My high school only uses GPA, but I heard that some private universities (like the Ivys) will recalculate it into a weighted GPA. Do the Ivy’s use weighted or unweighted GPA? Also, would classes such as physical fitness or student clerk be included in the GPA calculation?
Thanks in advance!
For most schools, you just submit your transcript and self report your GPA accordingly and specify if it is weighted or not. The admission office would recalculate the GPA they want. For some schools, they will give you the instruction on the recalculation. Otherwise, you need to worry about it.
I hear that Ivy’s tend to unweight GPA, but also noting the rigor of your course. Taking the most rigorous course is more or less mandatory for Ivy’s, so I don’t think that they will care too much for weighting, instead, they will just through out your application if you took easy courses, even if you have a 4.0
In general, colleges that re-calculate GPAs go from weighted -> unweighted and/or recalculate based on ‘core’ academic classes only. Unweighted is the basic unit of measure (many schools do not weight, and there is a lot of variation in the ways that schools weight). Afaik, any GPA that counts towards admission is either that provided by your school (ie, not your self-reported GPA) or through their re-calculation based on your official transcript.
Note that there is no standard in wGPA. So it is not as easy to interpret as wGPA and likely needs to be recalculated.
The main thing that counts isn’t the actual GPA number (4.7, 4.0, 96.2, etc.) but rather what grades you earned in the classes you took. This is because different schools use different scales and different weighting systems. If you have all or mostly As in the hardest classes your school has, you are in good shape for Ivy’s as far as grades go, regardless of what your GPA is.
What about CC courses? If the school does not provide many courses in my subject of interest, would it be good if I take CC courses on those subjects (my actual course load is not as heavy, so that was another concern.)?
The value of college courses taken while in high school varies depending on the college being applied to, and which college courses you take.
If you later plan to apply to professional school like law or medical school, be aware that college courses taken while in high school and the grades earned in them do count for such applications.
Also, if my school claims not to weight honors courses (the courses that are honors but not AP like Precalculus Honors), would the college use the courses to recalculate the GPA to weight the honors or would they just use the GPA followed by the school policy? The list with all the UC-accepted honors courses offered at my school include the honors courses though, so I’m a bit confused.
Don’t count on tippy top privates recalculating anything. Not at all. They aren’t admitting by gpa, certainly not some schmancy formuls to add, delete or change color, lol… They can look at the transcript and in less time see courses, rigor, grades.
You and your GC report gpa as your school calculates it.
Some publics do recalculate.
The super-selective schools do not need to do any recalculation, because they just need to look to see if (a) the applicant took a most demanding selection of courses, and (b) earned all or almost all A grades in them to see if the student is academically competitive at those schools. Obviously, this is necessary, but nowhere near sufficient, for admission to those schools.
But other schools are more likely to do recalculation, since they have more variation in competitive applicants’ academic credentials than the super-selective schools have.
^ Not sure how you define super-selective. UCs including Berkeley use ucGPA and UMich recalculate GPA too.
@preciouscanoe: If you are applying to the UC’s and you are a California HS student, you can look up which HS designated Honors courses are actually approved by the UC’s for that extra GPA bump on this website.
Just type in the name of the school and next to each course there should be a “Star- with UC approved”.
https://hs-articulation.ucop.edu/agcourselist#/list/search/institution
Wait so for privates they would just look at rigor and not recalculate, UC they would recalculate based on their list of uc-approved honors courses, UMich would recalculate? Correct me if I’m wrong…thanks!! 
Not just rigor. Also grades. Think about what we’re saying and the diff between UC and top privates. Your whole will matter. Make sure you know where you match and why. Do your best on the apps and supps. After that, no one can control final admits. So be realistic about safeties.