My high school is a pretty decent one. These past few years there has been a trend of Yale admittees, last year a guy got accepted to Harvard, and this year MIT.
Weighted classes are DE, AP, but no IB classes and Honors aren’t weighted. However, GPA is calculated only on what letter grade you have, no plus or minus, just A, B, C, etc. and only final yearly grades are reported on transcript.
My grade is pretty competitive. We currently have a lot of above 4.0’s from DE Drafting and one guy taking both Drafting and AP Calc BC. I currently have a B in Drafting and French II, meaning my UW GPA is 3.75, weighted 3.875. I plan on self-studying and testing my way out of Trig/Pre-Calc to get the extra AP math class in. I have the option to take a select few classes after school, however I don’t want the unweighted after school courses to drag down my weighted GPA and therefore class rand, however the extra classes may bring up my unweighted GPA, depending on whether GPA is calculated by year or each individual class.
Which should I worry about first? Also, is it uniform across the country on whether cumulative GPA is calculated by GPA for the year, or by each class? Should I just ask my GC?
The majority of the colleges will use your unweighted since different schools have different weighting systems. The California CSU/UC’s have their own GPA calculation which is capped for weighted courses: http://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
Just concentrate on getting a competitive unweighted GPA and taking a rigorous course load.
@Gumbymom Alright, but my school has a special title and recognition for the top ten ranked girls and boys for juniors and seniors. Would it still be worth the good UW grade if I give up the spot? I know a girl who is taking easy classes (like a Speech class with no hw and credit for showing up) and an unweighted after-school class (Earth Science) while also taking Biology (you have the option of skipping ES for Bio, but she took both), but also is three years ahead of the typical student in math (currently in Trig/PreCalc) and running for Secretary in SCA, national runner-up in TSA, and doing debate, dance, Madrigals,etc. Next year she is taking AP World, considered a lot less rigorous than AP European History, which I am taking. Will colleges know that the Speech class is really just a GPA booster and Euro tops World in rigor, or does that change by school? Also, D\does she have the right idea, knowing that UW GPA is what colleges look at, or would they prefer a B or two in more rigorous courses? Obviously the ideal is all A’s in rigorous courses, but I mean if you had to choose between the two.’
Also, are there any schools that don’t recalculate? I’ve read U of M stopped recalculating, and I’m thinking of applying there.
Much will depend upon what colleges you are targeting. Many look at rank and many do not. Majority of the colleges will however look at HS course rigor. Your GC will send a school profile about the AP/IB/Honors classes that are offerred at your school and how you compare. Ideally you want to take the most rigorous schedule with good grades, but it is up to you on how much you can handle. My son’s GC gave him an example of 2 friends both wanting to apply to the same college. 1 friend had a perfect 4.0 UW GPA but with little to no Honors/AP classes. The other friend had a 3.7 UW with 10 AP classes and of course she got into the school not the friend with the 4.0.
I would look at some common datasets for colleges of interest. Just google common dataset for ______. The GPA ranges listed are unweighted which should give you a good idea of what the schools are looking for GPA wise in an applicant.
@Gumbymom Thanks for the info! Good course rigor trumps high GPA. Thanks for letting me know how the ‘colleges know how many AP courses you take’ thing I’ve seen mentioned several times. I’ll be sure to look up the common data sets.