Hi, college counselor here. I have always found it rather interesting on this forum that people quote their GPAs and think that is enough information for readers to assess their chances at colleges and so forth. GPAs need a context.
Not every high school uses weighted GPA (whereby more difficult level classes like AP or Honors get more weight in the GPA calculations). For example, my girls’ high school did not have weighted grades when they attended. It so happens that my older D, after much research of high schools across the country and in our state of VT, wrote a policy for our school to develop a weighted grade system. She spent two years on this, with presentations to faculty, administrators and eventually the school board. The school board adopted her policy for the school, which was enacted after she graduated. But I digress.
Most colleges will calculate an Unweighted GPA for their applicants. This puts everyone on a level playing field as it would not be fair to compare the GPA of someone in a school that had Weighted grades with someone in a school that just used Unweighted grades. Moreover, the grading system varies from high school to high school (such as 4.0 scale or a different scale, what a grade range is equal to in terms of letter grades or numerical grades, etc.). Even when I evaluate my advisees’ academic qualifications, I calculate an unweighted GPA for ALL of them. When you look at profiles of colleges and their accepted student “stats,” they are stating Unweighted GPAs.
That said, be assured that GPA alone is not the only thing when looking at the academic record! Colleges WILL examine the RIGOR of the courses the student has taken. Thus, the “weighted” aspect of GPA is not lost in this regard! More selective colleges want to see students challenging themselves with demanding courses. As well, and this is important to note, colleges examine the student’s academic record in the CONTEXT of their own high school. At the time my girls went to our HS, there were only two AP courses, Calculus and Physics (that has since changed). The most rigorous courses at our HS at the time were called Honors (and they were demanding!). Colleges are not going to say, oh, my kids didn’t take 8 AP courses and some kid from another HS did, because my kids’ high school did not offer those courses. Instead, they examine how much the student challenged themselves in the context of what was offered at their own high school. Guidance counselors (on their report to the colleges), have to check off the level of rigor the student has taken in the context of what was offered. For example, my kids’ GC would have checked off “Most Demanding,” for my kids because they took the hardest classes offered at our HS, and then some (acceleration, long distance learning, and more). Colleges know that the same opportunities are not available at every high school. Again, it is not as if Weighted grades do not count, but every college is going to calculate an unweighted GPA to keep it the same criteria for every applicant, and then examine the rigor of the curriculum chosen within the context of the applicant’s own high school. Not only do they look at GPA, by the way, they also look at your transcript and see the actual grades you got…not just your average, and academic core classes are the main deal and what your grades were in those.
Be aware that along with the transcript sent to colleges for an applicant, your high school also submits what is called the School Profile. This document outlines many things about the high school such as curriculum offered, population, grading system, GPA system, class rank system (or distribution of GPA charts), percentage of graduates that attend college, SAT/ACT ranges/means for the senior class, AP test results for the class, extracurriculars offered, list of colleges graduates are attending, and so on. When I evaluate a student, I always ask for the School Profile, in addition to a transcript, because the transcript is interpreted within the context of the School Profile.
I hope this helps. And I hope that when people quote their GPAs on the forum, that people realize that we don’t have enough context as to whether they are giving an unweighted or weighted GPA, the rigor of the courses taken within the context of their own HS, and so on. It is not enough to go by and colleges don’t either.