Venting about GPAs!

Parents Forum
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<p>I have to get this off my chest: why, oh why, can't the colleges all get together and decide on a single, universal formula for calculating a grade point average? I'm not talking about you poor benighted souls who live in jurisdictions which elect to use numbers instead of letter for grades - as if the difference between an 88 and an 89 is somehow significant - you are beyond hope and beyond help. </p>

<p>No, I'm talking about the good old American A, B, C etc. (I'll even negotiate +s and -s if I have to.) But after you get that transcript, how you slice and dice it to come up with that single, magic number - the GPA? Can we agree on how to produce that number?</p>

<p>For my current-college-applicant son - S2 - I've had to acknowledge no fewer than 8 different GPAs - and he's only applying to a handful of California public U's and one private one. Still....</p>

<p>The UC GPA is calculated by taking the 10th and 11th grade, uh... grades... A, B, C, and D only, no + or -, in "college prep" classes (which includes music and art and drama, but not drafting or auto tech and icky stuff like that) adding one extra point for every AP, IB, college and "approved" honors class - up to eight semesters and no more - and then calculating the average. But wait - UC isn't done yet! To calculate the "ELC" (don't ask) GPA, UC uses an uncapped GPA - not just eight - as many of those babies as the kid took - they all count, now. As best I can tell, when UC's report the "average" GPA for their admitted and enrolled students, they don't use the GPA calculated the way they calculate it for admissions purposes - they use an uncapped weighted GPA. They may include 9th grade, too, for all I know. Cal Poly does pretty much the same as UC admissions, except those +s and -s count, now. (A 0.3 point bump either way, okay? No? <sigh...>) USC asks for totally unweighted GPA at one point, and then shifts to a GPA which weights IB, AP, and college (but not honors, "approved" or not) classes, for grades 9-11. I think Chorus doesn't count as college prep at USC, and so isn't included in the GPA, but does at UCLA, and is. </sigh...></p>

<p>Every year my kids get two certificates for being "student athletes" - one from the school, one from the conference. The GPAs listed on both are different. Apparently Cal Grant has yet another one. Of course the high school insists on calculating one weighted and one unweighted GPA for all classes, and one of each limited to "CP" classes. Lord knows what goes into that one (Eye of bat? Toe of newt?) The high school also counts a semester college course as two semesters of high school credit. Does that apply to the GPA for college? Who knows? </p>

<p>I figure my kid is either a 3.6 or a 4.0. Or somewhere in between. The most common number that pops up seems to be around 3.9. So I guess that's it, then. Majority rules.</p>

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<p>I'd chime in here, kluge, but we are among the poor benighted, no-hope, 0-100 folks. And. We thought we were through with all this. But due to Katrina-Tulane Engineering debacle, we are about to start all over again with transfer apps. So. Yesterday, I picked up some official transcripts from DS' hs. Wasn't I thrilled to see that his former 93.81uw/122w has somehow morphed into 93.75uw/118.08w. ??? Oh, and ya gotta love those two decimal places. Do I have a clue whether 118 is any real difference from 122? I do not. Telephone call to dear old hs in order this morning.</p>

<p>Okay, consider me chimed in.</p>

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<p>Kluge, I feel your pain. It is ridiculous!</p>

<p>A favor....because I have been confused about something and since you are talking of being in CA and GPA, maybe you can enlighten me. Are the GPA's on CA HS transcripts according to some UC method or each HS on their own has whatever it has? </p>

