Does Your School Penalize Students With A's in Non-Weighted Classes?

nluu0929 · December 8, 2009, 6:45pm

The way it works for our school is that all the classes are weighted.

Classes are split into three distinct levels: college prep (CP), honors, and AP/IB. Non-weighted GPA, of course, is impartial to the level of the course, but weighted GPA isn’t. CP courses receive the least amount of weight with a 100 being a 4.875. Honors are only slightly higher with weight at around 5.3. Then AP/IB classes are weighted to about 5.8. In context, those who were unable to take gym or other required classes (all of which are CP) are forced to take those classes, which actually lower GPAs despite A’s acquired. All in all, many of the people in my class have lower ranks, because of the required courses they have to take and the weighting system our state – South Carolina – uses.

Premed789789 · December 8, 2009, 9:14pm

I think the whole weighted thing should be done away with in general. I know this hurts rankings for kids taking the toughest classes, but hopefully colleges will see that they took the hardest AP/IB classes. My school gives a full point extra for AP/IB, but since my school offers so many AP/IB classes it actually hurts some of the most studious because classes like IB Geography, IB Environmental Systems, and IB Math Studies, which are easier than many electives like advanced choir or theater, are given the same weight as classes like IB/AP Physics, AP Calc BC and more weight than Multivariable or Linear Calculus which are the most difficult classes offered at school, but are not AP or IB.

I do like some of my school’s system though because it does allow us to take some academic and fine arts electives (AP/IB Art/AP Art History/IB theater/IB PHilosophy)

freznow · December 8, 2009, 11:03pm

I have extra courses from middle school, which count high school credit (math and such). However, because of these extra courses, I finished off a few trains of courses and so, whereas before I was in AP Calc and weighted trig, now I’m taking an elective to fill the space while I take an online community college course that doesn’t affect my GPA. I finished the Latin offered, so no more AP Vergil, just a self study credit, that darn 4.0 bringing down my 5.0s. I have extra sciences, too, and all those years of orchestra aren’t helping.

So, I have the same number of APs as most other high ranking seniors. Grades are similar. However, I have 35 credits - our current val has 30. Which is completely unfair, in my opinion.

My friend’s school adds a fraction (.03 or thereabouts) per weighted course. So GPA would be calculated regularly, and then .03 would be added for each AP class. This makes so much more sense. If I have 11 APs and the val has 11 APs, and we both get straight As, we would then be tied for 1st, at least, not with me being behind her and a few others because of my excess 4.0s.

skatty14 · December 8, 2009, 11:15pm

I really think the grading system is really obsolete and utterly ridiculous. I mean I work my derriere off in like 50 IB and AP classes and then get like a 3.88 GPA, while others just take the easiest classes they can find and get a 4.0. It is so unfair that I work 20x’s as hard as they do, but I am the one who gets the lower GPA! The SAT/ACT are stupid also! I mean just because I am not as good a test taker as everyone else I am totally penalized. I got a 24 on the ACT and 1060 on the SAT, which aren’t horrible, but I feel stupid in comparison to my other friends who took all the same classes I did, but score significantly higher than me?! Also, I feel like I am being copped out on scholarships because everything is based on my GPA and ACT/SAT, which are decent, but I mean I have done over a hundred hours of service and am involved on a sports team and take the hardest courses possible, but of course the smart lazy people get the easy guaranteed scholarships… I think we should nationalize our school system in America, so it is more fair. However, I doubt that will ever happen because it disturbs the whole federalism thing- separate powers of states and national government; also, the rising fear of “socialism.” Anyways, I just really think that our educational system is totally f-ing screwed up!!! Looks like some of you also have the same feelings of resentment.

Sirensong · December 9, 2009, 6:36am

Yes, electives hurt my weighted GPA since it’s over a 4.0, but it’s really not that big a deal if you don’t let it be. I completely agree with R124687, and I think that people get far too obsessed with weighted GPA and rank. On the other side though, I really don’t like how at some schools, students are able to work the system to artificially boost their ranks–but I think this is a flaw in school policy/treatment of upper-level classes (I think I’ve heard weighted study halls mentioned before…?). These problems should be ironed out, but getting rid of weighted GPA would not help anything, at least as far as I’m concerned.

siserune · December 9, 2009, 2:49pm

That’s unrelated to the OP’s math question about “penalizing”. Viewing it as “adding from 4.0” or “subtracting from 5.0” (or whatever number is considered the baseline) doesn’t change the fact that any system that averages grades, creates incentives to accomplish less. This is true with or without any weighting, but the combination of weighting and averaging opens additional avenues for the perverse incentives to appear, such as the one described in the first posting of the thread.

