<p>Ten years ago 95 % of the high schools in the country used the same grading scale where an A=4 and B=3. When someone said they had a 3.85 GPA that was excellent. Today there are more grading scales than cuts of lunch meat at a deli. Some schools use a weighted GPA system for students that take advanced/AP classes. The weighted GPA system varies from one school to the next.</p>
<p>Can we get a reply to the following?
1. Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. Yes
2. What is an A regular class A compared to an A in an AP class?
a. 4.0/4.5
3. What system do you like for the weighted grade?
a. The 4/4.5 system.</p>
<ol>
<li>Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. Yes</li>
<li>What is an A regular class A compared to an A in an AP class?
a. umm…it depends. Our school weights by %. So, if you get a 90% in a regular class, it is counted into your GPA as a 90%. If you get a 90% in an AP class, they add ten percent of your grade(so .10x90=9+90=99%) and count that into your GPA. So, there is more credit for a higher grade in an AP class. Our GPA is on the 100 system, which I really like. </li>
<li>What system do you like for the weighted grade?
a. Our system. If you don’t get at least a 70% in an AP clas, you get no extra credit. Plus, it doesn’t overinflate GPAs as bad as some systems(our highest GPA I think is a 104%, but that’s super rare)</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. Yes</li>
<li>What is an A regular class A compared to an A in an AP class?
a. 4.0/5.0</li>
<li>What system do you like for the weighted grade?
None</li>
</ol>
<p>Most colleges said that they look at many factors such as unweighted gpa, weighted gpa, course rigor, class rank to get a more complete picture since it is so difficult to compare apple to apple nowadays. Some colleges such as the UCs re-calculate gpa their own way to normalize it.</p>
<ol>
<li> Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. Yes</li>
<li> What is an A regular class A compared to an A in an AP class?
a. 4.0/5.0 (honors classes are weighted the same as AP)</li>
<li> What system do you like for the weighted grade?
a. I don’t like weighting too much. It would be hard for my school to create different weights for AP and honors classes because there are some extremely rigorous honors classes. My school doesn’t rank, so having GPA weighting does not have much practical use.</li>
</ol>
<p>Our school district went through a very heated battle last year over the grade scale and weighting last year. Thankfully my then Senior was not affected (the proposed changes would have raised her GPA, but I thought it was all nonsense). I’ll be curious to know whether anyone was helped by this in college admissions.</p>
<ol>
<li> Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. No</li>
<li> What is an A regular class A compared to an A in an AP class?
a. School does not give letter grades, but rather grades on a 0-6 scale. A 6 in a regular class is the same as a 6 in an AP (or higher) class.</li>
<li> What system do you like for the weighted grade?
a. I don’t support a weighted grade system, as it’s easier to game for rank. I believe that high schools should provide colleges with a list of their advanced (what might be weighted) classes, since the colleges are quite capable of seeing the difference between a 4.0 with easy classes and a 3.9-4.0 with harder classes.</li>
</ol>
Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. Yes
What is an A regular class A compared to an A in an AP class?
a. 95-100 is an A+, 90-94 is an A. There are no A-'s. Grades aren’t ever reported weighted, but there is a weighted GPA. For a regular class the weighted grade will be calculated as 94.5-98.7 for an A-, and 98.8-105 for an A+. For an AP or honor class the weighted grade will be 99-103.4 for an A- and 103.5-110 for an A+. You might ask why regular classes are weighted. That’s because there is a category of extra slow classes that are never weighted. I think this is pretty silly, but it serves to make nearly everyone’s weighted GPA look better than it would at other schools. Of course they’d look even better if they reported the weighted grades for the individual courses.
What system do you like for the weighted grade?
a. I don’t have a strong preference. I think it’s good for ranking to be be based on some sort of weighting. I’d prefer it if our AP courses were weighted more than the honors courses, but it’s not a big deal and honestly many honors courses were as much or more work than the AP courses. Only academic classes count for the ranking. I’ve never heard of anyone gaming the system.</p>
<ol>
<li>Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. No. Pluses and minuses worth 4.0, 3.0 etc.</li>
<li>What is a regular class A compared to an A in an honors or AP class?
a. 4.0/4.0</li>
<li>What system do you like for the weighted grade?
a. Prefer unweighted. There is a minimum of 18 honors or AP semesters to get an honors diploma and to be val/sal.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Yes</li>
<li>Weighted A is 4.5, regular A is 4.0 APs are weighted, as are post-AP courses (multivariable calc, Advanced Topics in CS), as well as the year leading to the AP.</li>
<li>We don’t have a Val/Sal or even top 10, so I don’t think the “gaming” goes on that did in the past. It is sort of unfair that post-APs are weighted and for instance NO Band or Choir class is, no matter how advanced the student is in music, but I think at that point musical ability outweighs “grades” anyway.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. Yes</li>
<li>What is an A regular class A compared to an A in an AP class?
a. 4.0/5.0 (4.5 for honors)</li>
<li>What system do you like for the weighted grade?
a. The 4.0/4.5/5.0 system. </li>
</ol>
<p>I think the kids that take the harder classes should get a grade boost. We have grade and work pre-rec’s for all AP’s and most honors. No grade boost for under a C in either honors or Ap’s.</p>
<ol>
<li>Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. No</li>
<li>What is an A regular class A compared to an A in an AP class?
a. 4.0 for regular/4.0 for AP</li>
<li>What system do you like for the weighted grade?
a. unweighted, until the concept of weighting is normalized across systems I do not support weighting.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. Yes</p></li>
<li><p>What is an A regular class A compared to an A in an AP class?
a. Depends; 91-100 are A’s but see below for the chart:
Letter Numeric Gr Pts Weighted Pt
Grade Value Regular Honors AP
A 97-100 4.0 4.5 5.0
A 94 - 96 3.7 4.2 4.7
A 91 - 93 3.5 4.0 4.5
Similar splits for B’s & C’s.