<p>I know someone from CA. The school profile gives no grading scale. Most school profiles explain if it is a 4.0 scale, etc. It doesn't give grade equivalances, like what constitutes an A, a B, etc. It only gives a grade distribution for the Class of 2005. From THAT, I can see that it must go as high as 4.68 and that they do have both weighted and unweighted grades. Then on the student's transcript, it gives an Academic GPA for grades 9-12, both weighted and unweighted, an Academic GPA for grades 10-12, both weighted and unweighted, and a "Total GPA" for grades 9-12, both weighted and unweighted. This student took NO weighted courses, no Honors, No AP, etc. So, his weighted and unweighted GPAs are the same (THAT I get). The TOTAL GPA AND the Academic GPA for grades 9-12 are about the same, unless you go to the second decimal point. I'm totally baffled by the GPA. The GPA is 2.67 whether academic, total, 10-12 or 9-12. HOWEVER, on most grading scales a 2.67 is about an 82 or B- average. This school, again, gives no grading scale but I mentioned apparently if weighted, you could go as high as 4.68 because it gave a grade distribution for the senior class. Since all kids also get an unweighted GPA, I"m imagining that goes to a 4.0 but could be wrong, it doesn't say, nor grade equivalences. BUT......you knew there was a BUT, right???......I cannot fathom how the student has a 2.67, what I think of as a B- average when he has NEVER gotten above a C in ANY academic class. He has C's, D's and F's. I realize that in Drama or Chorus, he has higher BUT the transcript provides an Academic GPA. Now after reading your post, I'm thinking that Drama and Chorus went into the GPA, even the so called "Academic" one, and maybe that brought the GPA up. Though I have to wonder if COLLEGES will just enter 2.67 into a computer, OR if adcoms/reps will come up with their own Academic GPA that they'd assign him after looking at the actual grades on the transcript, which I like to think colleges really do do! I mean if I were an Adrep/com, I'd look at the academic grades themselves and not the 2.67. He does NOT have a B- average in academic classes (which normally does not include drama and chorus under other systems). Does this GPA sound right to you under the CA way of doing things? I'm wondering if colleges in other states (none of his are in CA) will see it as a 2.67. I can't imagine it but maybe they just look at what is written for the GPA and that's that. I just don't see this as a B- average academically when the student has never attained so much as a B- in an academic course. If you can shed light on this system, by all means, I'm all ears (I mean eyes). </p>

<p>Susan</p>

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<p>jmmom - I am so sorry your son is having to start over with his college search. Losing the Fall Semester of her freshman year was bad enough for my D. Fortunately she is in one of the surviving programs. Best of luck to you and your S!</p>

<p>As far as GPAs go, I see no happy solution to this problem. In one old post, I related the AP Calculus experiences of my D and her cousin. Class grade: D 87, Cousin 96. AP Scores: D 5, Cousin 2. No question about it, the game is out of hand.</p>

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<p>Kluge, I do feel your pain. In fact, let me add some fire to your fuel. I can't understand why a number of schools use unweighted GPAs in admission. Let me use the example of University of Cincinnati, although there are many others.]</p>

<p>University of Cincinnati uses unweighted GPAs. In fact, the way they do it is so outrageous as to make most people shake their head in disbelief. For example, lets take two kids as an example. Child number one has a 3.6 unweighted GPA with no or few honors and no APs. Child number two has an unweighted GPA of 3.45 but with all honors and a number of AP courses. Thus,the weighted version for child 2 might be 4.0 or higher. Child one will be accepted over child 2! This has been the case for their most competitive school: The School of Design, Art, Archtecture and Planning.</p>

<p>Sadly, I have run into this at other schools as well. </p>

<p>When I addressed this to several admission's officers, their responses generally are: " Many schools don't weight the GPA, or if they do, they use differing scales. Thus, we can't recalculate everyone GPA. Using unweighted GPAs is far easier and more practical."</p>

<p>One admission officer candidly noted to me, after we became somewhat friendly, that using unweighted GPA is a form of affirmative action. "AA itself is like the gorilla in the corner: it has lots of legal problems. However, by using unweighted GPA , or even better, class rank in admission, you might get more underrepresented minorities since they may not have access to the same amount of honors and/or AP courses at their high schools."</p>

<p>This whole business of using unweighted GPAs or not giving enough credit to the kids that take a very tough curriculum just burns me up!</p>

<p>Ok I got to vent too. I even feel a bit better.</p>

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<p>I appreciate your vent and desire for a univeral standard. But......my suggestion is to do your best and let the gpa chips fall where they may. And if you are trying to get a handle on were you stand at the more competitive colleges, take out all those fluff courses-gym, chorus, etc.</p>

