FYI - applied to ASU with a 4.1 weighted, 3.8 unweighted. They calculated GPA down without any weight for AP classes or Honors. Essentially, if you’re interested in ASU, then you should take the lowest classes, get the highest grades and you’ll have no problem getting into their toughest majors. They don’t want the best and brightest. They want students who have taken the easiest path to an A, not the most challenging.
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Arizona State University is a broad-access university as well as a flagship-level university. Being broad-access, it is not that selective, so an unweighted 3.0 GPA in the specified high school courses will gain admission to most majors there (nursing is an exception).
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But if you’re applying to their honors college, you won’t get admitted to the honors college by taking basic min-level stuff.
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Where did you get that information on ASU? The most recent common data set I can find for the university states that HS course rigor is an “important” factor for admissions.
Many colleges do not use weighted GPA for admissions as there are different weighting systems. However, admissions officers do look at each applicant’s full transcript and understand the level of classes/rigor an applicant has taken in HS.
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Personally I think it’s great to have colleges like this, where they are clear about what courses are required and what GPA /test score you need for admission. Takes a lot of stress out of the application process to have schools like this in the mix.
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University of Arizona as well unweighted GPA for merit
No Rigor If you are in Arizona no incentive to push yourself with harder classes
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Arizona State University frosh admission requirements are described at First-year admission requirements | Admission | ASU . Basically, they look for:
- Specified high school courses completed. (Limited deficiency allowed.)
- One of the following:
- 3.0 HS GPA (unweighted)
- top 25% rank
- 22 ACT (24 ACT for non-residents)
- 1120 SAT (1180 SAT for non-residents)
Some majors may have higher requirements.
Students at the borderline of the HS GPA for admission to Arizona State University probably are not the ones considering loading up on lots of honors/AP/IB courses.
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While a 3.0 HS GPA in regular courses is sufficient for admission, the student with a 4.0 HS GPA with several honors or AP courses is likely to be better prepared for studying in college.
Lots of people focus only on the goal of getting through the admission gate, to the point that they neglect the need to prepare themselves for what they will do on the other side of the admission gate.
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While this is true
A higher GPA in Regular classes will earn them a higher scholarship at ASU or University of Arizona
At top UC’s I doubt your getting in with a 4.0 in Gen Ed classes especially if your school offered AP, IB, AICE etc, and then get max merit
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But you won’t walk in with credits - which ultimately may increase your cost. You may not be prepped for required classes and have to take some pre reqs.
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I’d also throw this in as food for thought:
So what? Plenty of colleges only use unweighted GPA. ASU has about 65,000 undergrads in total. About 7200 of those are in the honors college. You’re not going to be close friends with all 65,000 people.
However, perhaps you were counting on getting a specific $$ amount in an auto-merit scholarship based on an assumption that their merit scholarships are awarded based on weighted GPA. Unfortunately, their merit scholarships are based on UNweighted GPA.
What are you really upset about?
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ASU accepts close to 90% of its applicants. I really don’t think a code needs to be cracked here.
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If you believe in the philosophy of taking HS classes mostly for the sake of representing yourself in a certain way to a certain university, then by all means, take the lowest rigor classes to maintain a high unweighted GPA. If you believe that HS classes should be selected based on one’s desire for learning and growth, then take the most advanced classes that will serve that purpose. In an ideal world, these goals should be congruent, but we may often lose track of that in today’s competitive admissions landscape.
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ASU also publishes the code, so no cracking is needed. See the links in post #7.
For scholarships, there is an estimator at https://scholarships.asu.edu/estimator , so an applicant can know beforehand the likely amount of scholarship.
Admission and scholarships at ASU are pretty much the opposite of the opaque-to-applicants subjective holistic process used at the most selective colleges.
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Which is exactly why it’s so popular as a safety among students who have a B average and the requisite classes.
I’m not really seeing a problem here. It has a function and it fulfills that function, much like many non or only somewhat selective state colleges do. The competitive flagships /public ivies are much more the exception than the rule when it comes to state universities, even among the subset of flagships only. More competitive students can either apply to Barrett or more selective universities.
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Interesting. Earlier this application season, the ASU website stated that they recalculate weighted gpa in core subjects for scholarship consideration, with weight being given to AP and IB classes. I don’t see that language anymore on the website. Hmm…
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While this is technically true
Most factor in Rigor they just don’t tell you a straight forward answer like we add 1 point for a college level course etc.
ASU does not do this so an IB Diploma student who Graduates with a 3.7 GPA will get less merit than a student that took Gen Ed classes with a 3.75 GPA
Which is fine as long as you know going in
That’s why lots of high achievers will use it as a safety considering their High acceptance rate
… or maybe they made a mistake so it might be worth it to call and ask to talk to someone who actually saw your application OR email your specific regional rep.
Btw, did you apply to ASU or to ASU+Barrett?
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How were you informed of this?
Arizona public universities calculate an ABOR GPA based on the specified subject requirements in high school. This GPA calculation is unweighted. See https://public.powerdms.com/ABOR/documents/1491561 (from Policy Manual | Arizona Board of Regents ).
Arizona State University transparent admission procedures are the antithesis of the opaque subjective holistic procedures used at many other schools commonly talked about on these forums.
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