<p>U of Alabama (Tuscaloosa) says that it awards scholarships to out-of-state students, with the amounts varying based on test scores and GPA. Although I am well above the standards for all SAT scores, the site says that all scholarships must have a minimum 3.5 GPA. The problem for me is that I go to one of the most prestigious high schools in my region, which has an extremely rigorous, standardized curriculum and does not have any weighted GPA or whatnot. I have a three year average of 87.2% (which translates roughly to just over a 3.3 GPA?). I was wondering Alabama takes this kind of stuff into consideration or if this required 3.5 GPA is set in stone. If the school doesn't take this into consideration, is there anyway to petition? I am well over the minimum scholarship SAT requirement by over 200 points, and I probably will reach the SAT requirements for a full scholarship. Will this GPA dilemma negate my chances? I know that IU-Bloomington, for example, has a policy for their business school where they use a formula to deduct points from your SAT score to contribute to your GPA</p>
<p>You can e-mail them your question. Their net price calculator wants a GPA number reported on a 4.0 scale. I thought the scholarship site says it wants a GPA reported on your transcript, however your school reports.</p>
<p>Bama rep is coming to my school tomorrow, so I’ll just ask him then</p>
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and does not have any weighted GPA o</p>
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<p>ask your gc to write your weighted gpa on transcript. bama will accept that</p>
<p>Also does UA only consider GPA of academic classes like Math, English, Science, Social Studies, Foreign Language??
If you did well in those classes your GPA might be higher.</p>
<p>ua uses all classes…it uses the gpa on transcript.</p>
<p>So if the school doesn’t include the weighted GPA, “do the math” for the GC and have her write: Weighted GPA: X.XX on your transcript.</p>
<p>I spoke to the representative and she said that the 3.5 GPA is not flexible</p>
<p>the rep is wrong. If your GC will write your weighted GPA on your transcript and it is 3.5 or higher, Bama will accept that.
@mcavs15 </p>
<p>My high school doesn’t have any weighted GPA I’ll see what he can do, thanks.</p>
<p>At the schools that don’t weight, figure out what the weighted would be, show the math to the GC, and then have her write it down on your transcript. Explain that it makes a big difference scholarship-wise and Bama will accept it.</p>
<p>A typical formula to use is:</p>
<p>honors grades get an additional .25
AP grades get an additional .50</p>
<p>a B+ in an AP class would get 3.5 Quality Points
a B+ in an Honors class would get 3.25 Quality Points</p>
<p>a B in an AP class would get 3.25 Quality Points
a B in an Honors class would get 3.00 Quality Points</p>
<p>a B- in an AP class would get 3.0 Quality Points
a B- in an Honors class would get 2.75 Quality Points</p>
<p>Others here may know of other ways to weight grades, but the above is what I’ve seen most often.</p>
<p>@mcavs15 </p>
<p>Our AP and DE classes receive 1pt weighting, so an A is worth 5pts. Also our regular class B+ is 3.33, not 3.00, our Bs are regularly 3.0. Our B- is a 2.67. We don’t get extra points for Honors. Our kids’ colleges use the same .67, .33, .00 system. Never heard of a .75, .25, .00 system. One of the colleges did combat grade inflation by raising the numerical grade for an A to a 95 (from 93).</p>
<p><a href=“How to Convert (Calculate) Your GPA to a 4.0 Scale – BigFuture”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools;
<p>P.S. I had a part time instructor freshman year in college that gave out pluses and minuses for 2 semesters when our school only had straight A, B, C, D & F. The school just ignored the plus or minus and made the grade what it was without the plus or minus. I brought it to her attention and she wound up changing 2 semesters and I think 5 courses worth of grades. </p>
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<p>That is a pretty conservative weighting. Here in California, the state universities recalculate weighted GPAs giving +1 for up to 8 semesters’ worth of AP and approved honors courses. There are also some high schools (not necessarily in California) where the weighting is even more aggressive, such that some students posting here report weighted high school GPAs of 5.something or even 6.something.</p>
<p>How does Alabama deal with different weighting systems when using weighted GPAs? Or does it trust whatever the high school says, opening itself up to being gamed with aggressive weighting policies?</p>
<p>Bama usually uses whatever the transcript has on it. </p>
<p>gaming isn’t really an issue since test scores are really more important. Unless the school has some strange scale, Bama just accepts what’s on the transcript.</p>
<p>there’s a student applying that attends a school with a very odd weighting method (a New Jersey school). I’m wondering if Bama is going to just accept it or re-calculate it. </p>
<p>@ucbalumnus What you’re describing is just part of the UC GPA calculation, which already is strange since it doesn’t use 9th grade grades. The UCs are recalculating everyone’s grades. And it’s only weighting 8 semesters (or 4 years) of AP and some honors. So, I’m not sure that is all too generous. Many kids have 8+ APs and several honors classes…so they’d have 24+ semesters of classes that should get a bump, but only 10 semesters would get that bump. </p>
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<p>However, there are enough “low GPA high test score” students posting here who may have GPAs that may or may not meet Alabama’s 3.5 scholarship minimum, depending on the weighting method. E.g. they may have a 32 ACT and an unweighted 3.0, which could give a weighted 3.3 using your conservative weighting, but could give a 4.7 using an aggressive weighting (the kind where 5.something weighted GPAs are possible).</p>
<p>Given all of the possible ways GPAs can be weighted, it is surprising that Alabama (or any college) would accept a weighted GPA that it did not recalculate itself, or limited to comparisons with other applicants from the same high school and weighting system.</p>
<p>^^
Schools that are receiving a large number of apps often don’t have the time/resources to recalculate…so they take what’s on the transcript…that’s what Bama does. </p>
<p>I don’t think the UC offices are doing the recalculating. What are they using? The A-G classes from grades 9-11 that the student self-reports? </p>
<p>The applicant self-reports courses and grades, then UC’s computers recalculate GPA to present to the admissions readers with the rest of the application. (Actually, three GPAs are calculated – unweighted, weighted but capped to 8 semesters’ worth of honors +1 points, and weighted by uncapped.)</p>