Should a homeschooler weight their GPA?

Hello! I am a homeschooled junior who has a 3.95 GPA unweighted. I haven’t taken AP tests, but most of my classes are honors level. I am looking to get Academic Elite at UA or if you have a 4.0+ at UAH you can get a full ride. This makes me think that they accept a weighted GPA. Could (and should) a homeschooler do this? If so, how could I go about it? Do these colleges not care whether or not your GPA is weighted or not as long as it is on a 4.0 scale? I am really close to getting that full ride at UAH but am missing that requirement.

As a college consultant and homeschool parent, I encourage my homeschool families to provide a weighted and unweighted gpa; that’s certainly what I did for both my homeschool graduates.

Unfortunately, UAH looks at unweighted for their scholarships, so you are out of luck there. I know; my middle son also had an u/w gpa of 3.95 (one B), and was awarded the full tuition scholarship at UAH rather than the full tuition + room. Double check with them, though, just to make sure what the policy is today (policy changes).

A-'s are my lowest score. To my knowledge, I have no Bs yet. Does A- round down to a B?

Also, why does it say 4.0+? (just curious) That seems to imply a weighted GPA.

Some u/w GPAs are more than 4.0.

A- can be a 4.0 or a 3.7 depending on the school. If your parents do your transcripts, you’d need to ask them. If your A- is from an outside entity, what is the numeric equivalent?

I was told by UAH Admissions that they take WHATEVER GPA is listed on the official HS Transcript. I would weight your courses (IF they truly were Honors Courses) and ONLY list Weighted GPA. But would not list it as a Weighted GPA, just list the GPA.

If UAH has any questions, they can contact you to get more detailed info. You will want to have some summary proof of your Honors Courses, a syllabus and textbook info to back up your Honors claims.

Just send in your Application and Transcript with the higher GPA, and see how they respond. Again, there has to be legitimate grades to back up the GPA, you can’t just completely make up your grades. As a homeschool parent, I believe in integrity and honesty in producing a transcript. But it sounds to me like you are doing yourself a Disservice by lowering your GPA when you actually DID earn the higher Honor Course weight.

How would you know if a course was honors? I think my classes are pretty complicated; I am taking Apologia Advanced Biology: Anatomy and Lightning Lit Shakespeare, courses like that. I am also taking more credits than needed to graduate.

Are you self taught? Or do you have parents teaching or guiding you? Or do you have some outside courses taught by someone not related to you?

What are your test scores? Any college looking at homeschoolers is probably wanting to see good test scores to match honors courses.

I am glad to help with more specifics as you put together your transcript. If you are new to this forum, you will need to make about 15 posts before you are able to Private Message with someone.

I have a 32 the ACT. I teach myself most of my subjects with my Mom supervising and helping me if I am stuck. I am not taking any dual enrollment.

We are with an homeschool group, if that helps.

So your test score does support a high GPA. You can use whatever grading scale you want, using it consistently and within reason.

I honestly think you are being too harsh on yourself with your grading scale. And courses like Advanced Biology could be considered Honors.

What do you mean? My mom uses homeschool tracker and that was the gpa that showed up.

I looked at Homeschool Tracker online. Under the FAQ, it says you can set up your own grading scale.

You should know what number grade range equals an A

I’ll talk with her about it. I know I haven’t gotten lower than a 90 in a subject, so A- must be 90-93, or something like that. Is this normal?

Our family uses 90-100 as an A.

My family also uses 90-100 as an A. OP, it is up to your family what grading scale you use. In your situation, since merit is tied to GPA, I would use 90-100 as an A and forget about using the + and - system. Your high ACT score validates your grades. Good luck!

@naturecreative I also did Apologia Biology. We counted it as an honors course because it was difficult; I attended several hours of lab each week and tests were created and graded by my biology teacher. My parents only calculated a weighted gpa. They created an “offical transcript” with a grading scale and listed this weighted gpa on in; we had no problems. I created a rigorous document containing specifics about each course, textbook, and grading method we used. My parents and I each wrote letters explaining our homeschooling background (nice to see different perspectives).

@SuperGymnast_04 How did you calculate that weighted GPA? Is there a formula?

@naturecreative my parents came up with some system. AP and dual enrollment courses were given a certain amount of weight, honors courses had a different amount, and regular courses had none (I think).

My D did both honors courses and dual enrollment. She had .5 added to each course.