My high school reports unweighted GPA, which is capped at 4.0 and does not consider the rigor of the classes taken. However, a confusing point was the difference between an A and an A- on the transcript. All of the teachers and administrators at my high school claim that there is no difference between an A and an A-, and that an A- is also reported as 4.0 GPA in the unweighted scale. However, online unweighted GPA calculators translate an A- into 3.7 GPA. Can anyone with knowledge of this tell me the difference between an A and an A-, and do colleges look at the + or - on the letter grade? I have also heard that colleges take the grades and use their own system to weigh the GPA, can anyone confirm that rumor? I am talking about elite colleges like Harvard, Stanford, and other Ivy League schools. This is a very important point of clarification.
Some colleges do, some colleges don’t. Most won’t tell you their policies. Since their is nothing you can do about it, file it under “It is what it is.”
Colleges obviously know that an A is better than an A-, regardless of the point value assigned.
In my school many kept perfect unweighted 4.0 by picking regular courses, being office aid or taking easy AP courses while none of the top 20 kids had unweighted above 3.9 because we took challenging AP classes and tough teachers instead of taking the easy route. No school held it against us. All of those perfect 4.0s ended up in state schools while not so perfect ones got accepted in highly selective colleges.
I think colleges look at both GPA and course rigor. They won’t treat an A in Algebra I or culinary arts as an equal to a B in Calculus BC or AP Biology.
GPA scale and curve are always school dependent and course dependent. Adcom would not just look at the face value but in the context of your school and class taken regardless of weighted or unweighted GPA reported.
Don’t worry about how GPA is calculated at your HS.
–First it is out of your control.
–Second the grading system as well as the different levels of courses offered will be explained in the HS profile which is sent with the transcript so your grades will be reviewed in the proper context.
–Third Many colleges recalculate GPA based on their own criteria.
Our educational system is so rigged , students with easy courses can have a perfect GPA while ones who challenge themselves and pick challenging courses or teachers get penalized for it. Some teachers or even whole high schools inflated GPA while others have no regard for GPA, that gives some students an artificial boost.
Adcoms have limited time to spend on each applicant so unless you are lucky, they won’t do any indepth research and in some cases they don’t have enough info. One of our Spanish teachers sucked and he never gave more than 90 to anyone, other teacher gave away free 100’s and taught well, students who had bad one were clearly disadvantaged GPA and rank wise.
The effect of one class, particularly if the grade were a 90 vs. 100, on a 4 year GPA is infinitesimal. If a student did not get into his/her top choice school, I can almost guarantee you that it was not because of a 90 in Spanish. In fact, I’d wager that the particular student took no ownership of his/her learning and blamed the 90 on a teacher who “sucked.”
I would disagree with @"Yalie 2011 My understanding is that at least most colleges admissions officers do pay attention to things like course rigor. Every year on CC there are stories about valedictorians with a perfect GPA but who took less challenging classes not being admitted to top schools while a somewhat lower ranked (outstanding) student who took a much higher level of course rigor does get in. Of course I can’t speak for every school out there but the adcoms I know and have spoken to at a number of schools do have limited time for each application, but there is enough time to quickly assess things like course rigor and the level of grade inflation in the HS – no in-depth research is needed as these are spelled out on the school profile attached to the transcript.
Agree that there is always that impossible or that easy teacher – but one class does not make or break a GPA and tend to pretty much balance out over the course of a HS career. Those types of variables exist throughout life (a tough college prof., a tough boss at work etc.).