Ok, Im looking for some clarification regarding weighted/unweighted GPAs that I see discussed across most of the CC forums. Lots of references to “4.0” but looking for clarification of what exactly that equates to. Not sure which forum to post this question in exactly…
DD is new high school student, her high school GPA scale is listed below. Advanced courses (pre-ap, AP, IB) are on a 6.0 scale if you achieve a 100 in the course where on-level courses max at 5.0 for a 100 in an on-level course. Score a 99 in the course and you get either 5.9 or 4.9 etc depending on AP or OL.
So an On-Level/Unweighted GPA of 4.0 is a 90 average and would not put you remotely close to a good class rank at her school and would guess is the same at other schools.
So when a 4.0 UW is referenced is that referring to a 90% average normally?
Ok thanks, kinda surprised a 90 to 100 all has the same weight of 4.0 as there is lots of extra effort to obtain the extra grade points. I guess thats why its coupled with class rank. I would guess a 4.0 might not get you into the top 25% regarding rank at DD’s school. Thanks.
That’s a good shortcut although schools vary - a 4.0 was 94.5%, 3.9 was 93.5% 3.8 was 92.5% and so on at my kids’ high school. But in general As are 4.0, Bs are 3.0, Cs are 2.0 and the percents vary. Colleges however look at it in the context of the individual high schools so for example my son had a uw GPA of 3.8%, a 93.5% average over all four years of high school… he did not have “all As” but the colleges could see what that 3.8 was in context to his high school (as compared to “other” high schools). Colleges are very used to seeing all kinds of crazy scales but it is good to have a general idea what your district means in context to other possibilities. It only matters in context.
@momofthreeboys. Couldn’t agree more! I’m always bewildered when someone says they have a 3.8 unweighted and others tell them" it’s too low". Unless there has been some indication where this falls in that persons class it’s irrelevant. Even at schools that don’t rank colleges can generally suss out what a certain GPA means by reviewing the school report prepared by the counselor. At my kids school an unweighted 3.8 for a student with the most demanding classes puts one in the top 5 percent. An a- is a 3.6.
Letter grades have traditionally been used. In order to quantify them numbers have been assigned to get a gpa. Weighting, done many ways, attempts to consider the difficulty of the class. There are many different ways to determine what constitutes any given letter grade. No one way is perfect. Colleges need a way to compare apples to oranges to pears to peaches to… Typically they will use the grades without add ons for honors/AP et al. They also may choose to count only “academic” classes. Defining what that means is not known to all- I’ve seen questions about that. Colleges do have the HS give an explanation of their grading system and where the student fits in it.
Frankly, I am happy that most schools use the 4 letter grades (plus failing) instead of such a huge number scale. Thinking 100% is perfect or that a student ins better by a small margin is not what grading is supposed to be about. Grades tell the student and others how well the student is doing relative to a standard. A teacher should be able to give out A’s and have an extremely tough test that shows students how much more there is to learn and not that they have mastered it all. In the old days (good or bad) grades were on a curve so a student competed with peers for the top grades instead of competing with themselves for the perfect grade. However, with rigid points equal a grade systems teachers need to test so students can get the top percents instead of challenging them more.
I still remember how the top grade on a freshman honors chemistry course exam was in the high 70’s percent wise and there were several in the 60’s- all who deserved the A’s (I was one of them). btw- essay/blue book exam so more than one way to score/lose points. It was humbling to realize how much more there was to learn despite showing how much was known.
On any given day anyone may do slightly better/worse in showing knowledge and skills. Those 100 point scales need to come with statistical margins- 5 points???
I really don’t get the unweighted thing. AP classes are college level and in my opinion an A in that should count more than an A in a high school level class. That way you are not comparing apples to oranges, and top students’ can’t game a perfect GPA by taking all lower level classes. Colleges say they look beyond the GPA to the overall difficulty of the student’s course of study, but isn’t that reflected in the weights more objectively?
@honestmom, sure, but every high school has their own weird systems for how they weight grades. Our high school for example weighted APs and honors classes exactly the same. I really think the weighted GPA is mostly for determining class rank for high schools that use class rank to determine val, sal and other awards. And there are definitely drawbacks to many weighted systems if non-academic courses are included so a kid who takes a full load plus orchestra might end up with a lower rank than someone who takes only AP courses. (This happened to my sister-in-law and it still rankles!) Many colleges don’t actually look at the GPAs at all, they look at your course load and judge its difficulty. If you are taking a full load of advanced classes as a senior - it doesn’t really matter whether the school has weighted or unweighted GPAs because the colleges are looking at the actual transcripts. Some colleges I’m told compute their own version of a weighted GPA.
@honestmom, this isn’t as simple as it seems. Weighting schemes differ by school, so it’s not easy to compare between schools. Some schools may give +.5 to an honors and +1 to AP. Others may give +1 to both honors and AP. Others may give +1 to honors and +2 to AP. How do you decide how to weight the courses? Does it make sense to give equal weight to the “easy” APs and the “hard” APs? Does it make sense to give equal weight to a freshman honors class and an AP class? Is an honors class really harder or more work than a studio art class? Now consider that as far as I can tell, most schools calculate the weighted GPA in a way that actually penalizes students for taking electives. They would be better off taking study halls.
