I don’t think this claim can be made. Some do, but I think most don’t. But I also think that if they do not recalculate, they focus on UW GPA (while eyeballing rigor, and looking at how the GC rated the schedule) since there is no common rubric for weighting. But, that’s just my opinion, as I have not researched every single US college/university.
Some things you just need to file under “It is what it is.”
We have four categories: unweighted cumulative, weighted cumulative (most important at our school), unweighted 10-12, and weighted 10-12.
My school has no weighted scale. A regular class is worth just as much as any AP or honors class. It really sucks because students who have 4 gym classes can have a 4.0 gpa and be compared to students who take multiple AP classes and have the same gpa. Also, the senior class president, valedictorian, and salutatorian all speak at graduation.
@Cof22mom My GPA is 4.0 for regular, 4.5 for honors, and 5.0 for AP’s
My daughter’s school weighed honors and AP classes the same. She was initially frustrated by having folks with no AP classes in the top 10%, but her school doesn’t report ranking other than the #1 and 2. IMO, the point of taking rigorous coursework is to be more prepared for college. If a bright student wants to cheat themselves out of taking more challenging courses to get a higher GPA, that’s on them.
As far as OP’s originally question, our school sent weighted GPA letter grades for all classes, along with a detailed grading scale. A 92.4 at DD’s school was a B+.
Having read this thread, I hope you all see why top holistic colleges look at the transcript, not just gpa. They aren’t just going on gpa to make decisions; it’s not something many colleges need to recalculate, to see the diff between one 3.9 and another 3.87. The more competitive, the more that ocean of A’s matters. That’s regardless of whether your hs adds .1 or .25 or any number to an AP or honors.
For colleges that recalculate GPA, do some of them add more weight to A+ vs an A? I have seen many folks mention on several threads that GPA often gets recalculated but never saw this answer.
NC has tried to unify the public high schools. Everyone is on a 4.0 system, with a .5 bump for Honors and a 1.0 increase for AP and DE courses.
Doubtful. Most high schools do not have A+, so it stands to reason that a college will not give preference to an applicant simply because of the school’s grading rubric.
My school does weighted gpa. All classes are taken at face value outside of AP classes. 10 points are added on the end of the semester, but transcripts tell admissions people that they are added in.
It’s sort of a game at our HS.
every year the val at our HS is involved with the school’s music programs, because those program offer honors classes starting freshman year, and those count for more with the weighted GPA. Also, each year the val has come from a certain middle school which offers foreign language starting 7th grade year, allowing for an honors class in FL freshman year.
I keep telling my own kid to get As in tough classes, and take a few electives that are interesting. He’s done that; will take 5 APs and a stagecraft next year; which isnt honors, and will bump him down the ranking scale. We get tired a bit of the game; but for my musical kid a few years ago, it was good!
Our school reports weighted gpa and numerical grades. Some classes like gym/health don’t count towards gpa but numerical grade is still listed on the transcript.
Rank is given three times- once in October of senior year to use for colleges and once again after 1st semester senior year to help with scholarships, and at the end of the year to pick the val/sal/top 10. The val/sal/class president/ and an orator speak at graduation.
We have a weighted chart up to a 5.3 for AP/Dual Enrollment
Example
Standard Level, College Prep Honors Advanced Placement
A+ 98-100 3.8 4.3 4.8 5.3
A 93-97 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0
A- 90-92 3.2 3.
There are definitely people picking classes based on weighted gpa vs interests. . My current 8th grader picked a 1 semester college prep intro to engineering class as a 9th grade class which doesn’t have an honors option. I will admit my first thought was no don’t take it, take an honors class. However I didn’t tell my daughter that and I know engineering interests her.
Our high school doesn’t report rank beyond ‘top 9%’ (for UC admissions) and ‘top 10%’ for everything else. ‘Valedictorian’ is everyone who has unweighted 4.0, which is usually around 7 or 8 kids, so no games with dropping music classes to eek out an edge numerically. Class commencement speaker is a separate thing that you try out for.
We have almost no honors courses… I think the only exception is 4th year language counts as honors even if you decide not to take the AP test. Otherwise there’s a 1 point boost for actual AP classes (not pre-AP) for the GPA.
Our high school reports UW GPA on a 4.0 scale. UW GPA is based off of quality points for each semester grade.
Ex: 4 - A
3 - B
2 - C
1 - D
0 - F
Weighted GPA is based upon honors and AP/ Dual enrollment credit which is added to the UW GPA. 0.04 for each semester of honors, 0.08 for each semester of AP/DE. So for example if I had only taken 1 AP Course and I got an A in it, my GPA would be 4.08
My school is really confusing. Only weighted GPA is reported, gym counts along with all other electives, and weighted is used for val/salutatorian.
AP Class: A+ = 4.5 A = 4.4 A- + 4.2
Honors: A+ = 4.3 A = 4.2 A- = 4.0
Academic: A + = 4.2 A= 4.0 A- = 3.67
Classes that don’t have an AP or Honors counterpart are still weighted using this scale.
Our school reports both unweighted and weighted on the transcript. Weighted is just adding a point to what would have been received (i.e. 4 is 5, 2 is 3, etc.) Weighted is only given for AP or Dual Enrollment, not honors (which annoys me because some of our dual enrollment isn’t that hard, Spanish 3 and 4 are dual, but honors English really is). All electives (including study hall/free period) count. We count study hall and free period because of controversy in 2010. A student was upset as his schedule of 5 weighted, 1 unweighted, and a study hall was given a higher GPA then 5 weighted and 2 unweighted classes. All class ranks (weighted) are reported, no sort of honors other than Valedictorian/Saludictorian (1st/2nd in class, no ties for valedictorian are allowed ECs are used to tiebreak) are awarded. Our school can only do this because of its small, rural size.