Weighted GPA

<p>What is the standard way of calculating a weighted GPA?
What would a B in an AP class be weighted? How about honors?
Thanks</p>

<p>Our area schools do the following: an A in a class would be</p>

<p>Regular class 4.0
Honors 4.5
AP 5.0</p>

<p>Every school has a different formula for calculating a weighted average. Some don't do it at all. Son's private school has no weighted averages.</p>

<p>our HS gives a full point for AP courses and UC-approved honors courses; we're on a 4.0 scale.</p>

<p>Also in CA and we do the same but lots of colleges unweight your grades. That means you still have to take APs and Honors, as the colleges ask the guidance counselor if you are taking the toughest courses offered, but they unweight them all. Even the UCs do this. George Washington also unweights. It evens the scale since everybody weights differently. Many schools also look at class rank. They want you to be in the top 10%. In the UC system you can get special preference if you are in the top 4%.</p>

<p>ebeee:</p>

<p>that is incorrect. The "UC-gpa" used for admissions is a WEIGHTED formula and automatically calculated when you enter your courses on the online app. The UCs do NOT use class rank for general admissions (less than half of California public high schools rank students), unless it is elc (top 4% as defined by UC calculations) for the elc-guarantee campuses, which last year were Irvine, Riverside, Santa Barbara and Merced.</p>

<p>Well, UC actually uses more than one "GPA". The standard "UC GPA" is weighted for up to a maximum of 8 semesters, with all AP, IB and college courses weighted, as well as "UC Approved" honors courses. But UC uses unlimited weighting for their ELC calculation and other statistics. Confused? I figured out last fall that there were at least 6 or 7 different "GPA"s for my son. UC weighted, unweighted, weighting only AP, IB & college, academic, total, all years, Soph/Junior only - probably more variables.</p>

<p>Sheesh! Bottom line: There is no "standard"</p>

<p>Our HS does NOT weight at all. At first this bothered me, as my son took Honors & APs, but I now know that colleges use UNWEIGHTED GPAs and look to see what level courses were taken. </p>

<p>It seems from the posts that schools that weight have their own method of weighting, which would make it "unscientific" to compare from one school to another.</p>

<p>momoftwo:</p>

<p>there are plenty of colleges that do use weighted grades -- under their own formula. For example, the Univ of Miami website proudly proclaims that its matriculants have a 4.0....obviously, a weighted stat. We visited other info sessions last year where the Dean of Admissions would say that they recalculated HS transcripts and weighted them appropriately.</p>

<p>Some colleges use whatever GPA the school provides. We have been told that the high school 'knows' how to value its courses and that is what it (the college) uses. Additionally, we have been told that 'the college' does not view (or rank) one high school better than another. Unfortunately, my S's school does not weight honors or AP courses (since it is an all honors magnet hs- one of Newsweek's 'Public Elites'), nor does it rank. This has proven to be a disadvantage in the admissions process at some colleges.</p>

<p>My S took mostly honors and AP classes, finishing AP Calc BC his sophomore year, and received no differential in GPA from those who did not. I spoke to some admissions folks about that and they said the same thing, "We can read a transcript." Meaning they take note of the difficulty of the curriculum. I was told they expect the student to take the most challenging courses offered at the school, if the school doesn't offer them that's okay, but if it does and the student doesn't take them, they can tell. (An aside: Once my S applied to college, he spent the last half of his senior year taking art, photography, and philosophy courses that were not AP or honors. He said they were perhaps the best courses he had taken in high school, and wished he could have taken more.)</p>

<p>A school that receives 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 or more applications does not necessarily take the time to look at all the transcripts and read the school profiles, nor does it know what every particular school offers in terms of challenging (honors, AP and IB) courses. It does not have the time or the manpower to 'weight' or 'unweight' a transcript. To even attempt to do so would take forever. They simply use a formula (GPA reported by school, SAT scores and maybe some ECs) to determine if they want to accept an applicant. Of course, smaller schools that receive only a few thousand applications will most likely take more time reviewing applications and transcripts. However, they too, most likely have a quick review process that categorizes applications into very likely, maybe, and no way. The 'very likely' applications get the best review, followed by the 'maybes', and the 'no ways' might not even get a look.</p>

<p>I will admit that this may not be a completely accurate for all schools. It was just what we experienced going through the process and asking a lot of questions.</p>

<p>There is no standard. I don't like our school's standard which weights AP and honors courses exactly the same.</p>

<p>They also do something funky which ups nearly everyones weighted GPA.</p>

<p>Slow track is weight 1.0
Normal couses are weighted 1.05
Honors and AP weight 1.1</p>

<p>We have a 100 point system. So a 90 in an AP course becomes a 99 weighted. The transcript lists unweighted grades and then unweighted and weighted GPAs and the explanation as to how the weighting is done.</p>

<p>My son has a tendency to say his 80-something scores in English are really 90s, but the fact is colleges see those 80s on his transcript - the 90 only gets figured into the weight GPA which then has a bearing on his class rank.</p>

<p>When we visted colleges last year, they all said UNweighted GPA. Our school doesn't weight, so I was concerned my S would be at a disadvantage. Maybe different tiers handle it differently. </p>

<p>I also question how they have the time to do all those recalculations!! I have a friend who is an admissions officer at a school that receives 30,000 apps. If I find out the answer, I'll post it.</p>