<p>Do top tier schools really care about weighted GPA. More so than unweighted?</p>
<p>Both are taken into account. UW GPA provides your raw grades, regardless of the difficulty of the curriculum, which is important to colleges who want to predict your GPA at their institution, where the curriculum will be difficult. W GPA puts your grades into context, allowing them to account for a particularly difficult curriculum. Both matter.</p>
<p>^ Sort of. It’s not really your GPA, weighted or unweighted, that matters; it’s the grades and course rigor that the GPA indicates. Your transcript is what matters directly.</p>
<p>Naturally. However, the GPA is an important thing that is derived from the transcript. Of course the transcript itself is most important, and if your worst grades were, say, PE, then your GPA would look worse than your transcript. However, I was comparing the two GPAs, per the OP’s question.</p>
<p>They both <em>matter</em>, but different schools have different grading scales and weights. Class rank will put your GPA in context. A decent UW GPA with a high rank indicates a tough grading system or tough school in general, whereas a 4.0 UW with an relatively average rank indicates an easier grading system.</p>
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<p>Yes, which was your error. Both GPA’s are not really “taken into account” as you described.</p>
<p>What BillyMc described (i.e., using weighted and unweighted GPA’s to get an idea of how the transcript looks) is good for chancing people, but it’s not what admissions officers do, because they have the transcript.</p>
<p>^^ Really, now? Can you show evidence for this? I was under the impression that college admissions officers will look at and consider both GPAs. Certainly the transcript is most important, but the GPA is requested, is it not? It’s an already quantified measure to show admissions officers the average grades.</p>
<p>^ Heyyy. I resent being compared to Chancing threads. But if I’m wrong, and GPA has 0 bearing, I apologize.</p>
<p>^^Actually, sometimes they are. Schools do not completely disregard the GPAs that your school reports to colleges; in fact, the GPA given coupled with overall class data may provide a more accurate account of how that student has fared in his or her class rather than just aggregating data from transcripts.</p>
<p>^ Class rank is certainly used. What do you mean by “aggregating data from transcripts”?</p>
<p>I’ve heard this question (weighted vs. unweighted GPA’s) posed dozens of times to admissions officers, and the answer is always We look at the transcript.</p>
<p>In any case, what grades you got and in what classes you got them are what matter (as well as what those grades mean in the context of your school, which class rank can indicate).</p>
<p>^^Class Rank does not always provide the complete picture that colleges want. I know for a fact that my school sends out a profile that contains the highest GPA of the class, average GPA, etc. that is used in conjunction with unweighted and weighted GPAs that students report on their app. And by aggregating data from transcripts I simply meant the practice by which colleges use transcripts to determine admissions.</p>
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<p>Yes, I know. Such information can be used for context; but in consideration of an individual’s merits, the transcript is what matters. GPA comparisons are indeed good ways of providing context, though.</p>
<p>Hm, alright. Obviously, I knew they looked at transcripts, but I figured GPA was given a glance, too. Then again, “A, A, B, C” would be the same GPA as “B, B, B, A”, and I’m sure that those transcripts would be treated differently (particularly depending on what classes have what grade), so I see what you mean. I suppose what the OP meant by “top-tier” also matters, as I’ve seen schools where certain GPAs are required for scholarships, or even a couple with equations (GPA and SAT) to get how much scholarship money you will receive. If, however, “top-tier” means the “top 25” (or would if there was a legitimate ranking system), then I can’t think of any with formulas like that, involving GPA.</p>
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<p>Yes, the situation is different at non-holistically-reviewing schools.</p>
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<p>They are given a glance if only to provide an easily conveyable quantitative manifestation of the transcript.</p>
<p>I don’t deny the importance of the transcript itself. But assuming that colleges disregard GPA in its entirety is not exactly the most logical assumption.</p>
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<p>Yes, I don’t think that it’s a non-factor in most cases. There are some admissions officers who will say that they don’t look at GPA at all, but I find this hard to believe. But again, it’s just an imprecise way of representing what is really most important.</p>
<p>Wait, if schools send out profiles of just highest GPA in class, how would the colleges know that the highest GPA wasn’t merely because of taking easy classes? </p>
<p>I mean i have a lower UW Academic GPA (im pretty sure that top-tier colleges look at academic UW GPA so im gonna say UW ACADEMIC GPA) than one of the ppl in my class but his schedule is filled with all normal classes; in other words, he took ZERO AP classes but he has a 4.0. I took 6 AP’s and i have a 3.91 academic GPA.
Would the colleges then look at rank? (mine is higher)</p>
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That was my point when I said that the GPA would be used to convey the average grade of the transcript. Though I did also agree that this can be misleading (“A, A, B, C” = “B, B, B, A” in GPA). I do not expect college admissions officers to absorb the raw data and comprehend everything in context to every other applicant. Therefore, when comparing to other applicants, instead of staring at transcripts side-by-side, the GPA is an easily used (if somewhat flawed) device. Fundamentally, I agree with you that the transcript trumps all forms of GPA in importance, by a large margin, as the GPA is simply derived from the transcript in a simplified manner, but I still think that it is used to look at average grade level and in comparison.</p>
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Ah, I thought you were saying that GPA was not used at all, or even acknowledged, when the transcript was present.</p>
<p>Wow I posted this like half an hour ago. Thanks for all the adcice guys.</p>