<p>Weighted GPA gives a better understanding of course rigor and class rank is also based on the weighted GPA. Does that mean that colleges give weight to weighted gpa and rank more than uw gpa alone? Some students in my school have 3.5ish GPA with over 4.4 weighted since almost all of their courses are APs and honors. As a result, they are in the top 5%, even though their uw GPA is low (by CC standards :)) How do colleges look at such students? I read alot of CCers claim that 3.6 is "too low," but how can they be so sure if they have no idea of the context of an applicant's school and course rigor? </p>
<p>Well, it may indicate that you are taking way too much classes that are above your level. Or it may only help you because you took all those classes. It depends. I mean, as long as you are not aiming for HYPSM, you should be fine.</p>
<p>really? our naviance site is all based on weighted gpas and we have people with like 4.1w (which is most likely ~3.6uw, with the +5 for honors, probably even BELOW 3.6 with the addition of AP classes) getting into schools like hypsm...</p>
<p>I'd think the UW GPA is more meaningful. Schools where the APs are rigorous courses usually won't have kids taking 6 or 7 AP classes. That's just what I've seen. A few of my friends who went to expensive prep or prep boarding schools (Choate, The Hill School, Lawrenceville) told me of this - the workload there is HARD. If you come from a rigorous school, you also may have a 3.5, which will be regarded as amazing. And yes, IT CAN get you into an elite school. If you have a 3.5 with 7 mediocre APs, it's really no big deal to adcoms.</p>
<p>We just had this whole big thing at my school because even though a lot of us had 4.0s, it was UW. We finally got them to include a W GPA on our transcripts, though. It really just depends on the college that you're applying to. Some want weighted, and some are UW--that's why we wanted both on our transcripts.<br>
At our school though, they still do ranks by UW GPA, so that's still causing a problem---but I really think it just depends on the college.</p>
<p>UW is more important. They see all those Bs and go "hmmmmmmm." They don't care how many APs you take really. And honors and regular are pretty much the same thing.</p>
<p>^ errr, no. MANY of the top universities consider rigor of your courseload over ANYTHING ELSE (yes, even gpa, yes, even sat, yes, even class rank and all that other stuff.). they would much rather accept a 3.7uw student with all honor + ap courseload as opposed to a 4.0uw student with zilch ap courses + few/none honors.</p>
<p>a "b" in an ap class here is considered reallllly super amazing.</p>
<p>why else would i purposefully take on 10x the amount of work for a lower uw gpa then comfortably be getting a higher one...?</p>
<p>Yeah...taking the most challenging course load at your school is definitely more important than padding your gpa. All the elite schools are going to see right through that tactic...they've seen it a million times.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses! I just wanted to make it clear that I do NOT have a 3.5 gpa, but a 3.8. However, many students from my school with over 6 APs with a 3.6-3.7 GPAs will be applying to really tough schools. Their rank is high because of all the APs, so I just wanted to know how they stand in the admission process.</p>
<p>elite schools tend to "unweigh" the grade (and look at things on a point scale) and recalculate GPAs because there is an already an expectation that students are taking AP/IB courses, it the school offers them</p>
<p>It depends on what consitutes a competior. This is why high schools send out a school profile. Each student is evaluated in context of what is offered at his or her own school. The school profile usually has the average SAT for that particular school, what percentage of students graduate each year, what percentage attend 4 year colleges/universities and where they attend.</p>
<p>If one student is admitted with 4 aps and the school ony offers 4 APs they have taken advantage of what their school offeres. If a student takes 8 and 27 are offered, while 8 is a good thing, there will be students from that same school taking more AP's. If a student takes no APs because they are not offered at the school they are not penalized for it.</p>
<p>Courseload rigor is always really REALLY important. It's not that the weighted GPA is/isn't factored in, per se, it's just that a high weighted GPA usually means a lot of APs/IB/whatever, and that's the bigger picture.</p>
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What if there are 4 APs in the school and one kid took all 4, while the other took all 4 as well with 4 more self study?
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</p>
<p>Say the kid with the 4 APs got Bs in them and took 4 self study. Duh, he/she is so obviously trying to get the GPA up. Many schools won't even allow a person to do that and have it put in their GPA. Say the kid gets As in the 4 in-school APs and does 4 more self-study. It can look like the kid lacks a social life or it may seem as if he/she seeks an extra challenge. It depends on how you choose to view it.</p>