<p>I'm under the impression that colleges really don't look at the "GPA" on it's own, because of all the weighting systems. That's what I've heard from nearly all these talks with adcoms and stuff. </p>
<p>The GPA is on your transcript. In nearly all cases, so is every course you took in high school next to the grade (or percentage if that's the case) you earned. Colleges look at the letter grades because that is the grade you actually earned (without weighting). </p>
<p>Weighting is for ranking purposes. Otherwise someone with all As in no AP/IBs would have a higher grade than the kid with all AP/IBs, all As and one B+. But that wouldn't make sense. </p>
<p>In my school system, the letter grades, not the percentages, are shown. The grading scale is 94-100 for an "A". In my IB classes, people rarely have higher than a 96. A lot of the As are more like 93.8s (they'll round up if you're close). If someone really did have a 100 in an IB class here, then they could (and prob should) ask the teacher to write them a rec, and they would probably mention then how it's the only person to get an 100 ever. So I don't think it's that unfair in this instance, although I can see how under some systems where there is a larger gap (ten point scale) that it would be misleading. Or perhaps in classes where there's more grade fluctuation.</p>