How do different high school programs weight grades

Parents Forum
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<p>I noticed another difference that makes it harder to compare high school programs (other than credits discussed in my other thread). I've seen kids posting weighted GPA's on this site that are way over what's theoretically possible at our school (seems to be out of 5.0?). Do high schools provide the maximum possible weighted GPA in their information sent to colleges? I think our system is probably what many schools use (+1 for honors or AP classes) but the lack of honors classes in several subjects and state/school requirements for some other classes mean that the scale really isn't out of 5 even for kids who take every possible honors and AP/dual class. </p>

<p>The problem is--this number isn't really obvious and it depends on the student's area of interest. It's about 4.8 if your interests lie in the officially annointed areas of math, science, social studies, writing 5 paragraph essays about literature that other people wrote, or anything AP. It's around 4.7-4.5, if you're unlucky enough to be interested in the officially-designated slacker subjects like languages, writing literature that future students could write 5 paragraph essays about, music, art...). In fact the slacker subjects are so despised by our school system's weighting plan that they are considered much less rigorous than the challenging subject of study hall, which doesn't bring anyone's GPA down. </p>

<p>There's some local discussion about the shortcomings of the weighting system and a movement to change it, and I'm wondering how it's done in other schools. I hadn't realized before looking at this site that there would be such large discrepancies between schools as well.</p>

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<p>Most colleges look at the unweighted grades/GPA, partly for this reason. Also, they try to look at what was available to YOUR kid in their school (no APs in certain subjects? That is fine, they then would not expect your kid to have as many APs as a school that offers a lot more). Weighting seems most important when determining class rank. Our kids’ high school does not weight and does not rank, and we have a decent number of acceptances to top schools. I am glad we don’t have to deal with it.</p>

<p>So… the bottom line is don’t worry about comparing your kid’s weighted GPA to other weighted GPAs here on CC. No profit in it, and it just makes you nervous. :)</p>

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<p>Our HS does not weight at all despite the fact that there is a HUGE disparity in the different levels of the classes. However the level of each class a student takes is noted on the transcript. </p>

<p>Each HS sends a profile along with the transcript explaining how things are done at the school so the college is aware of the grading system, how GPAs are calculated etc.</p>

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<p>I’m not concerned about my daughter’s standing at her school, only that she be evaluated in context. But if the school doesn’t provide that data to the colleges, I wouldn’t expect a busy admissions officer to work it out. I know they will explain how the GPA is calculated, but that doesn’t mean that the weighted GPA scales are really the same between high schools. Or even within high schools for students with different academic interests.</p>

<p>Actually the local discussion about weighting grew out of a discussion about class rank. Some parents have asked the school to stop reporting class rank to colleges this year. </p>

<p>Our school actually does everything they can to minimize grade anxiety–the grades are highly inflated to begin with, and we have all of the following occurring in at least one AP or upperclass honors class: We have kids writing exam answers in groups, we have exam regrades where kids turn in exams they corrected for a new grade, we have exam regrades where kids with the best grades are required to give their answers to other kids who then copy it down into a group exam that is turned in for a regrade, we have exams turned into open book group exams on the spot if some kids say they “didn’t know” there was an exam and kids pressuring other kids to lie about this so they can get an easy exam, and we have teachers who curve class grades well over 100%, and then give A’s to students with 90-105+%. It’s not hard for a B student to turn into an A student with things like this going on.</p>

<p>Also in the interest of avoiding competition, class rank is a closely guarded secret. The colleges will be told, but my daughter will be submitting applications before being informed. Students making up their college lists are doing so without knowing whether the will get the endorsement of top 10% from the school. I don’t even have any idea where the cutoff for top 10% might lie although from the rampant grade inflation, i think it has to be awfully high and more dependent on the weighting scheme than the actual grades.</p>

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<p>The highest possible weighted GPA at our high school is probably 109ish unless you find a way to squeeze in extra AP or honors classes early. No one has a GPA that high because most students take extra arts which gives you a designation on your diploma, but will slightly lower your GPA since those courses aren’t weighted. (With the exception of AP Art and Music Theory.) The funniest thing is that if you take all regular paced college prep course your weighted GPA is 105, only the extra slow courses aren’t weighted. The highest GPA in the school the year my oldest graduated was 106.something. I never bothered to figure out what it all translated into in a 4.0 scale. Luckily colleges do look at grades in context and rank (if your school ranks), GC and teacher comments will usually give colleges a pretty good idea if you have done well with a challenging schedule.</p>

<p>Not knowing your rank before looking at colleges is really dumb. Our school doesn’t announce ranks until the first marking period of senior year, but when I asked the GC about my younger son’s grades she assured me (to my surprise) he’d be in the top 10%. In fact he turned out to be one place away from top 5%. Naviance had already helped a lot with the list, but knowing a probable rank was a big clue that our kid wasn’t overreaching with some of his applications.</p>

