Totally confused about GPA (please help!)

<p>I live in Virginia and I want to go to Appalachian State University (in NC). My GPA after freshman, sophomore and junior years is ~3.5</p>

<p>My SATs (only taken them once) are 1840 but I'd like to see them improve. My class rank is probably top 20% or better. The SATs are above average for Appalachian State, and the class rank is good, but the GPA seems to be way below the average of 3.94</p>

<p>How can this be right? Are they using weighted GPA - because from what I understand that's not important. I know in North Carolina they add +1.0 for each honors class and +2.0 for each AP to your weighted GPA, so that puts me at a disadvantage as a Virginian, where we only get a fraction of a point added. If it was really 3.94 unweighted that would mean almost every student got close to straight As throughout high school which I KNOW is not possible.</p>

<p>Someone please explain this to me. Thanks :)</p>

<p>I live in NC and know that, based on App’s reputation and my personal experience with people that go to App, that statistic is either weighted or based on kids lying about their GPA. Its probably just a weighted GPA. </p>

<p>Sent from my DROID X2 using CC</p>

<p>Which kinds of classes are you taking? AP? Honors? College? This has a huge impact on GPA and colleges will look at it and take it into consideration. For example, if you took all regular, easy classes and got a 4.0, that wouldn’t serve you as well as if you got two B’s with 3 AP classes. :)</p>

<p>You might also want to check out how the university itself weights some of your grades. APs and honors, for instance. Some schools may weight differently than others. Also, do you have any hooks or ECs that might set you apart from the average student? Also, remember that the 3.94 is an AVERAGE. At least half of the class is below that number!</p>

<p>Don’t worry about it. I’m sure its a weighted GPA. Weighted GPAs are scaled differently everywhere so colleges really don’t pay much attention to it. They’ll just look at your unweighted GPA and what kinds of classes you took.</p>

<p>It’s a weighted GPA</p>