How do colleges look at students from schools that don't weight grades?

[ucbalumnus]

@Sportsball

When looking at schools, and trying to figure out what might be a safety or a target or a reach, how do we interpret GPA’s above 4.0? For example, our state flagship has an average GPA around 4.5. How do we figure out how he’ll be compared in that context?

Different colleges do different things with HS GPA. Some possible ways:

• Take HS GPA at face value. This obviously gives advantage to students from high schools that have heavy weighting, and disadvantage to students from high schools that do not weight.
• Recalculate based on their own weighting (or unweighted). This is more likely if the college wants applicants to put in their high school courses and grades into an SRAR or similar portal or the college’s own application.
• Holistically read the academic record in context of the high school.

@Sportsball

My kid attends a private HS that doesn’t weight, and doesn’t designate classes as honors or AP or IB, but all of the classes are considered to be at least as rigorous as honors.

This situation may disadvantage students at that school in the first case (take HS GPA at face value) and possibly the second at colleges that recalculate a weighted HS GPA (where the high school does not designate any honors or whatever courses).

If the private high school is an academically elite one, it may have dedicated college counselors who can chance your student better than anyone here.