<p>Our high school does not weight grades, nor does it officially rank. But they do declare a val, and I think that is completely bogus. A few years ago, the kid named val had never taken a single honors or AP course. (As I am fond of saying, that will be fair 'round about the time the kid who wins the “scholar athlete” award has never been on a varsity team. Which will happen when Hell freezes over.) </p>
<p>Another thing is that it is quite possible for colleges to estimate class rank at our school by looking at the GPA distribution on the School Profile information. The problem with that is that it refers to last year’s graduating class, which can be very different in terms of achievement and size. And, of course, since the grades are unweighted, the comparison is essentially meaningless. But I bet they look. The kids who really get it in the neck are those with a tough course load but a B or B+ average, because they will not be in the top 10th. </p>
<p>At our HS, the truism that it is best to get an A in AP classes for college admissions definitely applies, because there isn’t going to be any weighting to pull your B up to an A.</p>
<p>Some posters on this thread have said that all schools worth worrying about recalculate the GPA anyway. That is not true, unfortunately. Yale, just to name one, does not. So if your school counts gym grades as equivalent to grades in AP Calculus, that’s too bad for you.</p>
<p>I’ve always been in favor of weighting, but some of the horror stories told here give me pause. Obviously, there are kinks that need to be worked out.</p>