<p>So, I see a lot of people here have unweighted and weighted GPAs that are really drastically different, like they'll have a 3.6 unweighted and a 4.3 weighted or something along those lines...</p>
<p>My unweighted GPA is a 3.65 and my weighted is a 3.7... is that bad? I don't even entirely understand how one gets two completely different GPAs because of weighting... can someone explain it to me? I'm confused and a bit worried that I'm at a disadvantage for colleges.</p>
<p>AP classes and sometimes honors classes are graded on a 5.0 scale, and sometimes A+ is 4.3 and A- is 3.7, which can account for different GPAs. Most people with high weighted GPA’s have taken many AP classes.</p>
<p>You aren’t disadvantaged for the vast majority of colleges, just maybe for the very selective ones (in which case other things you’ve done or a high rank/ competitiveness of your HS could make up for it).</p>
<p>I mean, despite my relatively “low” GPA which apparently pales in comparison to my CC colleagues - I’m in the top 4% of my graduating class. Only one person has higher than a 4.0, and it’s only by a very small amount (like 4.01 or something). But my school isn’t competitive… I’m really confused. Really brilliant kids in my class only have around a 3.75 weighted and have taken an upwards of 8 to 9 AP courses thus so far. </p>
<p>We weight APs out of 4.5 as well.</p>
<p>If you take Honors/ AP classes they are weighted.</p>
<p>The bigger the difference. The more the number of weighted classes that one has taken, supposedly showing a willing to take a hard curriculum</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter what your weighted GPA is (every school weights differently), and colleges will most likely recalculate an unweighted (or weighted on their own standards) GPA based on your actual grades. If your school has class rank, colleges will also take that into account.</p>
<p>Actually, in many cases, having a bigger difference just shows that your school adds more for AP/honour courses 
While your school weights APs out of 4.5, some weight them out of 6 (I think we had a thread about this somewhere).</p>
<p>So yeah, as halcyonheather said, colleges take your transcript, and recalculate your GPA using their own standards. So as long as your low GPA isn’t due to a lack of AP/honour classes (which it doesn’t sound like it is), you’re not at a disadvantage.</p>