<p>This may sound stupid, but what is the difference?</p>
<p>many high schools, and adcoms, add one grade to AP classes, and some Honors Classes (usually science). In California, all AP plus Honors Chem, Honors Physics, etc. are granted +1. </p>
<p>Therefore, a B in AP USH is counted as an A, or 4.0 An A is counted at 5.0. Many CA high school graduates have 4.4, 4.6 etc. GPAs becuase they took 8-10 AP courses and a couple more honors courses, and got A grade in all of them.</p>
<p>Weighted then refers to the GPA computed after adding +1 to each of the applicable courses (A = 4 = 1, B = 3 + 1, etc), then dividing by # of courses.</p>
<p>I think that California has an unusually uniform weighting system because of the popularity and number of state school options there, and because the state schools have a well-defined system of assessing grades themselves.</p>
<p>In most places anarchy reigns. Schools have their own weighting systems, or none at all. Some rank, some don’t. Some weight for rank, some don’t. Some places weight only APs. Some rate honors and APs, but differently. Some only give you the AP weight if you take the AP exam. The variations are endless, and it’s hard to make generalizations.</p>