<p>My school has a very different system, so I wanted to estimate what my GPA would be out of a 4.0 scale. Is the system used by most high schools and colleges?</p>
<p>I don’t know about most high schools, but I’ve never seen an A+, an E, or any of the “minus” grades on a real life report card or transcript before.</p>
<p>Really? My school doesn’t have "E"s, but that is used as an “F” or “D-” like grade in some schools. But no + and -?</p>
<p>I’m particularly confused by the fact that an A and an A+ are both 4.0. This is from the college board site.</p>
<p>Edit@jahaba: That’s interesting. So there weren’t any B- or C- grades either? My school is 98-100 A+ 94-97 A 90-93 A- 87-89 B+, and then I don’t know. What if you got a 92?</p>
<p>Edit II: Basically, would a college just recalculate the GPA based on a standard GPA system? Also, if my school doesn’t weight, is that a significant problem?</p>
<p>Oh, I’ve seen B+, C+, and D+, but never A+. Basically, 93 - 100 was an A (some schools have it as 90 - 100 as an A). Then there’s a small range 87 - 89 which was B+, and so forth. There was nothing between a B+ and an A, and the A+ didn’t exist.</p>
<p>My school uses pluses and minuses but they don’t affect the quality points of each class.</p>
<p>For example, a 91 would be an A- (89.5 to 92.4) but would still be a 4.0 (or a 5.0 if honors/AP). In the same vein, an 89 would be a B+ (87.5 to 89.4) but would be a 3.0 (or a 4.0 if honors/AP).</p>
<p>What you’ll probably find is that there is no “standard” method of GPA calculation.</p>
<p>You’ll find that a lot of people think that the way their school calculates GPA is the standard. But like the above poster says, I don’t think there really is a standard way to calculate GPA in high school.</p>
<p>There IS no “standard”. You can get 100 people answer here and you’ll get about 50 different responses. THAT is why GPA can ONLY be used as a reference if you ALSO include a school prosectus (to explain THAT school’s formula), and class rank for back up. At some schools…a handful of kids out of hundred get a 4.0. At other schools…20-30 kids have a 4.0. At some schools, only a 100 is an A+. At others…all the way down to 97 is an A+. At my own school, it took a 95 to get any A- and a 94 was a B+. For some schools a 94 is a straight A. So that same student would have a 4.0 at one school and a 3.33 at another. Ideally, this should also mean they GRADE differently, but…? At my D’s first school, they REPORT they’re on a 4.0 scale, but give a 4.33 for a 100% - which is their only type of A+. The range between 4.0 and 3.7 seems small. At most schools I’d say that’s an A to an A-. But within that range lies kids who would receive Ivy consideration (4.0 down to …?), and those who PROBABLY won’t (3.7 up to …?).</p>
<p>So, if you’re trying to calculate a GPA when your school doesn’t have one, though it’s fun/interesting, don’t assume your results will really give you much of an accurate answer. Look to your rank. I’d hope for top 10% for decent schools. Top 5% for good schools. Top 1-2% for excellent schools. Of course - THAT is also just a “made up” guide. And it depends a lot on the size of your school too. Smaller student body skews these percentages because…if you have only 40 kids then being in 4th place, BARELY top 10%, might still be an excellent position because it’s still the top few kids, depends on whether or not the school prepares their kids for college well.</p>
<p>Like, according to my school’s GPA system, I have between a high A and a low A+. Since we scale out of 4.5, trying to figure out what it might be out of 4.0.</p>
<p>Could I college look at the GPA and grading scale the school gives, and go “Oh, this is an A student”, “Oh, this is an A+ student”, and compare it from there?</p>
<p>I offer this as a part question/part reality check on the logistics associated with normalizing or equalizing GPAs. High schools send a document along with your transcript which gives details about your school, your grading system, any differential(s) for honors and/or AP classes and so on. This is meant to help the college reader “normalize” your GPA to the rest of the stack. Because our school district has a lower grading differential than other schools in our county and because we consistently noticed that great students in our district always missed the cut to get into many top schools, we did a little test.</p>
<p>With permission of the 3 top students in 5 different districts, one person (pretending to be an admissions reader) took each transcript and “normalized” each of the five transcripts to an “unweighted” GPA. Reality Check: This process took an entire evening, several hours in fact due to the varying grading methods used at each school. It was a confusing nightmare. Did I mention that the pretend reader had a degree in finance from Harvard Business School. His math skills were solid. </p>
<p>The moral of this story is that, there is NO WAY an already overburdened college admissions reader can equitably compare GPA to GPA. I suspect this is one of of the best kept secrets of this process. Alas, students are at the mercy of their school’s grading system and differential. Yes, that means a student from ABC school district who’s grading scale offers a 5.0 for an “A”, will look like a better student than a student from XYZ school district who’s school offers a 4.0. This is a huge problem with honors/AP students but it is also a problem with students who take regular classes as well. In fact, in our school district, there are students with only an honors/AP transcript with A- who’s GPA and subsequent class rank is below students taking regular classes who earned an A+. The added effort to try those harder courses does not pay off in our town.</p>
<p>In short: There is not time for a reader at Harvard or any reader, who can fill a class at least twice with great students to thoroughly read and normalize your application, (looking for the diamond in the rough), with 30,000 apps for 1,000 seats (assuming 500 go to legacy and employees…) </p>
<p>I suspect…and this is just my opinion that upon opening your envelope, readers at the most competitive schools cut the stack by GPA (no matter how it is calculated) and rank. They then pull out any “hooks” (kids with living with dire circumstances, kids who have reinvented the wheel and so on…) All the others … well, go in a box… I do not mean to sound cynical but do the math on the time alone to do this work… Getting to the extra-curriculars, essays, recommendations… probably only happens if you have made the initial cut. JMO… although I have qualified this with a fair amount of scientific testing… ;)</p>