<p>One of D's semester grades will be an 89. For her GPA, it will be calculated as a 3 (B). If it were 1 point higher, it would calculate as a 4. This made me curious about how in depth college admissions looks into what makes up a student's GPA. Obviously there isn't big difference between an 89 and 90 (or a 79 and an 80, etc) but it can look very different when the GPA is calculated. </p>
<p>Does admissions look at percentage grades in each HS class so that one point isn't such a big deal, or do they look primarily at the overall GPA?</p>
<p>I understand that getting a couple B's isn't going to be a deal breaker at most colleges, but I am curious about how (or if) the individual grades are viewed. Is a student with a lot of 90,91,92 grades viewed the same as a student with a lot of 97,98, and 99s since they are all A's?</p>
<p>It depends on the school. Colleges have a wide variety of different systems for how GPA is used and/or re-calculated. For example, some discard freshman year, some discard non-core classes, some ignore +/-, some use weighting for more rigorous courses, some don’t use GPA at all and instead use measures like class rank, MIT once had a system where they compared GPA to the highest GPA in your class, etc. Many colleges that take a holistic approach consider the full transcript including what classes had the lower grades, the academic rigor of the classes, and how the HS grades.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t get hung up on this level of detail in the grades and how they are used. There are far more important areas of the application to focus on than how a grade is converted on a 4.0 scale.</p>
<p>GPA calculation depends on the school like Data10 said. Since schools look at upward trending in grades, academic GPA, etc. I assume that they would look at grades at least once, and not just GPA. Like you said, though unless half her grades are 89 which brings her GPA down a lot if the school calculates only on a one point basis, one grade won’t matter.</p>
<p>I would guess that colleges would notice if a student had all 90, 91, etc. (this only matters if their GPA is based off of one point, and not +/- or some other basis) vs having all 100s. But overall, having a lot of 91s vs having a lot of 99s isn’t that big a difference either, depending on the school’s grade inflation and such.</p>
<p>Since grading policies vary widely from school to school GPA is not always a good metric for comparison purposes. How does your daughter’s school rank – based on numeric grades or the translated letter grades? Ultimately “rigor of courses + class rank” is the key equation. For very selective colleges both have to be exceptional.</p>
<p>The long and the short of it is, college admissions officers look at whatever they get from applicants’ high schools. In most cases, that means they look at transcripts and school profiles.</p>
<p>You can know what your daughter’s official transcript and school profile are going to look like, and what information they will convey to colleges. Just ask your daughter’s guidance counselor.</p>
<p>Indeed, my kids’ high school transcripts list only final course grades (no semester grades, no mid-term or final exam grades), without pluses or minuses.</p>