While many colleges recalculate (weighted or unweighted) HS GPA using their own methods, or look at HS GPA holistically in the context of the high school, it looks like some colleges use weighted HS GPA at face value. This can be advantageous to applicants from South Carolina or whose high schools otherwise use an exaggerated weighting system, and it gives incentive for high schools to use exaggerated weighting systems.
For example, Miami University (Ohio) uses weighted HS GPA from the students HS transcript for determining scholarship offers. What other colleges allow high schools to game the admissions and/or scholarship applications of their students through exaggerated weighting of HS GPA?
My kid’s very rigorous high school, which has numerous university level classes (but not DE as they were more rigorous than most CC classes), didn’t weight at all. That would have hurt!
IU Kelley uses the GPA directly from the transcript (or highest GPA if multiple GPAs are on transcript) to determine if the applicant meets direct admit criteria.
Miami will use the weighted GPA or if it’s not weighted they will recalculate with a weighted scale. Our high school weighs, but AP and IB only get 0.5 added. None of my kids applied to Miami U, but I always wondered if they’d recalculate the GPA to their scale or if we’d just really be at a disadvantage.
GPA calculation is the typical A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0. However, for every semester grade C or higher in an honors course, +0.04 is added to the GPA; +0.08 is added to the GPA for each AP, IB, AICE, or DE course.
The school appears to have 7 class period, so a student could have up to 56 semesters of courses and grades over four years. So that means that if a student had 28 A grades in honors courses and 28 A grades in AP, IB, AICE, or DE courses, the student’s GPA would be 4.0 + 28 * 0.04 + 28 * 0.08 = 7.36. The maximum possible GPA with 56 A grades in AP, IB, AICE, or DE courses would be 8.48, although that may not be practically possible if some course slots are taken up by stuff like health and PE, and some 9th grade courses are not offered as AP, IB, AICE, or DE.
Obviously, this weighting system is very heavy, and gives advantage to students applying to colleges that take weighted GPA at face value.
In addition to the uncommon way Patel HS calculates weighted GPA, there are other weighting systems that US HSs use, including point based GPAs maxing out at 4.5, 5.0, 5.33, 6.0, and 12.0, for example.
Some schools use a percentage grade/GPA method. Others don’t put any GPA on a transcript, even though students receive final course grades. Still others only provide narrative evaluations for each class, so no grades/GPA at all.
Iowa State, the University of Iowa, and the University of Northern Iowa use the student’s best GPA, but any GPA higher than 4.0 is converted to a 4.0 (after converting to a 4 point scale).