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<p>For some colleges, computer will do all the calculation. In this case, take UC for example. There is weighted and non-weighted GPA to be consider as one of the admission factors. For all UC approve course, you got 5 points for A, and etc. We don’t care a high school with a grading system with A+, A, or A-. To us, an A is an A. For Cal and UCLA, ranking is not consider either. So, no need to worry. Have your kids, enjoy high school.</p>

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<p>Is top 10% rank particularly important for colleges she is applying to (i.e. you live in Texas and she is applying to Texas public universities)? For students in Texas, not revealing class rank (or at least top 7%/10%/25% and any other relevant thresholds) means that students have to apply without knowing whether a Texas public university is a safety or a reach.</p>

<p>But, yes, weighted GPAs calculated by high schools are worthless outside of the high school.</p>

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<p>Grading policy and how class rank is computed should be explained in the high school profile, a document that schools send out to colleges along with the counselor recommendation and transcript. They also include a list of what coursework is available. Some schools will even include a histogram of grading for courses, especially for tough ones. All of that will allow the admissions folks to see your kid’s grades and standing in the context of their school. </p>

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<p>Yup. Highly competitive/rigorous high schools will often not report class rank to colleges, saying that it disadvantages their students for admission because their students would do really well at other schools where the entire student body wasn’t high caliber. </p>

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<p>Not entirely. My info on this is a few years old, but I remember that U of Oregon said they would use whatever GPA was reported on the transcript, weighted or not, to make admissions decisions. I’m sure they’re not the only ones.</p>

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<p>My highschool operated the same way Happy1 described. No weighting but if it was an AP class or Honors class (we called them “Accelerated” for Math/Science and “Intensive” for English) it was usually noted on the transcript. However there was something weird with the History department where there were 3 different levels but they just had different names, there was no distinction that indicated which was above the other. I figure the two main state flagships where most people apply knew what was what in terms of those though. So the maximum possible GPA was 4.0 still. </p>

<p>They also did not rank students, so there was no real reason to worry about weighting.</p>

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<p>That seems to be a formula for encouraging grade-weighting inflation (e.g. giving +2 or +3 for honors/AP/whatever courses instead of +1) by high schools who want to make their college admission numbers look good.</p>

<p>The California publics recalculate GPAs using their own methods from self-reported courses and grades (transcripts are not needed until the final one after high school graduation if the student matriculates). I would not be surprised if there are other public universities that did the same thing.</p>

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<p>Our high school gave an extra .5 for honors classes, and an extra 1.0 for AP classes.</p>

<p>Our high school profile showed the distribution of grades and the number of students in each level of classes.</p>

<p>However, it’s really irrelevant to most colleges. For example, the admissions director at one school explained that the admissions office recalculated each applicant’s GPA on a 4.0 scale considering academic classes only, and then gave a separate score for rigor of curriculum (which in appropriate cases reflected the academic offerings of the high school). She indicated that this was commonly done by selective colleges.</p>

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<p>But I think top colleges (not state Us like Oregon) DO recalculate. Also… I think GPA is NOT the deciding factor in admissions. Once you get above a 3.7 unweighted, the other factors become much more important in admissions. My kid had a 3.7 UW last year, and got into U Chicago, Swarthmore, Harvey Mudd, Carleton, and other schools (everyplace she applied) with no apparent hook. People spend waayyy too much time worrying about GPA out here, IMHO. Partly because it is so hard to compare across schools due to grade inflation and weighting differences.</p>

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<p>Top 10% is not an issue for my daughter, since she is mostly STEMy. </p>

<p>My younger child leans artsy and I just worked out her potential weighted GPA, assuming perfect grades and 9 AP classes, is less than 4.5. Maybe these ceilings are obvious to the admissions people who see transcripts all day long, but I know the weighting rules and I had to work them out. </p>

<p>When the time comes, I guess I can contact the counselor and try to find out her standing. At our school, families meet with the counselor once a year for about 15 minutes to monitor progress and schedule classes for the following year. In the senior year the counselor sends a brief questionnaire to the family, then writes their letter and send it where our kids tell them they are applying. We haven’t seen our counselor since last March or so, although my daughter is more in touch since she’s needed letters and transcripts for other things. I don’t know what Naviance is.</p>

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<p>Stop worrying about the weighting… There are a LOT of things to worry about in the college application process, this isn’t one of them.</p>