But an even more ambitious kid who takes the same 7 high-weight courses and an eighth course will not receive a higher overall score, and will actually be eligible only for a lower score if the additional course is not high-weighted. That isn’t a reward (an incentive to do more), it is an incentive to do less.

chinaman545 · December 9, 2009, 6:17pm

My school doesn’t necessarily penalize students with A’s in non-weighted classes. Because most of the classes at my HS are non-weighted, students who take both weighted and non-weighted classes are rewarded with a potentially higher GPA. That being said, there are certain situations in which taking a non-weighted class is certainly less advantageous than taking a regular one. One such situation has affected myself and many of my peers. At my school, the regular school days consists of 6 periods, each lasting 55 minutes. Students have the option to take “zero period classes”, classes that start and conclude before the regular school day starts. Zero period classes are certainly advantageous for students who need extra credits to graduate or just need room to take more classes. I myself took 2 zero period classes to make room for higher level classes during the regular school day. Students who only take non-weighted classes (mostly freshman and sophomores at my school since the majority of weighted classes are taken by upperclassmen) gain the benefit of having this extra period to cushion their GPA. However, non-weighted “zero period classes” actually penalize students who take weighted classes during the regular school day. Take this example. Student A has 6 classes during the regular school day with no “zero period class”, 4 weighted and 2 non-weighted. Assuming an A earned in every class, the student has a weighted GPA of 4.67 (28/6) on a 5.00 scale. Student B has 6 classes during the school day along with a weighted “zero period class”. Assuming this student has the same class schedule as Student A with the exception of an extra weighted class, the student has a weighted GPA of 4.71 (33/7) on a 5.00 scale provided an A in every class. Student C has 6 classes during the school day along with a non-weighted “zero period class”. Assuming this student has the same class schedule as Students A and B with the exception of an extra non-weighted class, the student has a weighted GPA of 4.57 (32/7) on a 5.00 scale provided an A in every class. So as you can see, this system penalizes the student who takes a non-weighted “zero period class”. What frustrates me is that most “zero period classes” are non-weighted which means that the majority of students who simply wish to take a “zero-period class” to take additional weighted classes during the regular school day are unjustly penalized. The .10-.14 difference in GPA can significantly affect a students class rank among other things. It is absurd that the student who wants to take more classes and overachieve will potentially have a lower GPA than another student of a similar caliber who didn’t take that one extra class. The student should be rewarded, not penalized. /rant

jfl2010 · December 9, 2009, 9:44pm

Tony, are you saying that taking 5 honors classes will boost a 91.5 into a 91.6?

magicalmegan · December 12, 2009, 10:11am

My school does this and it’s very annoying! Freshman year, I took 4 honors classes, all that were offered (honors english, history, math, and science) so those counted as 5.0’s for the GPA. Then i took two electives which are both 4.0’s so my total GPA was 4.6 or something like that. There was one boy who took all the honors classes too, but only did one elective and used the other for a study hall. Since he only had 1 4.0 his GPA was a 4.8. I was penalized for taking more electives. And this keeps building up until senior year when they use GPAs to calculate class rank.
There’s another school in our area who I think has it right. There, if you have a normal schedule with one study hall electives count as 4 like usual. But if you take a full schedule with more electives you are allowed to take one elective pass/fail so it doesn’t affect your GPA. Also, they weight honors as 4.5 and AP as 5 which I also think is smart. At my school, they have honors and AP for some classes and obviously those taking honors have an easier time getting A’s than those in AP.

MarinMom · December 12, 2009, 4:25pm

Yes. Taking extra non-honors classes or having a jr. college class listed on the hs report card will bring down the GPA of anyone with an over 4.0 average. My kids’ guidance counselors recommended against having their college math classes reported to the hs for that reason.

That being said, the penalty isn’t very severe. It could make the difference between being valedictorian and not, which I could be important to some kids (not to mine). Otherwise, our hs only ranks by decile, and while it’s theoretically possible that taking extra non-honors classes (and getting A’s in them) would bump someone out of the top decile, I doubt that it happens very often. UC uses its own system to determine which students are ELC (in the top 4% of the class), and it seems to be pretty robust against that kind of artificial reduction in GPA.

SeekingUni · December 12, 2009, 6:39pm

This isn’t a problem at my school, because honors and AP class credits are added to our GPA, not averaged in. It’s an additional .04 for honors classes and .08 for AP classes.

