My school’s transcript reports exact numbers, as well as the contribution to your grade-point (e.g. U.S. History: 92, 4.0 / 4.0 unweighted). They don’t use +/- when calculating your GPA.
If I have a ~90/91 in multiple AP courses - which is counted as an A at my school - will the highly selective colleges think lesser of my application due to the “low” As? I took seven my Junior year, which may explain why, but I don’t mean to make excuses - just curious.
I don’t think having low As will affect you - they’re likely just going to look at your GPA. If they do look at the exact transcript, it would probably just be to see if there’s a consistent difference in your scores between one subject/year and another in a way that might explain a lower GPA. You should be totally fine.
Thank you! I wasn’t too concerned, just a sudden thought. I’ll be applying to Harvard REA, although I’m sure that doesn’t make a difference in the answer.
Anyone?
If there are other applicants from your HS to Harvard who have higher grades, AO’s will notices that yours are lower even if your GPA’s are identical. Will it be a make or break? Maybe/maybe not. But at this point, it is what it is; you can’t change the past. Since 95% of applicants will get rejected, I would focus on aspects you can affect and not dwell on things you can’t change.
@skieurope Thanks. I’m without a doubt going to be the sole Harvard applicant at my school and have a 4.0, so the legitimacy of that GPA is concerning me (whether I can do anything about it or not).
Different high schools calculate GPA very differently. At the public school in my town a 97 in a CP course counts as a 3.7. At some other schools a 90 counts as a 4.0.
As such, it seems as if universities pretty much need to look at the actual number grades, since the reported GPA doesn’t seem to mean much. I know that some recompute based on their own formula. I don’t know whether they all do.