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<p>Taxguy, it is not exactly the way you put it. MOST colleges will calculate an UNweighted GPA for the applicant because not all schools use weighted systems. For instance, our HS did not while my kids attended. But what colleges DO do, is they examine the strength of the curriculum. They don't look at the GPA in a vacuum. If the student took the most demanding curriculum available, that IS going to matter. If the student has Honors or AP or whatever your school has, it COUNTS. Also realize that kids like mine who took the most demanding courses, also had ranking systems that were not weighted. That's even worse. Your child at least had a rank that used weighting so that will be reflected on her application. But the situation is not quite like you described. Colleges are not just looking at GPA and saying, we'll take the 3.7 over the 3.2 kid, yet the 3.7 took the easiest courses and the 3.2 kid took all Honors and AP courses. The 3.2 kid may still come out as the stronger candidate. So, Cincinatti was correct in saying they use unweighted GPAs since schools have diffent scales so they need one system to go by practically (this is very very common). But your conclusion that they do not give credit to kids taking a tough curriculum is just not so. They DO look at the tough-ness of the curriculum! Also, they are saying they look at rank and apparently your school ranks using a weighted system so your child benefitted that way. At our school someone could have straight As in the easiest classes and be valedictorian! My child had straight As in the most demanding curriculum available but easily could not have been val under our system, though she was, even though rank was not weighted. But the person ranked third who must have had very close to all A's, took NO Honors or AP classes ever. </p>

<p>Susan</p>

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<p>"Yesterday, I picked up some official transcripts from DS' hs. Wasn't I thrilled to see that his former 93.81uw/122w"</p>

<p>I've got to ask this ... what kind of weights does your school attach to classes to be able to earn a 30% boost on the GPA?</p>

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<p>Exactly right, xiggi. Honors = 1.3, AP =1.35. Interesting, huh?* I've seen so many alternatives. I've seen where they add a few points to the numeric grade (much harsher than our system). One that doesn't make sense to me (but which is very common?) is increasing the letter grade up one for Honors or AP. Thus a C becomes a B, a B becomes an A, an A becomes ???? Under this scheme, the C student gets a 50% bump up, the B student gets a 33% bump and the A student gets ??? At least, that's the way it looks to me.</p>

<p>*Our hs is very strong and very proud of no grade inflation and one of those places where a 92=B, so it doesn't seem overly rewarding to me, but I have an obvious vested interest.</p>

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<p>My high school GPA was on a scale of 5.4... Yeah, try to figure that one out.</p>

<p>It's fairly ridiculous.</p>

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<p>TaxGuy, you may want to tell your new friends at the University of Cincinnati to be on the lookout for AA countermeasure for UW GPA's :)</p>

<p>In our Texas' neck of thw woods, it is not unusual to see schools wiich have problems cracking 900 on the old SAT offering 30 to 40 APs. It seems that the two choices for students are remedial or AP! </p>

<p>However, the Holy Grail of GPA shenanigans does not come from our good ol' College Board, but from abroad. The new kid on the block has been spectacurlarly accepted in Texas and Florida: it is the IB program. How wonderful it is to be able to rely on a program that gives a weight to EVERY class in the program! In a state that depends on a program that gives automatic admission to the flagship school to the top 10% of a class, the IB has become the nec plus ultra. It does not stop there: North Carolina has made the transcript of all NC public school standard and made sure that every honor class got a 1 grade boost and all AP classes got a 2 grades boost. Good enough, but ALL classes in the IB program are also considered AP worthy. This means that all classes have a 6.00/4.00 scale. Is a C average really worth an A in some places of the US and a 92/100 worth a B in another? </p>

<p>This brings up a question about how much work a school such as UNC-CH does devote to "correct" the GPA from OOS students to level the playing field?</p>

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<p>xiggi, we cross-posted but you covered part of my point. And what, pray tell, does the A student in an AP class get for her trouble with these one-or-two-grade boosts? I have always wondered that.</p>

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<p>Jmmom, thanks for your reply. I did not mean to put on the spot! </p>

<p>While I understand that students are compared with their peers, I have to wonder how colleges really react to such a number of divergent schemes. I only read about NC standard transcript yesterday by following the featured thread about NC students wanting to drop ranking. I think that this thread should be read and compared to the old one of that Boston School -I think it was Belmont- that sticks to a very tough grading scale and leaves most of its students unable to compete at schools such as Michigan. </p>

<p>On the one hand, we have to trust the colleges for being able to differentiate, but on the other hand, it does not seem that the HS make it very easy on anyone.</p>

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<p>Here are the links:</p>

<p>Casualties of grade inflation: </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=29133&highlight=Belmont%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=29133&highlight=Belmont&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>North Carolina: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=122918%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=122918&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>For further reading on NC standard transcript, just google the terms and you'll find the details of the weights.</p>

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<p>MOST colleges will calculate an UNweighted GPA for the applicant because not all schools use weighted systems. >></p>

