But I’ve heard (from here and people) a lot of mixed information on how GPA is looked at by admissions officers. Some people say your weighted GPA is more important than your unweighted because it indicates rigor. But some say that it’s the other way around because every school calculates weighted GPA differently so weighted GPA’s loose meaning. And others say that GPA, in general, isn’t as important as people make it out to be because, regardless, schools will look at your entire transcript and put it in the context of your school’s curriculum and your peers. Is one of these more accurate? Does it depend?
People also say that GPA can be used to estimate class rank, even if your school doesn’t offer it. This is all made more complicated by the fact that my school doesn’t calculate a GPA or class rank. But apparently, schools will be able to see your transcript and will crunch the numbers themselves.
Basically, I want to know how GPA and rank are used for admissions (in general but also for tippy top schools).
I’m almost certain a thread like this exists and if so, someone please send me the link.
The short answer is that it depends on the individual college.
The longer answer is that weighted GPA is nearly meaningless when students are asking for chances or how to sort their college lists between reaches/matches/safeties. The reason is that there is so much variability amongst HSs. Some schools are on a 4.0 scale, some a 5.0. Others have huge weighting differences between normal and AP courses. Some HS count a 93 as B+, others an A. etc…
Colleges will look at your transcript along with your school report which will describe in detail how your school grades. Most HS that don’t rank will at least provide deciles so a school will know you are in the 10%, 20%, etc… GC are also asked to describe individual students’ course rigor. Plus colleges will see your list of courses on both the common app and on your transcript.
Generally speaking GPA, course rigor, and standardized test scores are what colleges give the most weight to when reviewing an application. You can find that information on the Common Data Sets for schools on your list.
There is no one answer to your question. Different colleges look at GPA differently. Some use unweighted, some use weighted and some recalculate GPA based on their own criteria (ex. academic subjects only). Also keep in mind that admissions officers have to juggle different types of GPAs including ones that come weighted all different ways unweighted, international GPAs calculated on different scales, written evaluations etc.
In the end the two most important things on the transcript are the course rigor and grades.
Keep in mind that along with the transcript will come a HS profile which details things like the levels of courses offered, the grading scale etc. so your transcript can be reviewed in the proper context.
FWIW my D was in a program where she had no GPA and the school had no ranking – it was not an issue in terms of college admissions.
Bottom line, they’ll look at your transcript and see how rigorous your course load was, and how well you handled it. Challenging Classes + Good Grades = Academically Qualified. After that, other factors come into play.