I’ve seen a lot of people in “chance me” threads only giving their weighted GPA, sometimes because their school doesn’t give unweighted GPA’s. I always thought the admissions office looked at unweighted over weighted. Is this true? For me, I know that my unweighted is below average for NYU CAS (3.4) and above average weighted (4.0). Can anyone clarify?
Weighted GPA is computed in wildly different ways by different US high schools. The result is that it is almost worthless. When students list only weighted GPA in their “chance me” threads I used to ask for clarification, but gave up because I got tired of asking the same thing every time.
Admissions will look at your actual grades, and the rigor of the classes that you take.
^ unweighted matters more.
Thank you for the clarification. Along those lines, do they look for specific trends? For example, I consistently get A’s in English and History courses (7 AP’s) and B’s and occasionally C’s in Math and Science (2 AP’s). I want to major in Politics and International Relations, so I’ll be avoiding Math at all costs in college. My ACT subscores also reflect this (36-R, 35-E, 24-M, 28-S). Would NYU take someone like me, who is qualified for a top tier school in the humanities (what I will study) but underqualified for my state school in STEM?
I’m sure they do look for trends. My weighted gpa is a 4.8 and I took 12 AP classes. However, something that I thought was interesting for me was that I had a 3.9 unweighted gpa which means that somewhere along the lines, I got a B (which I did). During sophomore year, I got a B in geometry hons, and during junior year, I got a B in Algebra 2. So essentially I only got 2 B’s throughout my entire high school career, and the only B’s I ever got were in my math classes (I suck at math) however, senior year, I took AP statistics, and I think when NYU reviewed my application, if anyone noticed that, it shows that I’m challenging myself so in that situation, I think NYU would be willing to overlook a lower gpa because of the rigor of the classes. I think you have a good chance, you took a large number of AP classes so they see that you’re trying and challenging yourself, and I think they like that. A 3.4 may be below average for them, but your courseload explains it, so I hope they will be forgiving. I was accepted during the ED1 round, and I hope you’re accepted too!