretty darn selective college. </p>