<p>D’s HS barely weights AP/honors grades, so GPAs with most rigorous schedules ARE lower here (trust me) than for kids who “grade shopped” when picking course schedules. Despite this, D was WL or accepted at some Ivies she applied to…some of them recalculate grades using their own weighting formula, to even the playing field between schools with different formulas. She had best luck with these. Maybe not surprisingly, some took kids from her HS who had done less challenging schedules but filled other slots (URM or athlete). State schools are the worst—they don’t look beyond rank, no matter how GPAs are calculated.</p>