<p>Stanford does calculate it's own (unweighted) GPA using grades in academic classes only (or at least they did two years ago). This helps them to compare GPAs from different schools, but it will not help OPs class rank.</p>
<p>I think OPs letter was very appropriate and important, since schools do pride themselves in having >90% of their admitted students from the top 10% of their graduating class.</p>
<p>ellemenope ,
the point is that OP not just does not get a boost from taking jazz class, but taking this extra class actually lowers his GPA, because the grade is not weighted. So another student taking the same classes as OP minus the jazz class (and getting identical grades) will end up with higher average grade, and thus higher rank. Which is ridiculous, regardless of whether or not you think of music classes as academic subjects.</p>