Unweighted vs Weighted

Applying to College
1

I realize schools have a multitude of ways of getting a GPA and that colleges may use weighted or unweighted recalculations on their part for admission and scholarships., but this seems pretty important since we are planning on getting Merit to pay for most or all of tuition and my school counselors are not to sure themselves if anyone can give me input it would be appreciated…

D freshman year she had
4 honors (99,96,99,99)
band doesn’t count apparently so gooseegg
8 dual credit ( 3credits-100, 3c-98, 4c-90, 3c-100, 3c-99, 3c-93, 3c-100, 1c-99)
and 1 regular hs class (99)

Her school uses at 5.0 scale and report to me about 5.41 and are unsure of unweighted GPA. there are more confused than I am…lol

when I go to two different college calculators and put in class grade by percentage, type of class and credit I am getting 5.08 weighted and 4.23 unweighted, does this seem right? and if it is right how am a getting greater than a 4.0 unweighted?

2

Some, though few, colleges calculate an A+ as 4.3 or 4.33.

Weighted calculation varies by school. Don’t try to recalculate as you’ll go crazy.

3

How do we know which automatic merit scholarships we will qualify for then? My school counselors are completely befuddled when I ask them for unweighted on a 4.0 scale…lol

4
5

Thanks, I’ll calculate with that one too :slight_smile:

6

3.97 when using that scale, thank you!

1 Like
7

She took 14 classes as a Freshman?

Unless you use something other than 90+ = A, these are all A’s and would be a 4.0 unweighted on a simple 90=A, 80=B, 70=C, etc. scale.

2 Likes
8

My opinion is that more colleges recalculated to unweighted and not weighted these days. Of course, there are exceptions and that does not mean they do not determine rigor and make note of it. The more competitive the college, the more “that note” is defining.

9

Unweighted plus a measure of rigor, and weighted, are effectively the same thing, IMO.

1 Like
10

Also, the unweighted is on a 4.0 scale, regardless of what is submitted.

11

Yes, she hit it hard freshman year, 7 HS +2 college per semester and the 2 college each of the summer semesters. We knew she was going to need summer free as she got older, this summer Soph) she is working as a medical scribe at a local medical clinic for money, shadowing and learning for premed. So she took just the 7+2 this year :slight_smile:

12

we have to talked to a couple colleges she is interested in and we get a mixture of weighted and unweighted, but my real issue was converting to an unweighted 4.0 for looking at merit scholarships.

13

IMO without knowing the way a particular college does it - no way to answer that question.

More schools, not all schools, max the GPA at a 4.0. So, high schools are sending inflated unweighted GPA’s IMO.

14

Yes, besides the fact that an expert determines the rigor and not a silly high school formula that has little meaning.

15

However, the colleges’ calculations are not necessarily the same as your high school’s calculation of weighted GPA. Some students attending high schools with very heavy weighting overreach because they compare their high school’s exaggerated weighted GPA with less-heavily-weighted GPAs found on college web sites.

16

If she will be a pre-med, she should know that any college courses, including those taken while in high school, will be counted toward college GPA calculations when applying to medical school (and +/- means +0.3/-0.3, except that A+ = 4.0 just like A, for medical school applications).

17

thanks!

18

i think that is what I said.