All of this seems to create, in competitive schools which rank students, a bizarre and cutthroat educational environment, where instead of planning their education around their interests and individual needs, students plan their schedules to maximize the GPA boost of their particular school’s weighting scheme. You can find students discussing different ways to do this on this site.
Colleges can easily see whether a student took the most challenging courses available simply by looking at the student’s transcript. There are many ways to game these weighting systems, and I think it would be more difficult for colleges to evaluate students on the basis of weighted GPAs.
Good points,. all. I didn’t really think about schools having different ways of weighting. At our school, Honors classes are weighted +1.25 and AP classes weighted +1.5. And there are certainly some AP classes that are more difficult than others (AP Calculus is known as the hardest at our HS, while AP Statistics and AP Environmental Science are two of the easier ones.) This argues more for not looking at GPA at all. Our HS gives A- and B+ grades, which I know many schools don’t either. My D has a bunch of A- grades that would have been As at other schools and given her a higher GPA.
I know some colleges and programs will specifically say they want to see students taking the highest level classes possible. What they take and how much they challenge themselves seems to be as important as absolute GPA, weighted or unweighted.
@honestmom: “I really don’t get the unweighted thing…Colleges say they look beyond the GPA to the overall difficulty of the student’s course of study, but isn’t that reflected in the weights more objectively?”
Aside from the issues others have brought up, I’ll note that you’re thinking of a rather narrow window of colleges here—most colleges don’t have the admissions standards or the admissions office staffing to put that much effort into GPA calculation and recalculation.
“So an On-Level/Unweighted GPA of 4.0 is a 90 average and would not put you remotely close to a good class rank at her school and would guess is the same at other schools.”
Not all schools will give an A for a 90.
“So when a 4.0 UW is referenced is that referring to a 90% average normally?”
At your daughter’s school there are many possible grades over 90 which a student could have earned. In a school which uses only the letter grades A, B, C, etc. there is no difference between the transcript of a student who got 100’s and the one who got 90’s. Yes, they will have the same class rank in such a school. You simply can’t tell what their real average was. It could have been 100%, it could have been 90%. The students who excel don’t have the opportunity to show this in their grades.
honestmom: “I really don’t get the unweighted thing.”
You would have loved my daughter’s high school (said very sarcastically). No weighting. An A was 4.0 whether it was in remedial math or AP calculus. And the school was adamant about never wanting to change it.
While I have issues with that policy, I will say that the scale posted by the OP is giving me a headache just looking at it.
Every HS does things differently. The important thing to know is that each HS sends a school profile along with the transcript. The HS profile explains the school’s grading system (if GPAs are weighted and if so–how etc.), an explanation of the different levels of classes offered in the HS, etc. This way each transcript is reviewed by an admissions officer with full knowledge/understanding of the student’s strength of the schedule and how grades are calculated.
Our local HS (a highly ranked and very competitive HS) does not weight and does not rank students but it has never really been an issue for college admissions – pretty much all of the kids (including my two) get into colleges that make sense for them. .
mathyone
"At your daughter’s school there are many possible grades over 90 which a student could have earned. In a school which uses only the letter grades A, B, C, etc. there is no difference between the transcript of a student who got 100’s and the one who got 90’s. Yes, they will have the same class rank in such a school. You simply can’t tell what their real average was. It could have been 100%, it could have been 90%. The students who excel don’t have the opportunity to show this in their grades.’
Thanks this helped clarify a lot. I guess Im shocked that a student that makes a 90 is seen the same as someone that makes 100 in a class as the same “A”. I would think there would be 100s of students with the exact gpa and rank, possibly why some schools dont/can’t rank? I’m sure everyone can agree the level of effort and prep required to make a perfect score in a class should have that effort reflected in some form or fashion.
fireandrain
"You would have loved my daughter’s high school (said very sarcastically). No weighting. An A was 4.0 whether it was in remedial math or AP calculus. And the school was adamant about never wanting to change it.
While I have issues with that policy, I will say that the scale posted by the OP is giving me a headache just looking at it."
Thanks for commenting. I guess my DD’s school GPA scale seems very fair and transparent to me. All assignments in all classes are graded with number grades. You can go online and see all grades and see class averages at anytime. So if you have a 95 average in a class (and its honors/AP) you know its 5.5 grade points. A 95 average in an on-level course is a 4.5. It seems a fair reward for the additional rigor and prep involved.
But- what about assigning numbers to subjectively graded things such as essays and other papers? A teacher can decide several assignments all deserve A’s but nitpicking for a 94, 96… I recall a system where 93-100 was an a except for the math dept which used 90-100. I like the looseness of the A, B, C system. THEN assigning the number to be able to calculate a gpa. Where we now live I saw graduating seniors at some schools with 7 or even 8.something gpa’s because their HS offered many AP classes. I would be curious how many A’s they actually earned.
I wonder if those at 100 point scale systems get hyper about statistically insignificant differences? Thank goodness grades become ancient history quickly after graduation and moving on to the next level.