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How can UNC-Chapel Hill have an average admit enrolled GPA of 4.7?
socaldad2002
2105 replies33 threads Senior Member
In the common data set and other places UNC-CH claims to have an average GPA of 4.7 for enrollees, how is that possible? Does North Carolina high schools (where UNC takes 82% in staters) have a 5.0 grading system? This seems artificially high to me and the highest enrolled GPA in the country, higher than the ivies?
50 replies
Replies to: How can UNC-Chapel Hill have an average admit enrolled GPA of 4.7?
Yep, that must be it. At D20's high school (and many in CA) you only get 1.0 extra point for AP/IB/Honors classes.
Just to reiterate @Essel , in NC it is 4.0 for regular classes, 4.5 for honors, and 5.0 for AP.
My mistake. I had emailed Elon about their recalculation. I thought the response said that they used North Carolina calculations, but it didn't. Sorry about that. For what it's worth, if you are interested in how Elon recalculates GPA it's 1.0 added for honors and 2.0 for AP
I am interested in that, as S20 is applying to Elon and it is high on his middling-long list. I did not know Elon calculated the GPA that way, but it moves his GPA into a much more comfortable area. Thanks.
Note there can be significant differences in how admissions staff consider GPAs when making decisions vs. the way a school's institutional reporting might calculate an average class GPA
Thank you, makes sense. I was a little concerned as my CA, D20 who has had straight A’s in high school and a 4.6 gpa would be BELOW average at UNC-CH which seemed very odd.
Thanks for clearing that up.
In my daughter's school, there are a number of required courses (health, P.E, personal finance, and the first two years of FL and arts) that are not offered on the honors level. This limits how high a weighted GPA can be even though an honors A earns 4.5 and an AP A earns 5.0 here.
Not all classes in NC have Honors options. I don't think any PE classes have Honors options. The Big 4 (Math, Science, SS, Eng) often have Honors options for each year. Band and Art classes don't have hardly any Honors options. Thus, many electives for many students may not be Honors classes. Music Theory is one that has an honors/AP option.
I guess if a student decides to chase that honorific GPA, they could replace many electives with second SS or Science classes that are Honors options. Also, once a student can take AP classes, the big 4 classes might all be AP options as well.
It wouldn't be unusual for a mostly straight-A student (who wasn't overloading on Honors classes just for the GPA boost) who took normal electives like Band and/or Art, and two-or-three AP classes in each of the last 2 or 3 years could end up with a 4.3-4.7.
What I personally see as grade inflation is when a kid is enrolled in Honors classes for every big 4 class from freshman year onward, gets a couple of As and a couple of Bs in those each year, and ends up with an A average. I've seen my son's classwork assigned by the teachers in those H classes and most is not really Honors worthy to me.
In fact, most of the Honors classes are taught in the same classrooms as the non-Honors classes -- the teachers simply give a little extra homework to the H students, and they take slightly different tests. IMO, the Honors classes are regular-load work, and the non-H classes are for those working slightly below regular-load level. AP classes are definitely a high level of work.