<p>TheGFG, don’t get too worried. The colleges–especially the more selective privates–put a huge amount of weight on the rigor of classes taken. For those in your D’s school who are getting A’s in less rigorous classes, it will not be looked upon with favor by adcoms. While they may take too many top HS awards from kids working away in much harder classes, the college acceptances will be a surprise to some of those award winners.</p>
<p>Each college will recalibrate the GPA (Stanford, for example, doesn’t count 9th grade grades), some eliminate PE grades and some light electives. They will literally take a students grades and plug them into their own formula, paying no attention to whatever the HS reports–since all those high schools have differing methods of computation anyway. Your D’s GC will make a box for the level of rigor of your D’s classes, but on top of that adcoms look at the total number of IB/AP courses taken and even (if provided) the scores on AP exams, which may be self-reported. There is also the opportunity for a student to write an essay or short answer that reflects their decision to challenge themselves with harder classes and risk GPA in a school where many take the easier road… On top of that, you D will make an impression on the sort of AP teachers who can write a meaningful letter of rec, reinforcing her academic passions. The holistic method of reading applications really means that the GPA and test score are taken in context. So all the pieces of the application must sort of add up to the same message–a student who is excited about learning rather than just earning and easy A.</p>
<p>In my S’s HS, kids with 3.6 UW and up got into astonishingly good colleges (whose reported avg GPAs were much higher). These colleges probably weight those many AP classes so their GPAs shot up when compared to others with lighter schedules. It seemed the quality of the school and the rigor of the courses were, indeed, taken into consideration.</p>
<p>One GPA fact we would have appreciated knowing earlier on is that most, if not all, UC (UCLA. Cal, UCSD, UCSB) only give “weighted credit” for 8 smesters of Honors classes (4 classes). This is supposed to even the playing field for the kids coming from schools offereing fewer honors class options. This is the numbers approach more common in large state U’s. The problem is, it is somewhat unfair to the studients who take the more demanding curriculum and take 10+honors classes. If you know your child is focused on UCLA, fore example, you may want to talk to your college counselor. If the student is not getting all As in Honors, it may be beneficial to take fewer honors and have a higher GPA. There were some pretty ticked off parents at a few of our college tours who found out the honors grade was credited as a reg CP class for every class over 4.</p>
<p>Private schools, on the other hand, almost all give full, weighted credit for Hondors/Bac classes and recognize the weighted GPA.</p>
<p>In the end, the colleges will look at the transcript thru their own eyes. I have yet to see a college that doesn’t say they “recalculate” the GPA. Virtually all eliminate grades in PE and a variety of other electives. Others add their own weighting system for honors and AP, or look at the GPA in the context of the rigor of the curriculum. </p>
<p>The way a high school does or does not weight your GPA is pretty much meaningless to colleges, except when it comes to rank. And there are many schools who do not rank, colleges know this and they can’t hold it against you.</p>
<p>But… it does make it harder to figure out if a college is a match/reach/safety for your kid if you don’t know what method the college is using to weight GPA, and if your school doesn’t rank!</p>
<p>SOME colleges will do this. Some will not. Yale, for example, does not recalculate the GPA. They go by whatever system the HS uses.</p>
<p>Our HS does not weight grades at all and does not officially rank. Nevertheless, they do release information in the school profile that makes it possible for schools to estimate a class rank–based on last year’s class, so it is even more inaccurate. They also use the 100 point system where an A is 93-100.</p>
<p>If our kids were competing with each other, it would be one thing. But they are competing against kids who can provide a class rank based on weighted grades and GPAs to match.</p>
<p>S1 & S2’s HS doest not weight grades. A kid taking no AP or honors courses can be the Val or in the top 10%, but a kid with a single B for one semester in an AP course may not be either (this happened the year S1 graduated). A kid with a 3.75 uw GPA, who took a very rigorous curriculum of almost all AP and honors, can be ranked at 120 out of about 410. Where there is no weighting class rank means nothing as well. The top schools seem to recognize this, because most of the kids end up in top schools. One kid, who ranked 185/405 (not a URM or athlete) ended up at a USNWR top 10.</p>
<p>Further, there is no grading standard. Some teachers us 85 and up as an A, others 94 and up an A. This is true even for the same subject taught by different teachers. We have given up worrying about it and have simply become one with the universe (if not the university).</p>