<p>Rankings help to a certain degree, but I still don' think that they are the answer. Some kids take much tougher courseloads than others. I am ranked 21/278 at my school, but I don't put too much emphasis on this number because there are kids above me who haven't taken a single Honors or AP class. My entire courseload has pretty much been Honors or AP level courses, except Religion (I go to a Catholic school). I am glad that colleges consider the difficulty level of a student's courseload since that could be my saving grace. </p>
<p>I ask for a conversion between my 100 point GPA and the 4.0 system because I want to know where I stand as far as colleges are concerned. All of the colleges report their high school GPA averages on the 4.0 scale. So when I see a 3.6, I have no idea what they're talking about.</p>
<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>
<p>Either my schools 4.0 system is the only reasonable one, or you all are explaining it horribly.</p>
<p>4.3 A+ (97-100)
4.0 A (93-96)
3.75 A- (90-92)
3.5 B+ (87-89)
3.25 B (83-86)
3.0 B- (80-82)
2.75 C+ (77-79)
2.5 C (73-76)
2.25 C- (70-72)
2.0 D+ (67-69)
1.75 D (63-66)
1.5 D- (60-62)
1.25 F (50-59)
1.0 F- (<50)</p>
<p>I think I might have made up the lower end, but that's definitely how A's and B's work. So if you got a 87 and one kid got all 89's, yes it's the same gpa. But not 80 and 89. that's ridiculous.</p>
<p>Most schools only have the very basic 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, and 1.0 without distinctions between a 99 A and a 94 A.</p>
<p>That's why colleges also see your test scores (and if you took AP courses, your AP scores) because those help them compare you with all other applicants.</p>
<p>ours is out of 100 too..
all honors and ap classes are weighted the same, so if you make a 100 in an ap or honors class its really a 110.
we have two types of gpa, called "rank gpa" and "college gpa".
school has some weird formula for figuring them out, but basically college gpa is unweighted on the 100 scale and rank gpa is weighted on the 110 scale.
soo my unweighted gpa is around 97.9 and my weighted is around 104.3...... kinda weird.</p>
<p>^^ That is the same GPA system my school uses...it seems the most fair, distinguishing the A-'s from the A+'s (we have a 4.3 for A+ as well)</p>
<p>But we only get +0.5 for honors/AP courses</p>
<p>I've read before that colleges take your grades and put them into their own GPA calculation system...is this true? Because it seems that so many of our schools calculate GPA differently, it would be easiest for them to use a standardized system rather than study our school profiles to figure it out.</p>
<p>listen - it doesn't matter what scale ur school uses. you're only evaluated directly with people in your own school, not with other applicants. thats why weighting and class rank are important.</p>
<p>case in point.
if you have a 3.7 but are no. 1 in your class of 200 and another person in another school has a 4.7 and is no. 10 in a class of 200, the 3.7 is looked more favorably upon because he did better in context with his own school.</p>
<p>remember, in general kids in public high schools are all the same - a few winners, a whole lotta losers. you know that people who rank in a certain percentile in 1 school would rank in the same percentile at another school. the only exceptions would be to schools which you have to apply to - other than that its all easily comparable.</p>
<p>the only time you run into a problem is when honors and AP classes arn't weighted and you are ranked - however, i would think that the vast majority of the kids who would be getting A's in regular classes are in the honors classes.</p>
<p>um.....i'm just wondering how do your schools treat IB classes???? if any of you have them?
some think it's better/harder than AP, some don't....</p>
<p>hepstar, i totally agree with you - coming from a catholic hs with a 100 scale
(but i dont even have APs/IBs or weighted grading)</p>
<p>but thats why i think class rank and SAT/ACT are important to admissions
and the school sends a description of grades etc when they send your transcript</p>
<p>but i wish someone could equate 100 scale grades to a GENERAL 4.0 scale system because i'd like to be able to compare</p>
<p>where do unweighted grades like 97.5, 96.3, 95.8 and 92.3 fall on 4.0? all under 4? </p>
<p>or is there no general scale? or is there no simple translation</p>
<p>To add even more light to the 4.0 scale...here's how our school does it: </p>
<p>A+'s are given special bonuses so its actually a 4.3 scale, Honors and AP classes are all 1 point higher on a 5.3 scale. It works out like this...</p>
<p>So if it is an honors class you add a point to that class. then you just add up all your class GPA values and divide by the number of classes to get overall GPA. that way there's no ties ever like someone noted earlier. Yeah, I know it's really weird. You NEVER hear of schools doing a 4.3 for A+s but we're really dumb. Oh well, I got valedictorian out of it so it was ok with me! No I'm just kidding, but seriously that's just how it works for us, if anyone cares...</p>
<p>Below 4- is failing. And there are +s and -s for each number grade. A 6+ would be a 6.33 and a 7- would equal a 6.67. No one has a 7.0 cumulative GPA. It's literally impossible to achieve. We also can't convert it over to a 4.0 scale because a 6.5/7 is an A to us but when converted to the American scale is a 3.7. It's very strange.</p>
<p>the % on 100 scale is more precise and exact than 4.0 gpa scale. However, if you do on a 100% points nobody would ever get 100/100 out of 4 years. I think everyone's grade would look better on a 4.0 scale since a 2.5/4.0 looks better than a 60/100. Kids from other countries usually have "less grades" conversion because they use a 100/100 scale or 10/10.</p>
<p>OK this is completely copied and pasted from The Princeton Review, not sure how correct it is, but yeah:</p>
<p>GPA Conversion Chart:
4.0 95-100 A
3.9 94 A
3.8 93 A
3.7 92 A
3.6 91 A
3.5 90 A
3.4 89 B
3.3 88 B
3.2 87 B
3.1 86 B
3.0 85 B
2.9 84 B
2.8 83 B
2.7 82 B
2.6 81 B
2.5 80 B
2.4 79 C
2.3 78 C
2.2 77 C
2.1 76 C
2.0 75 C
1.9 74 C
1.8 73 C
1.7 72 C
1.6 71 C
1.5 70 C
and so on. . .</p>
<p>This seems somewhat accurate. . . any thoughts?</p>
<p>I have been stressing so much over my gpa, because I am in a small (115) class with all girls and while my gpa seems fine, I find it difficult to put into context with 4.0, making it hard to see whether my gpa is alright for certain colleges.</p>
<p>my school uses an interesting scale
94-100 A 4.0
87-93 B 3.0
77-86 C 2.0
70-76 D 1.0
0-69 F 0.0</p>
<p>+1 point for Honors or AP classes but no bonus for Advanced classes
I like the 4.0 scale but maybe only because it works out better for me. I'm not one of the people to do a bunch of extra credit or something to try to get a 105. But it also has its faults. For instance, I'm #1 in my class but only because my friend took spanish in 8th grade when i didnt, so that extra 4.0 brought his grade down a little compared to mine (we both have above 4.0 so a 4.0 brings it down). I personally think that is rediculous to be penalized for taking a class early or for taking a class you enjoy (we've had a couple people lose valedictorian because they took band).</p>
<p>I think if you're on the 100pt scale, to get your gpa on the 4.0 scale, divide your unweighted by 25, and divide your weighted by 20. not sure if that's right, though, so don't take my word for it.</p>
<p>at my school, if you get above a C in an AP/GT class, it's 1 point extra. so an A=5.0, B=4.0, C=3.0. If you get an A in an honors class, it's a 4.5, a B is a 4, etc etc. highest gpa at my school is a 3.7-3.9, I think. can't remember the actual number</p>