Actually, it is very, very easy to perform recalculation if you have all data in the database already. It doesn’t matter if you have 10K or 100K students. As long as college could download grades from Common Application or any other similar service, it can recalculate GPA, easily.
Yes, the UCs. And some state U’s. Not “most colleges” and not the tippy tops. And in-state, eg, UC, the high schools know the requirements and follow the standard reporting. That’s them.
As has been seen in the responses in this thread, there isn’t a universal GPA calculation formula. Different HSs have different policies. The HS I attended graded class on 0-100% scale. When converting to a 4.0 scale, grades of 90-100 were treated as 4.0, grades 80-89 were treated as 3.0, etc. The college I attended (Stanford) used a A+ = 4.3, A = 4.0, A- = 3.7 type scale; so a GPA of more than 4.0 is possible. It’s my understand that GPAs above 4.0 are not possible at most other “elite” colleges; so like HSs, again there is not a universal formula at colleges.
The annual NACAC annual survey of ~500 4-yr college admission departments usually finds ~half say that they recalculate. For example the summary report at http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/articles/Pages/Factors-in-the-Admission-Decision.aspx states, “To account for different grading scales among high schools, more than half of colleges recalculate applicants’ GPAs to standardize them.”
Among the colleges that we discuss here, we do often know details of GPA recalculation methods. For example, Stanford calculates what they call SU6, which is the unweighted final 6 semester GPA among core classes, without +/-. Admissions reviewers also see the GPA published by the HS on the same summary sheet, and of course review and consider the full transcript.
Prior to 2009, UF used a simpler scale:
A: 4.0
B+: 3.5
B: 3.0
C+: 2.5
C: 2.0
D+ 1.5
D: 1.0
Our HS (and local school district) uses a 4.0 scale, can use “+” and “-”, but doesn’t’ give out A+. They also give an additional +1.0 for AP, IB, AICE, Duel Enrollment and Honor classes. While our local district has a fairly standard scheme, other counties in Florida have some crazy HS grading schemes…
“when will HS move to 5-scale to inflate the chances of their students? Higher scale = higher GPA.”
Sigh. Some hs DO grade on a ten pt scale and the percentages are still simple math. 8/10 doesn’t look one whit better than 3.9/4.0. How could it? Haha. That’s why the Common App asks the scale, not just the number. Most of us can see 10/10 is the same as 4.0/4.0, no?
Data10, it’s not enough to distinguish small colleges vs large. Most uber large colleges are publics.
So, @californiaaa - what is your real question? Is it how does a college calculate HS GPA for admissions? Is it just a curiosity question about how different HS (or colleges) calculate GPA? Or is there something else you are looking for?
As you can see there are many different answers to your question.
The “SU6” comment is based on Stanford students viewing there admissions file via FERPA requests. For example, the student at https://cathincollege.com/2015/04/08/i-saw-what-stanford-admissions-officers-said-about-me/ wrote down all the summary stats on a paper when she was viewing her admission file, including the “SU6”, 6 semester GPA. Stanford using a 6 semester recalculated GPA isn’t exactly a surprise. Publications have mentioned Stanford’s 6 semester recalculated GPA for more than 20 years, such as the 1993 news story at http://web.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/93/931020Arc3096.html , stating,
I’m not sure if this post was intended for me, as I didn’t say anything about small vs large colleges?
I believe the NACAC report on the college admissions survey results stated, “High yield institutions are more likely than low yield institutions to recalculate GPA,” rather than larger vs small.
At our school A+ is 97-100, A is 94-96, A- is 90-93. Grades are reported to the college in numbers not with the 4.0 scale. The weighting is weird too. AP and honors are time 1.1, regular is times 1.05, and slow courses for the mentally challenged are unweighted. However the only place you ever see the weightings used is for the overall GPA as calculated for class rank. Class grades on the transcript are only reported unweighted. Our kids still get into Harvard.
Northeastern, who has one of the highest number of application of any private college, says they recalculate using their own scale and including the classes they choose to include (I believe they exclude electives and gym.) SO yes, colleges have the time/energy to do this (they probably have it well automated).
My daughter’s high school had a crazy weighted GPA based on 5.3 scale (so a 95-100 in an AP class was given 5.3 points).
It is very easy to prove. Use this formula and plug in the best possible grades. You will get a hypothetical best-possible GPA. Now, compare this “best possible GPA” with the GPA of admits for Berkeley. You will notice that the admits have higher GPA than it is possible under the posted formula.
I believe it is 10th grade and beyond at typical HSs, similar to the UC recalculation system. Prior to the redesign, the admissions section of Stanford’s website stated the following:
After the redesign, they reworded the section saying that, “we will focus our evaluation on your coursework and performance in 10th, 11th and 12th grades”, making it more clear that the full transcript is relevant, including 9th grade, even if the focus is on 10th grade and beyond.
