Not sure what forum to post, so hopefully the mods will move this if it doesn’t belong here.
Can someone have more than a 4.0 unweighted gpa on a 4.0 scale? Does an A+ raise it over 4.0 u/w?
Trying to help a fellow homeschooler calculate gpa. Since I never used A+s, and my kids never took classes at either local colleges or online schools that give A+s, I am not sure about this one.
Thanks.
Short answer: it depends.
Longer answer: I can’t speak to how to apply to home schooling, but different HS’s will calculate an A+ differently. Some will use A+=4.0, others will use A+=4.3 or 4.33. And at other schools, there is no such thing as an A+. For that reason, most colleges that recalculate GPA’s will normalize an A+ as 4.0 for consistency.
Some schools use 4.3 for an A+, some don’t. That said, there might be some skepticism over home schooled A+s. A+ implies “well beyond other A students”. If there are no other students, that is a hard comparison to make.
In this case, the A+s have come from a well known online school that offers AP classes. As of now, the gpa is set at 4.0, but then I got to thinking-student has to mark down a gpa for NMSF application, and I wondered what gpa would be best and if the student should actually have a higher than 4.0 u/w since the student has a number of A+ from this accredited online school.
I do realize that many/most colleges normalize gpa’s; just wondered about this, and in particular, if it matters for NM since it’s very competitive here in CA.
it matters not for NM, which is 99% PSAT score. The 1% is to have an acceptable GPA, which is a B+, acceptable SAT (basically to prove that they didn’t cheat), and no demerits, so that your GC will not say, “smartest kid ever, but never does a lick of work or contributes to the school”.
It is common for high school GPAs to be calculated without considering +/-. I.e. all of A+, A, A- = 4.0, all of B+, B, B- = 3.0, etc… For example, the high school GPA recalculation used by UCs and CSUs ignores +/-.
Thanks for the helpful comments. Student can keep the 4.0/4.75 gpa and report the 4.0 gpa on the NM app. PSAT was very high and SAT is 2400.
Thanks again.
Our high school starts with number grades on a 100-scale (the grade the teacher calculates), converts those to letter grades (the grade that appears on the transcript), and then uses those letter grades to compute the unweighted GPA on a 4.0 scale, with A+=4.0. In doing so, some of the differences in grades get wiped out - for example a 93 becomes equivalent to a 96, as both get you a 3.67 on the 4.0-scale. Not a great system in my mind, but that’s what it is.
This is what it looks like (with the Honors/AP adjustments used for weighted GPA):
97-100 ----A±—4.00 ----Honors 4.83 ----AP 5.33
93-96 ----A ----3.67 ----Honors 4.50 ----AP 5.00
90-92 ----A- ----3.33 ----Honors 4.16 ----AP 4.66
87-89 ----B+ ----3.00 ----Honors 3.83 ----AP 4.33
83-86 ----B ----2.67 ----Honors 3.50 ----AP 4.00
80-82 ----B- ----2.33 ----Honors 3.16 ----AP 3.66
Our high school only reported number grades. They let the colleges decide how to translate to their 4.0 systems. Personally, I think if an A is a 4.0, and a B is a 3.0, then an A+ should be a 4.33. I see that WhataProcess’s school has figured out a way to get around that issue, but it basically probably ends up lowering people’s GPA from the norm.
When the stakes are high, this becomes a pretty tricky issue. I think what the student in question will do is use the scale that the local school district uses. Not a perfect solution since the classes taken came from many different schools (online) outside the district, but that’s the decision for now.
The challenging part is the fact that not every school/school district gives A+'s, so as you say, it can lower a GPA simply by virtue of never having had that option. Certainly my kids never had A+s, since most of their outside classes were taken at the local community college in high school, and that is strictly A, B, C-no plus, no minus. In the end, it didn’t matter for them, but it’s possible it matters for some scholarships such as the NM in a competitive state like CA.
It really depends on the school and one should state the max scale if it is not 4.0 If A+ is 4.3, then it is not 4.0 max. In our school district, the max is 4.0 even for wGPA, so A+ in regular or AP class are both 4.0 only. UMich’s college GPA is also max at 4.0 even for A+.
My HS did the + and -, son’s only did A, B, C- both unweighted. An A+ was 4.3. There is a reason colleges calculate their own gpa. I still haven’t figured out gpa’s locally here in the Tampa area. When they list the top one or two students from each of many high schools the gpas range from nearly 8 to below 5! On a 4.0 scale. Depends on the number of AP and Honors course available and taken, I guess. Weighting sure would have helped son’s HS gpa and class rank.