Are high school weighted GPAs misleading students into overreaching?
It is pretty common to see people posting their stats that include only weighted GPAs from their high school records, without any explanation of the weighting system or an unweighted GPA. So we do not really know whether a weighted 4.4 comes from an unweighted 4.0 or an unweighted 3.5 or lower.
But a weighted 4.4 or whatever using an exaggerated weighting system may mislead a student into believing that his/her high school record is competitive for more selective colleges than it is actually competitive for, resulting in an overreach list where apparent reaches, matches, and safeties are really unrealistic reaches, high reaches, and reaches, leading to the likelihood of disappointing results or a shutout.
One issue is that a lot of the stats you see about a school’s average GPA for accepted or incoming students is not clear about whether it is weighted or unweighted, and weighting schemes vary so much. As such it is hard for a kid to know how good their chances are.
Our local public high school uses a rather “biased low” weighting scheme (a 97 is an A+, but only counts as a 3.7). I used to think that this was silly. Now I am thinking that it might have discouraged kids from overreaching which might be a good thing.
It seems a pity that we can’t come up with one standard nationwide way to calculate weighted GPA at least for the US.
I don’t know. Maybe for tippy top colleges? My d and I used her weighted gpa to create her college list. She had some reaches, matches and safeties. Chance threads here resulted in grim feedback on pretty much all of them, yet she did fine on her acceptances (one rejection) and received great merit and two honors invites. She wasn’t applying to ivies or top colleges but all were decent schools. I think a lot of colleges do consider the weighted gpa. A kid who goes through college prep level classes and gets all As is different than a kid who gets Bs in all honors and AP level classes.
Edited to add that she considered her weighted gpa in relation to the schools’ average accepted student gpas (what most people say is unweighted) to determine reach/match/safety schools.
D21’s is one that only uses weighted and doesn’t rank. But every year they also publish the profile report they send to colleges. It contains tons of information so you can get an honest picture of where you stand.
It breaks down the % of students in each weighted GPA band (3.0-3.5: 3.5-4.0 etc…). It shows every class with more than 10 juniors enrolled and how they did (3- A+; 16 A; 14 B+, etc…). It shows how many kids took each AP test and the distribution on those scores. It shows average SAT/ACT score for that years class. Then it also shows the breakdown of how many are going to each school. Coupling that with Naviance, it gives us a pretty good idea of where you stand and what schools make sense.
if colleges listed their number of unhooked seats and last years applicants for them, applications would plummet. Most parents do not realize the number of kids with perfect SATs/ACTs exceeds the seat number ~ 10 fold. “holistic” also encourage more applications since someone who doesn’t “test well” thinks they can still get into to T20 schools. The schools encourage excessive apps and they know it. Maybe for legal reasons they can’t come out and say that “holistic” is for URMs and athletes and donors, but I’ve heard first hand people think holistic will be used in a “good way” for unhooked kids with one subpar part of the application, which it will not for T30 schools
anon145 - I for one definitely thought that about the holistic approach in the beginning! I considered it a way to level the field for all students.
Our HS uses the most outrageous weighted system - it just makes no sense. My S only used his unweighted GPA for targeting colleges.
However, the college may recalculate a different weighted GPA.
For example, the UCs and CSUs calculate a recalculated weighted GPA. But many high schools calculate a more exaggerated weighted GPA, so that (for example) high school students who are confident that their 4.5 GPA should easily get them into UC Davis (with a 25th-75th percentile high school GPA of 3.97-4.25) are shocked by a rejection (because their UC recalculated weighted GPA is 3.8).
I would love to see a uniform system for both grading and weighting. I know some schools where a 98% is a 4.0 and others where it’s a 4.3. At some places an A (4.0) starts at 90, at other’s it’s a 93 or a 94. For weighting, I’ve seen an added bump of .2 for an AP course and I’ve seen a full two points for an AP.
Pet peeve: posters who don’t know their unweighted GPA because their school doesn’t provide it. How hard is it to reverse engineer and calculate it yourself? Especially if you aspire to elite schools and your math preparation extends to calculus or beyond by senior year.
The differences in grading at high schools is so staggering, I’m not sure the grades mean anything anymore. My kid worked very hard for a 3.2 gpa at a very competitive prep school, and finds college a breeze with little work for a 4.0 gpa. Her roommates had 4.0 gpas at good but not top suburban public schools and now struggle for a 3.0. Our private school has decided to give many more A grades to make the kids more competitive in the college admission process. Frankly, I think the grading across the US is irrelevant now.
I would love to see a consistent grading standard - and would suggest that as a start each state can set the grading standard for the public schools in their state. It isn’t completely standard in Washington but the state legislature mandates a standardized transcript and no grade weighting. It’s a start at least.
Colleges can easily figure out differences between grading standards at different high schools. All they need to do is to compare the information in the profiles that high schools send out for college admissions.
For example, if HS “A” reports an average AP Calc BC score of 3, and an average grade in BC Calc of A
and HS “B” reports an average AP Calc BC score of 4.5 and an average grade in BC calc of B
A college could easily figure out that a B at HS “B” is worth much more than an A at HS “A”
Do they bother to do this?
Personally, I suspect they only bother when considering kids for the few hundred “pure merit” spots awarded at each of the top 10 or 20 schools each year.
California has a standardized high school GPA calculation for its state universities. However, California high schools often have their own weighted GPA calculations that give higher GPAs than the ones used by the state universities, which can lead some students to overreach. (“I got rejected from UC Davis with a 4.4 GPA! WHY!” “Your UC recalculated GPA is 3.8, which is below the middle 50% range for UC Davis, so you should not surprised that you got rejected.”)
Yes, I believe they do. Every admissions officer I have asked has said they basically ignore weighted GPA’s from students and calculate it on a common basis for all applicants.
As my daughter barely was in the top 10% of her class with a 4.8, and the top students were in the 5.5-5.7 range, per school calculations, it seems obvious this is the only way to do it.
And yes, when top schools publish realistic GPA ranges it gives a lot of HS students false hope with their crazy inflated numbers.
The question is whether the students over reach. Certainly some do. A parent of a kid from a neighboring town told me her kid’s GPA was 4.3. At our HS that would be pretty much all As (honors/AP only weighted 0.5 and mostly offered to juniors and seniors). At our HS, that GPA and good test scores, students would be compettive for elite schools. At her HS, however, grades went up to A+ (4.3) and there was a 1-point weight to an honors/AP class. That meant this kid, while having a good GPA, had quite a few B+s and Bs and may have been just out of the top 10%. Applied to a couple of Ivys, G-town, and BC and did not get in to any of those. I think the family thought that the admitted student profile was based on weighted grades. If they had undestood that this was bascially on unweighted (or weighted accoding to the college’s calculations), they may have had a better understanding of her chances and applied to a different set of schools (with a few super reaches thrown in) and, while happy where she landed, may have found an even better academic fit.
I definitely think that’s a factor and is probably leading to more students putting more reaches on their list where realistically they have a near-zero chance. It probably also influences where they ED. Who would want to choose a realistic match for ED when your weighted GPA is telling you to shoot for the stars?
High grades, top class ranks, and high test scores–all of those pieces of info are often misleading because, for the most selective schools and programs, it often takes all of those things, … and more to gain acceptance. Even the “more” is not enough because there are simply not enough seats at those places to accommodate all of the qualified students who apply.
One can just look around this forum and see how kids with the most sterling resumes are not gaining acceptances to schools.