<p>Senior son has a 4.0 unweighted and a 4.35 weighted and I was curious as to which GPA would most colleges be impressed with? Do colleges even look at the unweighted these days or is it all about the weighted GPA? Thanks.</p>
<p>Its all about Unweighted </p>
<p>^^Yup. If there’s any weighting to be done, each school does it in their own evaluation. Not all 4.0s are created equal, and weighted grading systems are so different, they are for local consumption only.</p>
<p>Unweighted. However, in my school system, weighted was used to determine class rank. Class rank is also important for applying to college.</p>
<p>In conclusion, both in a sense. Unweighted, in my opinion, probably plays a heavier weight than class rank/weighted gpa.</p>
<p>There are some colleges like Alabama that will use the weighted score for scholarship consideration. Since you already have a 4.0 that won’t make a difference.</p>
<p>All High School’s weight differently. For that reason, colleges will either use unweighted, or will weight according to their own guidelines. Weighted GPA will come into play for HS ranking (if applicable). Either way, great stats for your son.</p>
<p>And don’t forget, most schools only look at the academic core classes, removing anything like Art, or Phys Ed, or Sex Ed.</p>
<p>My impression is that schools look at UW but also take course rigor into account, so obviously a 4.0 uw with all AP classes will be seen as substantially better than a 4.0 uw with no AP classes. They do this because weighted grades vary so much, especially because of required classes and such. One applicant may have had to take gym for 4 years and a required high school transition class whereas another may not have had to take any required class. The former applicant may have a 4.0 uw and 4.2 w and the other may have 4.0 uw and 4.4 w because they were able to take extra honors or AP classes when the former applicant was not able to. Also consider my friend and I. She took her required courses as her elective in 10th grade whereas I took an actual elective in 10th grade and my required course in 11th grade while taking an extra class during my free period to fit everything in my schedule. Even though I have a 4.0 uw and she has a 3.96 uw or something around there, she has a higher weighted because I took an extra elective class, which brought down my overall weighted GPA. We are taking literally the exact same courseload with the same difficulty, but that elective brought my weighted GPA down. Colleges will not see her as better. In fact that they will probably regard my grades as better because she has 2 A-'s on her report card whereas mine are all A’s including an extra class. There are so many other reasons, too, such as some schools may give weighted bonuses for an A+ whereas other schools may not have A+'s. Some schools give +1 for honors and +2 for AP. If you live in an AP dominated county, sometimes IB classes only get half the GPA bump as AP classes because they are not seen as equally difficult. It’s also hard to put a weight on dual credit classes.</p>
<p>Overall, colleges will look at UW in regards to your academic rigor.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone…great information!</p>
<p>One cannot tell how good you are from any weighed GPA directly, but 4.0 unweighed GPA is the max one can get.</p>
<p>Unweighted is what they look at, 4.0 is good. </p>
<p>Weighted GPA as calculated by your high school is typically irrelevant (though it may have indirect influence if it is used for class rank and class rank is used). Colleges which use weighted GPA are likely to recalculate based on their own weighting formula.</p>
<p>A 4.0 unweighted (A grades in everything) in a schedule where the more rigorous choices were chosen is a good thing.</p>