<p>At our school they use weighted averages only for class rank. The school profile clearly spells out which courses are weighed, etc. One important aspect of the school profile is to list all advanced courses (AP, honors, IB, etc.) so the adcoms can determine the degree of “rigor” that the applicant chose.</p>
<p>I would just suggest that if a college says it “recalculates” GPA, that doesn’t necessarily mean somebody is actually inputting data into a computer. It just might mean that they take a look (perhaps just in some holistic way) at what the GPA actually means for each student. I agree that it would be monstrously difficult to figure out how to recalculate GPA. Do you include Economics? What about Anthropology? IB Music? AP Music? What about Creative Writing?</p>
<p>For me, a 4.0 is all A’s, 96-100.(No credit for A+ or Honors/AP). This is actually easier than my freshman year, when all the teachers had their own scales–to get an A in Pacific NW history, I had to get higher than a 98. Because of this, our GPAs on average are much lower than other local schools (we’re a small Christian school that has great academics but is not obsessed with selective colleges). My GC sends a letter with all transcripts explaining that our valedictorians average a 3.85 GPA, so someone’s 3.7 is very good. (We’ve only had 2 students graduate with 4.0’s in 59 years–myself this year and someone 12 years ago)</p>
<p>It hasn’t seemed to hurt us admissions-wise–there was a big hoopla about the state flagship accepting OOS over instate valedvictorians, but all four “middle of the pack” applicants from our school were accepted.</p>
<p>Schmaltz, I think the next level down schools care about honors and APs too. At least, I think my younger son (now at Tufts) was forgiven his B’s because they were in demanding courses. (AP Physics C for example.)</p>
<p>Schools ranked between 15 and 45 by USNews are quite selective and do, in our touring/application experience anyway, expect that students have taken challenging courseloads, including honors and APs. Schmaltz, I don’t know if this has come up previously in the thread, but if your hs has Naviance, you can see how past students with GPAs similar to those of your kids have fared at individual schools. Since you wonder about the URM factor, your GC might also be able to give you an idea of how similar URM students have fared in the past.</p>
<p>Our hs did not weight and it sends approximately 15 percent of the graduating class each year to the top USNews 50 schools, and usually sends a dozen or so to HYPS. The school has a strong reputation for preparing students well, and I think that adcoms do indeed perform some mental calibration of the unweighted GPA in light of the number of APs, honors, dual enrollment classes, etc.</p>
<p>I’m thinking that any selective school is going to be more interested in kids who’ve taken honors and AP’s, at least in their areas of primary interest. Otherwise, they either A) aren’t interested in the challenge, or B) aren’t ready for the challenge. At D’s school there are a few kids who take AP/honors across the board, and many who take AP and honors math/sci, or AP and honors in social science/language. All of these kids will apply to selective schools–Tufts, Wake Forest, Michigan, BU, etc…the kids who don’t take any honors or APs, though they may have an “A” average, will go to state schools for the most part.</p>