<p>How do you calculate an unweighted GPA in a system that assigns 5 quality points for a weighted AP or honors course A, and 4 quality points for all other As?</p>
<p>My school: every A (including + and -) is 4, B is 3, C is 2, D is 1, F is 0. Add all of them up and divide by the number of classes.</p>
<p>If you have 3 AP classes and 2 regular classes and get A's in all of them it's - </p>
<p>(AP) 5 points X 3 classes = 15
(Reg) 4 points X 2 classes = 8
15 + 8 = 23
23 total points / 5 total classes = 4.6 GPA</p>
<p>Note that some colleges (the UCs for example) calculate the HS GPA themselves, assign the 5 point scale for only certain classes (AP and some honors) and limit the 5 point weight to a max of 8 classes.</p>
<p>Use the same scale as if no honors/AP advantage existed, A=4, B=3 etc. All you have to do is ignore any special designations, like our district does.</p>
<p>I guess I didn't read the question closely enough - wis75 has the right answer.</p>
<p>what about IB program?
anyone know how to weighted?
Thanks</p>
<p>If you are trying to compute your HS GPA, you need to contact your HS guidance office and get THEIR formula for doing so. The formulas for calculating weighted GPA's vary wildly even WITH the same quality points. Call YOUR school for accurate information.</p>
<p>If you are trying to do this for colleges, the same applies. Many schools recompute the HS GPA anyway...and they pick and choose the courses they use. Again...if you really want to know...call the college.</p>
<p>Everyone weights differently. There's no one formula for a weighted GPA.</p>
<p>wis75 has it right for unweighted.</p>
<p>In general, colleges will take the unweighted GPA, and recalculate it using whatever weightings they consider important. High school-weighted GPA is mostly useful for determining class rank and other internal stuff.</p>
<p>This topic totally defeats me. I can't imagine how we will decide next year what schools my daughter is a realistic candidate for because I just can't get a grip on GPA. Do MOST colleges weight IB/AP in some fashion or most don't? Would finding schools/scholarships where her unweighted GPA is a match be a better choice?</p>
<p>Zooser...does your school compute GPA? Ours does and it appears on the kid's transcript. We requested a transcript at the end of 11th grade for our daughter. We just wanted to check it for accuracy. The GPA was on there.</p>
<p>The GPA may be on the transcript, but what does it MEAN?</p>
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Zooser...does your school compute GPA? Ours does and it appears on the kid's transcript. We requested a transcript at the end of 11th grade for our daughter. We just wanted to check it for accuracy. The GPA was on there.
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<p>It is on there and it's a weighted 4.0. Unweighted it's 3.6. It's also in a major upward trend. What I can't figure out is which one colleges will look at. Do they look at the weighted one and laugh at you? (Kidding)</p>
<p>Colleges will look at the classes the kids have taken and they will look at the grade received (A,B,C etc.) many will calculate their own GPA so that kids are on an even playing field. Unweighted GPA is pretty straightforward but even then some schools count every single class and some drop gym, etc. You can't compare school to school because every school has their own system which can be fair or unfair depending on which side of the fence you are on. If you really want to cut the cheese you can't have a 4.0 in the traditional sense if you have a B or C on your transcript so if I were a betting person I'd bet that more colleges unweight the GPA than weight the GPA then give a tip based on the rigor of the schedule.</p>
<p>So I know that most colleges unweight and count only core classes, then apply their own tweaks to that, but what is the number which is posted on various college admissions pages? Is it assumed that a gpa reported on the common data set is calculated in a consistent way? the CDS says on a 4.0 scale, but I don't see other qualificaitons.</p>
<p>Zoosermom:
Our experience amongst 7 private colleges that we toured for d 2 years ago was all over on the question you have asked- unweighted or weighted. The answer is, it depends on the school. Not one school was the same to another, in our experience. Pepperdine said whatever is on the high school transcript, that's what we use. If college classes weren't on high school trascript, we don't count them. USC said we calculate our own weighted gpa, in a formula they didn't care to share. Others said they "weight" certain classes. Boston Univ was quite descriptive and it was easy to predict her merit award from them, as its on their website. Even our state flagship the Univ of Cali has 3 different ways of calculating gpa: weighted but capped gpa, unweighted, and fully weighted. Each campus seems to use their own formula, but I did find out that a stack rank is done at Berkeley based on unweighted gpa after application read scores are assigned- this is a fairness and balancing procedure between students at the same high school.</p>
<p>Your instinct in asking this q was the same as mine: there may be some schools where her stats (gpa, sat I, SATIIs, etc) play better than others. </p>
<p>I would still use the same technique to solve this q as we did 2 years ago: use cc as you are doing and look at past "official admissions" threads, use u.s. news school profiles online, read the college's own websites, and visit key schools to hear the admissions presentation and take notes on this question. One last suggestion: look at the school's application, if they have their own. I found the questions asked about gpa and rank and the way they wanted courses taken listed to be very telling.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>What I can't figure out is which one colleges will look at.>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>We never figured out what they looked at either. But I guess they WOULD look to see if the weighted was higher than the unweighted because that would indicate a more challenging courseload than the average. </p>
<p>(Old timers here will remember my kids' school had a wrong GPA formula that we challenged..and won...because for some odd reason kids who took honors and AP classes had LOWER weighted than unweighted GPAs...and that should NOT be.)</p>
<p>Most schools recompute the GPA using core courses only and their own formula. From what we could tell, they don't include courses like P.E., music or other arts course, and most non-academic electives (e.g. culinary arts). </p>
<p>To be honest, when we were looking at schools for DD, we were more concerned with the SAT score range, and class ranking. Her GPA was just a little lower than your daughter's, Zooser.</p>
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From what we could tell, they don't include courses like P.E., music or other arts course, and most non-academic electives (e.g. culinary arts).
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<p>THis kind of concerns me because ZS is planning to take Art HL as part of her IB, and I'd hate for that to be looked upon badly. Which I guess is another reason for her to take straight academic subjects at the CUNY. Her career goals involve becoming a curator someday, so she feels the art is relevant. As well, she loves it.</p>
<p>Zooser...that art course won't be looked upon badly. BUT the college(s) may choose not to include it when they recompute her GPA. There is a difference. Also, the schools DO look at the courses the kids take. DS is a music major, and he took a BUNCH of courses that I'm sure the universities did not use in their GPA recomputations (music theory, independent study of a composer, all of his ensembles, etc). BUT these were important courses to the music department folks who also reviewed his application (although in his case....acceptance was ALL about the audition).</p>
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Would finding schools/scholarships where her unweighted GPA is a match be a better choice?
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<p>I'd go for this, accompanied by a general sense, gathered through research (perhaps on CC, even) of what sort/level of courseloads the accepted applicants at the schools in question tend to have taken.</p>
<p>I second thumper and jessiehl- art course won't hurt- even if college doesn't look at it for gpa. Our d's strategy with college courses was to take something to follow her passion that happend to be an academic subject-- so in this case, maybe your d would take an art hist (if not already taking the ap). Several private schools want to see display of passion for academics- so courses relating to it are a smart decision. The way we realized that was to look at the essay topics on the apps for where she was applying. </p>
<p>College classes are a great idea, imo, IF she can do very well in them (a's or Bs). So the trick is finding one that appeals to her, is exciting, and plays to her strengths so she can write about it with passion. One unexpected benefit my d got from a community college psych class was an opportunity to volunteer at a local inner-city youth after school program for that class. At UCLA, there is a summer course open to high school and college students (all courses at our state unis in summer are open to high school students that are jrs or srs) where they study art of the Getty Museum located 1 mile away in a theater course. Maybe find something like that near you?</p>