<p>Naviance is a computer application many high schools use to manage the college admissions process. There are a lot of different functions in it – for example, it can be used for teachers to put in recommendations and then they are loaded to the Common App for your kid. The function most people are talking about when they mention it on CC is that they have a graph of grades vs test scores for each college, and it shows admissions results for your high school on the graph. Your own kid shows up as a specific colored dot, and then you can see other dots that show whether students were admitted or not (with some extra info like if they were waitlisted, etc). You can compare your kid’s GPA/test score combos to the past acceptances from your school. But it relies on the school getting the data collected and entered from past admissions cycles. Some schools have Naviance, but don’t use the graph function. Or only the GC can see it if they do have it. At our school we didn’t get access until end of junior year, I think they wanted to keep people from obsessing over it too early.</p>

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<p>Our school weights only as a ranking formulation. Weighted grades are never seen on report cards, transcripts or in any way reported to colleges.</p>

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<p>The Common App School Report Form required to be submitted by counselors for each applicant asks for considerable detail to put the applicant’s GPA in context (and many counselors provide a pre-printed form including all or most of this info):
Class Rank
Class Size
Period over which Rank is Calculated
Cumulative GPA
Grading Scale
Period over which GPA is Calculated
Whether GPA is Weighted or Unweighted
School’s Passing Mark
Highest Actual GPA in the Class
Whether Applicant’s Load when Compared to other College Bound Students at the HS is Most Demanding, Very Demanding, etc.</p>

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<p>Don’t worry–I am far more concerned about making sure my daughter doesn’t overlook applying to a college she might want to attend, and about whether she will write good essays and finish them on time. </p>

<p>As I said, the ranking and weighting system is right now undergoing scrutiny and review here. Parents are complaining that kids who miss the top 10% are being excluded from colleges. Other parents say not reporting the decile will disadvantage students because colleges like to report that they have so many students there. Parents of the artsy kids are unhappy that their kids have little (or perhaps no) chance to be in the top 10%. And a lot of parents are unhappy that the system penalizes kids for choosing an elective over a study hall. I was hoping maybe other schools had figured out a better system. I doubt anything will change here unless a better plan is proposed.</p>

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<p>Our school weighs AP with a +1 and doesn’t weigh honors at all. The local school doesn’t weigh anything (and doesn’t even calculate a -/+ so a B- is a 3.0 and so is a B+). Friends school gives +1 for honors and +2 for APs!!! Clearly there is no standardization here. </p>

<p>In talking with some college admission reps (not from huge state schools) it sounds like they recalculate GPAs, then look at course rigor and also the academic strength of the HS itself. I was told that these 3 factors go into the evaluation of a kids GPA. I sure hope it’s true since a 5.X GPA isn’t possible at many schools.</p>

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<p>We have the simple A/B/C/D scale with no weighting. Kids who want to take hard courses do it just for the sake of interest, or because they know ad coms look at rigor, or both.</p>

<p>But we aren’t in NJ, where the state school offers a full scholarship if you have 4.0 UW and can pull a high test score to go with it. Some other states have schools with similar scholarships. Even if that school is not a student’s first choice, to keep it as a financial safety complicates HS class choices.</p>

<p>Last night I took a look at UAlabama website after Mom2collegekids’ posts finally piqued my interest. In FAQ someone asks what GPA they use for determining eligibility for their generous scholarships and they say if the higher weighted GPA is noted on the transcript, they will use it.</p>

<p>This year when NMSC denied kids NMF status for a single ‘C’, apparently for the first time in recent years at least, parents counting on the scholarships to fund kids’ college were anguished that putting their kids in high track classes for weighting and/or rigor on college apps backfired as it seemingly led to them losing eligibility for the big NMF scholarships. Though one might argue that not taking high track classes might have led to them not getting the high NMSF score on test in the first place, but that’s an unknowable.</p>

<p>Many kids can’t simply take interesting classes that they are drawn to, but have to consider so many factors- husbanding their unweighted or weighted GPA, or both, to keep eligibility for scholarships, or status as automatically admitted, or trying for val/sal (some schools give scholarships for that), considering what ad coms will think of their course schedule, and on and on.</p>

<p>If you only apply to places where everything is holistic then it’s N/A, but generally there are lots of aspects to consider that sometimes conflict. It hasn’t affected anything my kids do as I was blissfully ignorant of most of this stuff before I found CC. But it’s not true to say it doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter, and it’s too bad, but for some people it matters a lot.</p>

<p>Our school profile that is sent to colleges is very detailed. The available top classes and who is eligible to take them change often, with honors giving way to nothing and then embedded honors and finally AP as one history class example. The profile lists for each of the four years what courses were available to students, in addition to stuff about relative rigor.</p>

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<p>I’m glad to hear that some colleges are bypassing this and calculating things on their own.</p>