@My3Kiddos " I honestly think school would rather see a student’s schedule full of classes than just APs and study hall."
There is an infamous case at D20’s school where a student several years ago was denied admission to Very Prestigious University who did the AP/study hall road that, in his case, did not lead to Rome. But, a student ranked several spots down who had taken lots of interesting electives did get in.
Even in HS that don’t rank, they do report percentile ranges (at least ours does), so a kid taking all “easy” classes and doing well may well end up in the top ten percent if there is no weighting. If there was weighting, that kid would not be in the top 10 percent, due to the fact that he or she does not get the extra weight. The kid that tackles harder classes could then be in a lower range. While the kid in the harder class may be taking a more rigorous curriculum, if he or she is not taking ALL of the top classes, they may not get the bump that comes from the most rigorous course load available.
My experience is that many colleges have regional admissions counselors who know about schools in their areas, including grading policies, how rigorous they are etc. During the application review, these factors are taken into account. Thus an “A” at one school is not necessarily treated the same as an “A” at another, and this prevents students from particularly challenging schools being at a disadvantage.
When we visited a number of East Coast colleges, they all said that they recalculated GPAs and did not use those provided by schools. Each university will have its own policy.
The Common Data Set instructions indicate that reported average GPAs are on a 4.0 (presumably unweighted) scale. Nevertheless, some colleges report average GPAs above 4.0. This strains credulity especially when you see such high GPAs accompanied by unexceptional average test scores. Although selective colleges do seem to take HS grading differences into account, I suppose this means placing more emphasis on test scores (which many people decry as poor predictors), on relationships with historic feeder schools (which strengthens the status quo), or on extracurricular baloney (which many decry as giving an unfair advantage to wealthier students).