In addition, 3 points are added to end of marking period grades for honors classes and 5 pts are added to end of marking period grades for AP classes. So a 91 stays a 91 in a regular class; bumps to a 94 for an honors class & 96 for an AP class. </p></li>
<li><p>What system do you like for the weighted grade?
a. I like the weighted system since the kids who choose to take the honors & AP route have a lot more work to do than the kids who take the regular route (and my kids have taken regular level classes in some subjects, so I don’t begrudge the lack of bump then.) I think having both the point bump & GPA bump is overkill though.</p></li>
</ol>
Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. Yes
What is an A regular class A compared to an A in an AP class?
a. 4.0/5.0
What system do you like for the weighted grade?
a. None at all</p>
<p>Because every year, when I look at the transcripts of the incoming freshman, I find nothing but chaos! Weighted GPAs are useful ONLY at the high school from which the student graduated. Why? Because there’s no uniformity between schools. The district my kids are in weights AP on a 5.0 scale. However, only 9 AP courses are offered, and most of them are in social studies. Three dual credit courses also get that scale (Calc, Phys II, Anatomy). So, my kids’ high school weights 12 courses. The district across the river weights at least double that many, and many posters here on CC are going to tell you that “honors” courses get weighted where they’re from. That would further increase the number of weighted courses. Essentially, a weighted GPA is useful for determining class rank. It is a meaningless number outside of that. </p>
<p>You’ll also find a number of students who report an unweighted GPA of over 4.0. Well, then they fail to mention that their scale is really 4.33 rather than 4.0 (or 4.5, depending on how the school figures in an A+). </p>
<p>I hate using ACT to compare kids because it’s one day’s test. However, at least I know that number means the same thing for every kid who took it, no matter what high school he or she is from.</p>
<ol>
<li>Yes</li>
<li>We have 3 levels of classes: Honors and AP are worth the same then there’s A and R classes:
Grade R A H/AP
90-100 5 6 7
80-89 4 5 6
70-79 3 4 5
60-69 2 3 4</li>
<li>This system is fine because to be valedictorian you have to take all honors and get a’s (giving a 7.0) but you don’t have the competitiveness of single percentage points. Kids would get annoyed if it was based on percentage points because different teachers grade their classes differently.</li>
</ol>
<p>No weighting
94 is the highest gpa anyone has had at the school (in last 20 years)
Not sure what a’s & b’s are
No ranking
Pretty much makes is difficult for kids who are looking for merit & other honors.
I would prefer an extra point for AP and a 1/2 point for Honors and a fair conversion to the 4.0 scale. Not the College Board where an 82 is a 2.75!</p>
Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. Yes</p>
<p>2. What is an A regular class A compared to an A in an AP class?
a. 4.0/6.0 NC uses a 7 point scale. As are from 93 - 100, Bs are from 85 - 92, and so on</p>
<p>3. What system do you like for the weighted grade?
a. I think the 4.0/4.5 system is good. The current system in NC inflates grades, hinders those who take non-weighted courses, and is easy to manipulate.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. Yes</p></li>
<li><p>What is an A regular class A compared to an A in an AP class?
Regular A=4.0, B=3.0, C=2.0 etc.
Honors multiply by 1.1, so A=4.4, B=3.3
AP multiply by 1.2, so A=4.8, B=3.6, …
AP exams are optional, and there is no benefit/disadvantage from the standpoint of HS GPA.</p></li>
<li><p>What system do you like for the weighted grade?
Don’t see a problem with what we have here, but if there’s any standardization across the state or country, it would help, as long as they do some weighting.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Edit: Just read colorado_mom’s post after mine and have to agree with her comment on how unweighted electives hurt. Especially when the student wants to take a particular course but realizes that even an A is bad for his/her overall GPA.</p>
<ol>
<li>Does your school have a weighted GPA system?
a. Yes. pre-ib A=4.5; IB/AP A=5.0 .</li>
<li>What is a regular class A compared to an A in an honors or AP class?
a. 4.0/4.0</li>
<li>What system do you like for the weighted grade?
a. Hard to say<br></li>
</ol>
<p>Weighted is good because students taking challenging courses get credit for it. The problem is that top students can get dinged for taking more unweighted electives (music, drama, journalism, driver ed, … or even the Business class my son was put into when study halls were full). The 4.0 unweighted A brings down the weighted gpa.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that there is really no system that is totally fair for comparing students within a school and students from different schools. This would hurt the most where school acceptances and scholarships are totally stats driven. Not as harmful if there is holostic approach looking at the transcript.</p>
<p>Here at a public high school in NJ / suburban NYC they use the following weighting system:</p>
<p>A in regular class = 4.3
A in honors or AP = 5.0</p>
<p>Grading seems to be fairly tough. For the class of 2009 the highest GPA was 4.67, with the top ~5% with a GPA of 4.3 or higher.</p>
<p>Since the selective colleges do their own weighting, I don’t have a strong opinion on weighting systems. I’m glad there is some weighting, so that the kids taking a challenging course schedule have a chance to be highly ranked (though the school doesn’t officially rank, it does provide a histogram to the colleges so they can see pretty much where any applicant stands rank-wise).</p>
<p>At our previous school which did not weight grades, the 4.0 students who had the highest class rank often didn’t take very many honors / AP classes.</p>