To those who state that weighted GPAs are “meaningless,” many colleges base their merit aid package on weighted gpa. For example, Alabama offers out-of-state students with a WEIGHTED gpa of 3.5 or better and a 32 on the ACT free tuition, worth more than $100,000. Without the weighting a lot of kids would get cut out of this. I don’t think a free $100,000 is “meaningless.”
Everyone at my D’s high school is required to take a study hall, or “seminar” free period. No grade is given at all.
Her high school also does not rank, but gives weighted grades.
Her AP and Honors classes have been graded fairly tough, imo - a few of them were not curved, for instance. As long as there is someone getting an A, no curve…
There are quite a few kids at D’s high school, apparently, with stats like her’s - 3.5 or less uw GPA and a 30+ ACT score. There are a few superstar kids with close to 4.0 uw and 30+ score… but only a few.
(Apparently, D and her friends talk to each other about their stats recently, w/college app season, etc.)
“, Alabama offers out-of-state students with a WEIGHTED gpa of 3.5 or better and a 32 on the ACT free tuition” That’s nice for the kids whose schools give +2 for AP classes, not so nice for the kids whose schools give only +.5 Is Alabama aware that they aren’t making any real comparisons?
^ I’m not sure. Does UA apply there own weighting prior to making that decision?
^I was curious about that too: Here is what their website says:
http://scholarships.ua.edu/faq/
So apparently, they just use whatever (and however) a HS calculates…yup, that doesn’t seem right.
So, why aren’t we hearing about high schools in Alabama that give +5 for AP classes?
I’m not sure what you re referencing mathyone - I just checked Mountain Brook High School and they give +.5 for Advanced/Honors, +1 for AP/IB…Every state/school district is different - some districts give +.5 or +1 for honors classes, +2 for AP classes, +3 for IB classes - some give no extra bumps at all for any advanced classes. My son’s school in Georgia only give +1 for AP or IB, no bump for advanced or honors classes. So yeah, at least some of the Alabama school districts give weighted grades and more than the Georgia schools.
Oh and Hoover High School allows students to select a “Pass/Fail” class of any elective - really, in high school? That’s a way to manipulate your GPA.
What I mean is that if major universities are simply looking at weighted GPAs and handing out money, then why aren’t we seeing more weighting inflation? Or perhaps we are already, since I see GPA’s posted on here that are impossible at our high school (and many others)–in particular I wasn’t aware before I saw it on this site that some high schools will weight classes +2 or that some will exclude courses from the GPA with pass/fail or exempting PE from GPA etc.
My daughters’ high school weights AP and IB classes on a 5 scale (including the easier IB SL classes), but honors are rated on a 4. But, if you look at their unofficial transcript, it does not weight the classes for GPA or class rank. In fact, nowhere on the transcript does it make any mention of weighted classes.
Older DD received a very garbled piece of paper from the “guidance counselor” that showed which classes she was taking that were considered to be the “most rigorous” for her grade level, but even that was super confusing (two stars, three stars, lack of correct tabbing so some stars did not match up with some classes). Or I’m just wicked stupid and I can’t figure it out.
I’ve been trying not to go all ninja on the GC, but I’m like what the heck! This is not an idiot school, either-consistently ranks top 5 in the state. I just wish it were a little more consistent and transparent as to what’s going on. My younger D got a 3.0 her freshman year, but with an A in an AP class and the rest were B’s in honors classes and one C in an accelerated (honor) math class-the class rank showed her at the bottom 25% and we’re just scratching our heads at that