<p>If you don't ask, you would think this is true. But I have found an amazingly broad difference among how colleges calculate GPAs for admissions decisions. Unfortunately, my beef isn't that they use different GPA calculations - it's that so many colleges are not immediately forthcoming and direct about telling you HOW they calculate their admissions GPA. </p>

<p>It drives me crazy to read or be told that College A acceptees have a median GPA of 3.7 and College B acceptees have a median GPA of 3.4, only to discover, when I ask the school directly, that College A uses whatever the GPA listed on the high school transcript is while college B recalculates all GPAs using a 4.0 scale and only includes core academic classes. In short, it is not enough to assume that a school uses an unweighted GPA, or will consider all of your grades in all classes...you need to ask. This is especially true if you're looking for merit scholarships, as I have seen more than a few schools use a different scale for merit scholarship consideration than they do for admissions decisions.</p>

<p>The bottomline: anyone who is just beginning to look at colleges needs to specifically ASK how each school computes their median GPA...because you can easily fall into a trap of false security, or dismiss some colleges as reaches, without the answer to this question.</p>

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<p>Taxguy, I hear your vent and sympathize, but you need to hear mine as well. The adcom was correct in that some schools don't weight, even though they have a robust AP and Honors curriculum. So taking your example, what if Student A and Student B take the exact same courses at two different schools. They both have unweighted GPAs of 3.45, but student A has a weighted GPA of 4.5, while Student B goes to a school that doesn't weight. You want the colleges to focus on weighted GPAs -- so Student A looks better on paper. But why? </p>

<p>And it's also the case that some schools give really ridiculous weight (overweight) to AP. A bump might be appropriate but a giant leap isn't </p>

<p>Ditto jmmom on 0-100 pain.</p>

<p>Edit: Boy, I get a little delayed in sending my message and 6 messages jump in front of me saying the same thing (and much better)</p>

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<p>soozievt notes, "Taxguy, it is not exactly the way you put it."</p>

<p>Response: "OH Contrare!" Cincinnati, noted exactly what I stated. For early admission, you needed either top 10% or class or 3.75 UNWEIGHTED GPA for the DAAP school, although I did see some kids get early acceptance with a 3.66 unweighted GPA. </p>

<p>We met one parent whose son got accepted with the 3.66 GPA and had a lower weighted GPA than my daughter's, yet he got into Cincinnati from our high school and my daughter didn't get accepted via early acceptance since her unweighted GPA was 3.45. I am not kidding either.</p>

<p>We met the RISD representative who also noted that they use unweighted GPA but gives a measly .2 boost for mostly honors. Thus, a 3.4 unweighted with all honors or AP would = 3.6 unweighted with few honors. This many seem to give credit for the toughness of the curriculum,but it clearly don't go far enough considering how much tougher the honors and AP courses are.</p>

<p>I could go on and on. I can only say that this seems to be happening more than I would like. I would agree, however, that it isn't used everywhere, especially in the top ivy schools. However, it is used more than you would think.</p>

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<p>I agree with Taxguy - I have also seen this same phenomena at many schools...but again, often it is not immediately apparent unless you specifically ask the question. As Taxguy points out, you even have to ask about the specific program at some schools. And, as I said, don't assume that the "minimum" GPA listed in information about merit scholarships is based on the same GPA scale as the one used for admissions; It very often isn't.</p>

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<p>soozievt, it sounds like you're looking at a transcript that looks somewhat like the one my kids' school gives out. To answer your question, the University of California has 7 categories of prerequisite courses which must be completed in high school (called the "a-g" categories.) One of those categories is "visual and performing arts", and 2 semesters of it are required. This is kind of a good thing, in that it encourages students to try their hand at something outside of the usual academic classroom. But the result is that all art and performance classes are now classified as "academic" for UC, so they get thrown into the academic GPA. And since UC is the big dog here in California, I'd expect that your average high school would calculate the "academic" GPA the way UC does. So a transcript heavy on chorus, band, theater, and/or art classes will be affected by that in the GPA calculation.</p>

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<p>Kluge,
Just wanted to make a slight correction - ALL art and music classes are not accepted by the UC's. The UC's are in fact very picky about which art, music and drama classes they will count towards that visual and performing art requirement, and, at many schools, band and chorus don't automatically count. They have to be "UC approved." The UC system does have a searchable website of which courses are already approved at individual schools.</p>