Like the title says, how do colleges calculate your GPA? I am currently a freshman that is going to end the year with a 90%. I know that when submitting you college application that you need to hand in your student transcript. However, do they just look at Sophomore and Junior grades? Or just take an average of all 4 years? So my main question is, when someone says “I graduated with a 4.0 GPA”, what does that mean??
It depends.
Some recalculate GPA; some take the GPA that is listed on the transcript. Some count freshman year; some don’t. Some back out music/art/gym; some don’t.
File it under “It is what it is” since few colleges will explicitly tell you the policies.
On an unweighted GPA, it means no grade lower than an A. Each HS will determine that numerical cutoff. For some, it’s a 90; for others it’s a 93.
It means that you need to know the details before assuming what it means.
4.0 unweighted GPA means that all grades are A grades.
But many people say “4.0 GPA” not specifying whether it is weighted. And weighting methods vary, so that a 4.0 weighted GPA may be from a 3.0 or lower unweighted GPA if the weighting system is an exaggerated one.
Unfortunately, there is no single answer because there are many different approaches, depending on the school. The safest GPA to use for your own self-evaluation in handicapping your admissions chances, etc., is to use your unweighted GPA, but go ahead use + - points, i.e., A or A+=4, A-=3.67, B+=3.33, B=3, etc., with no extra points for honors or AP. Who knows whether the schools you apply to will recalculate your grades in this manner, but when reading threads on this forum, etc., it is a shorthand way to compare apples to apples.
Some schools, including many “less prestigious” state schools, will often just take your weighted GPA, however your school calculates it, and use that number. There is a lot of apples to oranges comparisons that go on in admissions as a result, but they presumably see enough applicants that they know how to account for this. Some schools recalculate your unweighted GPA in the manner I set forth above or something similar. Some schools use weighted or unweighted, but only count “core” courses and drop subjects like choir, band, JROTC, whatever, from the calculation of your GPA. It really does depend on the college, unfortunately.
Yes, a high school that uses an exaggerated weighted GPA can help its students get college scholarship money from the University of Alabama, which apparently takes weighted GPA from the high school transcript at face value, according to https://scholarships.ua.edu/faq/
If your hs uses a 100 point scale, adcoms at the more competitive holistic colleges will read the School Report to see what your school considers A range, B range, etc. Then they look at the transcript, your courses, not just the average (which is what gpa is.)
Yes, some colleges that don’t look at freshman year.
Check your school profile, it may provide a conversion chart. At my kids’ school (which gives number grades like your school), the chart is as follows:
A+ / 97-100 / 4.0
A / 93-96 / 3.7
A- / 90-92 / 3.5
B+ / 87-89 / 3.3
B / 83-86 / 3.0
B- / 80-82 / 2.7
C+ / 77-79 / 2.5
C / 73-76 / 2.0
C- / 70-72 / 1.7
D+ / 67-69 / 1.5
D / 65-66 / 1.0
Failure
It can vary from school to school, but this should give you a rough idea.
@TheBigChef Wow, they only give kids a 3.7 for a regular “A”? That is harsh. No grade inflation going on there. I guess it solves the problem that comes up periodically of what to do with an “A+” on the 4.0 scale, though.
At my daughter’s school a 92 is a B+. Grading scales vary widely. That’s why counselors send in the grading scale with transcripts.
Its not that hard to see a 92 is a B+ or an 88 is an A, and review the transcript accordingly.
OP’s noted Wharton and business schools at Northwestern, NYU, Chicago, and Berkeley. They’re going to know his scale. With numerical scores, it’s hard not to view them in their range. If 90-100 is defined as excellent, a 90 would be low in that range. Better for those schools would be a higher number grades.
And for those, OP should be learning what years they look at and what else matters, what they say. Not just asking us.
Thank you all for your responses! They were very insightful and I appreciate the time you spent to look at my thread.