So if I took all regular courses and made all A’s, my GPA would be 4.00. If I took an AP course and made an A, my GPA would rise to 4.08. Instead of my GPA being calculated by averaging the 4.08 into the GPA, 0.08 is simply added to my average of regular courses.

mngirl · December 12, 2009, 6:55pm

My school does absolutely no weighting. The highest GPA that you can possibly have is a 4.00.

On the one hand, I like our system. I’m totally the kid that would take 6 AP/IB classes and not take orchestra if that was what I needed to do to be the top. In previous years, I took orchestra during the school day (with 5 IB/AP classes) without it hurting my GPA. This year, I have 5 IB/AP classes, plus a course at a college and aiding and zero hour orchestra. I really could not handle any more, so I’m glad that there is no incentive for doing anymore.

On the other hand, I there are times when not weighting is annoying. There are 3 of us with 4.00s at my school right now (plus 1 more who has 1 A- from taking geometry in the high school during 8th grade). Two of us are in the IB diploma program with heavy schedules. The third girl isn’t going for the IB diploma, didn’t take AP/IB physics and isn’t taking the hardest math course or a foreign language. That doesn’t really seem fair that she is ranked as high as the rest of us.

I don’t think ranking would work at my school anyway because some classes that are easier or harder would be ranked the same. Spanish 5 (IB SL) is significantly harder than French 5 (IB SL). IB/AP is hard not to get an A in, while I’ve heard IB Chem is actually kind of hard. (I didn’t take it because of scheduling.) We have two options for IB HL history, one of which is known to be much easier than the other. The smart kids take one, raising the curve, while the kids who don’t want as much work all take the other. I feel that although unweighted grades aren’t really fair, weighting them wouldn’t be any fairer.

glassesarechic · December 13, 2009, 12:45am

My school weights honors classes one point and AP/IB classes two points (so an A is averaged in as a 6.0). Personally, this bothers me. In the IB program, there are quite a few grade-grubbers looking to boost their class rank who pad their schedules with “lite” 6.0 elective classes like psych and stats, while the motivated kids who have specific interests and take elective courses get penalized.

I think only core classes should be weighted, maybe with room for one extra weighted elective so those taking more rigorous electives could be rewarded without there being an incentive to take all 6.0 classes.

siemprecuriosa · December 13, 2009, 3:10am

Yes, my high school does. I lost the valedictorian rank because I took band for two years while the girl who was the eventual valedictorian took study hall. Over the course of high school overall, I took more honors/AP classes than she did, and I got straight A’s in everything (core classes and electives), but it wasn’t enough to make up for having taken band those first two years.

I was interested that someone mentioned earlier that their school allows people to have a pass/fail option for unweighted electives. I’m pretty sure my school doesn’t offer that, but it would have been nice if they did.

siserune · December 13, 2009, 7:33am

That doesn’t eliminate the penalty for doing more. It is mathematically equivalent to keeping the penalty (coming from the averaging of points in the GPA component of the formula) and shrinking its impact a little bit. You can think of it as dividing the penalty by two, or subtracting 10 percent from the penalty, or something like that. The exact extent of the reduction will depend on how different and how variable the bonus points are when compared to GPA.

To summarize, the math is fairly simple here:

<ol>
<li>The only penalty-free scoring system is a sum of (weighted) grade-points. This is because what it means to have a “penalty for doing more” can be quantified precisely, and one can analyze under what circumstances the penalty is zero. The answer is that if some basic fairness criteria are imposed, zero penalty means a weighted-sum scoring system.</li>
<li>Other systems are close to being penalty-free only to the extent that they indirectly simulate a truly penalty-free system, i.e., the formula gives results that are approximately the same as using a weighted sum, when applied to the particular distribution of grades and courses at a given school. In that case one is better off just using a weighted sum.</li>
<li>Any system that makes a point of rewarding flawless grades, such as grade point averaging, serves as an incentive to do less, by penalizing those who do more.</li>
</ol>

_me · December 13, 2009, 11:57am

In our HS - Getting an A in a non-weighted course will drop your GPA.
Another thing that our school has (besides honors and AP) - tracks. Three different levels of regular weighted courses - low, medium and high. Our school does not rank but shows where you fall within a percentile. It really screws up the statistics.
Grade Point Average
4.920 – 4.243
4.215 – 4.025
4.023 – 3.843
3.841 – 3.607
3.597 – 3.442
3.436– 3.189
3.186 – 2.992
2.990 – 2.642
2.632 - 2.141
2.106 and below

SeekingUni · December 13, 2009, 12:02pm

Hm, here’s an example:

Somebody takes 3 regular courses and 4 AP courses, making an A in all of them. His GPA would be (4.0x3 / 3) + 4x0.08 = 4.32.
If the AP and Honors class points were averaged in instead of added, the GPA would be: (4.0x3 + 4.08x4) / 7 = 4.05, which is significantly lower than the 4.32.

