How do colleges calculate your GPA?

Unfortunately, there is no single answer because there are many different approaches, depending on the school. The safest GPA to use for your own self-evaluation in handicapping your admissions chances, etc., is to use your unweighted GPA, but go ahead use + - points, i.e., A or A+=4, A-=3.67, B+=3.33, B=3, etc., with no extra points for honors or AP. Who knows whether the schools you apply to will recalculate your grades in this manner, but when reading threads on this forum, etc., it is a shorthand way to compare apples to apples.

Some schools, including many “less prestigious” state schools, will often just take your weighted GPA, however your school calculates it, and use that number. There is a lot of apples to oranges comparisons that go on in admissions as a result, but they presumably see enough applicants that they know how to account for this. Some schools recalculate your unweighted GPA in the manner I set forth above or something similar. Some schools use weighted or unweighted, but only count “core” courses and drop subjects like choir, band, JROTC, whatever, from the calculation of your GPA. It really does depend on the college, unfortunately.