<p>Just a quick question .... I've taken a mixture of standard, honors, and A.P. classes in highschool (I'm now a senior). I've already fulfilled my required online class, however, say I was to take another standard class online because I was guinuely interested in a certain subject (and there wasn't an honors class availible for that subject). Would, let's say an A in that regular class LOWER my GPA since I have a lot of AP and honors classes already on my transcript since regular classes are weighted less? I am NOT interested in "maxing" my GPA with a bunch of throw away classes, to make things clear. I just wouldn't want to take a class that will end up lowering my overall GPA, even by .01 or whatever.</p>
<p>Take the courses you want to take. Your GPA is hardly going to suffer because you got an A in a regular course instead of an AP. As a senior, there’s not a lot you can do to mess up your GPA without suffering a total collapse, which by the way is to be avoided between now and June. Have the same attitude in college. Enjoy your senior year with at least one cool course that you’re doing just for yourself.</p>
<p>Taking an extra standard class WILL lower your GPA. For example, if you’re taking 4 AP classes (6.0+6.0+6.0+6.0 = 24/4 = 6.0), the max GPA you can get would be a 6.0. However, if you’re taking 4 AP classes, along with a standards class your highest achievable GPA would be a 5.6 (6.0+6.0+6.0+6.0+4.0 = 28/5 = 5.6). </p>
<p>My situation was quite similar to yours. Last year I took an extra standards class online, at home. It was a language class, and I was genuinely interested in learning the language. I didn’t need to take that language class since I’ve already earned my language credits, but I still decided to take it. Not only did it weigh my GPA down, my class rank suffered as well. I didn’t learned much in that online class, and it felt like a complete waste of time. If I could ever go back, I would never had taken that class. </p>
<p>If you truly want to learn a subject, then go for it. Just be aware that once you complete that class, it’ll be staying on your transcript forever. Peace… :)>- </p>
<p>^Not sure why AP classes would be wortg six 6. Probably varies by school, but I always thought the norm (on a standard 4.0 scale) is to weigh an AP class as one more than a regular class. So an A in an AP class would be worth 5.0 and an A in a regular class would be a 4.0.</p>
<p>OP, a GPA is an average. You could calculate exactly what your GPA would be if you took an extra regular class. But conceptually, it’s just an average. If you get a grade above your GPA, it’ll go up (if you have a 4.5 and get an A or 5.0 in an AP class). If you get a grade below your GPA, it’ll go down (if you have a 4.5 and get an A or 4.0 in a regular class). If you have less than a 4.0, it’ll help regardless. It will also help (or not affect) your unweighted GPA. How much your GPA will be affected depends on your current grades. If you’re a senior, it likely will have a very small effect on your GPA, but again, you can calculate what it would be if you’re really concerned.</p>
<p>That being said, don’t stress about your GPA that much. A 0.01 difference is not going to matter.</p>
<p>I understand it won’t affect my unweighted, but I was just wondering about weighted. In the long run, I know that .01 doesn’t matter, but my school weighs GPA’s down to a veryyy specific decimal and if there were any chance I’d drop in rank, (it’s petty, I know…) well… yea. I know it’s silly to worry about rank but I’m trying to get into a pretty prestigious college and I didn’t cure cancer or anything so… I’m trying to do all that I can otherwise! I realize the grades are not everything though. (:</p>
<p>Colleges will either look at the UW GPA or will weight your grades according to their own standards, since high schools weight courses differently. Not taking a class in which you are interested because of the potential threat to your weighted GPA is short-sighted in the long run.</p>
<p>Your weighted GPA (as in, the number) doesn’t matter for anything because every high school weights grades differently, if at all. A lot of colleges look at class rank, though, and class rank is often calculated using weighted GPAs. So it’s possible that doing this could lower your class rank a little, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it because colleges know this can happen, and a lot of times it sort of evens out in the end anyway because everyone takes non-weighted classes. </p>
<p>If you’re really worried, could you take the online class without getting credit for it or by taking it pass/fail?</p>
<p>Please, stop obsessing about GPAs, people. Life is for living. </p>
<p>It’s HIGH SCHOOL, for crying out loud. Even if OP were talking about a college GPA I’d encourage OP to live life rather than plot a path to career ambition. The responsibilities will come soon enough for OP.</p>