If the student were to add in one more regular class to his schedule, it won’t lower his GPA, and therefore wouldn’t “penalize” him:
(4.0x4 / 4) + 4x0.08 = 4.32.
As you can see, taking a non-honors or non-AP course would not lower the GPA. In fact, it remains just the same.

Cryptus · December 13, 2009, 3:12pm

Most schools in the United States undoubtedly penalize students with A’s in non-weighted classes. The rationale is that interest in the five core academic subjects (especially in the U.S.) have been declining in recent years - thus, the incentive is to award students who pursue these fields. At our school, PE is a required course, and varsity sports can replace those PE credits (both are unweighted), meaning student ranking is impacted less by non-weighted electives. However, since these courses are required for two years, students who want to pursue sports for their entire high school careers - or students who pursue electives other than sports (especially the arts) may be penalized unfairly.

I for one strongly disagree with the system. Although it may reward students who are truly passionate about the subjects they pursue, it encourages a narrowing of the student body. The majority of top applicants to top schools have top-of-class ranks, top-level difficulty courses, top grades, and top extracurriculars (phew!). However, I believe that this exact trend has become the plague of college admissions - if every applicant ends up looking exactly the same, how do adcoms pick the “best” students? The shift in admissions toward picking the students that “make the student body diverse” mitigates the benefits of playing the GPA game; but the general mindset at high schools that “rank = admission” still encourages students to play the game anyways. No offense to anyone on here, but that usually leads to the “generic, boring” student.

Obviously, there are things such as the essay which differentiate students and add a personal element to each application. But if the diversity in the essay does not match the lack of diversity in the resume or transcript, I believe the credibility of the writing is considerably diminished.

For one, I wouldn’t about unweighted classes causing a fall in rank. As long as a student’s application shows a consistent dedication/passion to the activity or unweighted class (learning an instrument for 10 years -> participation in Orchestra/Band, or definite participation in sports since youth -> varsity team), I think any adcom would pick that student over another who takes “AP Psychology” and lists his or her intended major as electrical engineering.

The trouble comes in where your application shows enrollment in the unweighted class with no display for passion anywhere else. For example, if a student takes Orchestra, but has no mention of music in essays, shows no attempt toward auditioning for Region/All-State, or shirks from participating in competitions, the adcom may question whether the student is taking the class for the easy A, or for real passion of the activity. What’s important is that all parts of your application must correlate with the curriculum you take.

Rank and GPA can be important; but, when every applicant has the rank or GPA in a generally acceptable range, what really makes a student stand out is character, passion, and proof of that character and passion.

Remember: You’ve done a good job if the adcom can throw all the applications into the air, pick a random one, and recognize that it’s yours.

siserune · December 13, 2009, 7:52pm

That isn’t what “penalize” means here. The question is whether there are any possible circumstances where those who accomplish more score lower than those who accomplish less. In your example, a student’s score will go down if he accomplishes more by enrolling in the additional class and receiving an A-minus, or any grade below the maximum possible.

Your example, like some of the earlier ones here, is “valedictorian-centric”, focusing on the specific penalty of drops below 4.0. As I mentioned, you can’t have a system that always gives flawless grades the highest score without introducing other distortions and penalties. However, even if we only care about those who can attain perfect grades, they too are penalized for taking extra (unweighted) courses under any system that averages, because their score cannot rise, and their risk of reducing the score goes up, although they are doing more by taking those courses.

Colorado_mom · December 13, 2009, 10:24pm

At my son’s school, doing study hall instead of an unweighted elective does yield a higher GPA (as well as more time to study).

Since music makes my son tick, we encouraged him to follow his heart when scheduling. Sadly the 10 semesters of band classes did ding his GPA and probably knocked him out of the top 5% even thought he has many weighted IB classes and just 2 Bs. But it was a choice me made. Certainly the many music classes and other outside music activities do show his passion.

What bothers me more is the boring unweighted Business class the school stuck him in freshman year. Study halls and PE classes were full. I’m also bothered that his Drivers Ed class (optional, $300 fee night course) counts as an unweighted/transcript course. It accidentally got added 2x on his transcript (2 different semesters) - we’re trying to at least get that fixed.

Does Your School Penalize Students With A's in Non-Weighted Classes?

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