<p>My high school calculates honor roll using unweighted semester GPA but calculates class rank using cumulative weighted GPA. I was just curious because I see a lot of people with really high GPA that have the same rank as me and mine is fairly low... do a lot of schools use unweighted GPA? What do the more competitive schools use?</p>
<p>On my daughter’s transcript, her school lists it two ways:
Unweighted class rank and Weighted class rank.
She is 1st in her class unweighted and 15th weighted.</p>
<p>It depends. Many academic private high schools do not use “weighted” GPAs, and they do not rank.</p>
<p>Grades vary widely across high schools. What is an A in one school can be a B in another, so grade comparisons across schools is not necessarily meaningful.</p>
<p>The most competitive colleges compare applicants relative to the program at their high school school. They’re looking to see whether the applicant chose the more rigorous courses that are offered.</p>
<p>Class rank here is constructed through the cumulative weighted GPA, though only core classes are considered in this GPA. My transcript also has my unweighted cumulative GPA, but this GPA has all of my courses averaged into it.</p>