Super weird question here- essentially, through dual enrollment, I can add extra credits to my high school transcript, bringing my GPA from a 3.91 to a 3.93. However, in the process of doing that, my weighed GPA will drop from a 4.36 to a 4.30. My school has a rule where I can put 4 CC classes, and I put one in in 9th grade with a B+, worth 12.5 credits. This has tanked my GPA(if I had not put in that class I would have a 3.98 and now it’s a 3.91), but I still have 3 more spots left. My school doesnt weigh community college classes,however,so my weighted average would go down.
What do you think is the best thing to do here? Also, will colleges redo the amount of units a College Course is? The courses count as 12.5 credits on my high school transcript, but on my college transcript they show as 5 credits.
Thanks so much in advance! If you need any more details please let me know.
University admissions will look at what courses you took, and what grades you got in those courses. Different high schools in the US compute weighted GPA so widely differently that it really does not make sense to compare a weighted GPA from one high school with the weighted GPA from a different high school.
You should forget about what impact, if any, this might have on university admissions. Instead, you should think about what are the right courses to take for you. Be genuine. Be yourself.
Universities will also determine in their own way what credit if any they will give you for the AP and community college courses that you took while in high school.
Also, read the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site. As I understand it, this recommends that you do what is right for you, and whatever you do you should do it well. If MIT or Harvard or Princeton or Stanford is the right school for you, then taking the courses that are right for you and participating in the ECs that are right for you will be the right approach to get into one of these schools. If some other school is the right approach for you, then this will still help you get accepted to a university or college that is a good fit for you.
And this approach of “do what is right for you, and do it well” is indeed what I did to get accepted to MIT. My other family members have taken a similar approach, but they did different things in high school and then went to other schools that were a better fit for them. This approach has worked for us, but we all did different things and attended different universities.
Edit to add: I do not think that a B+ in a community college course taken while you were a freshman in high school is going to have any meaningful impact on your applications to a highly ranked university. This will look like you challenged yourself, and did relatively well in a college class that you might have taken a bit early. I do not see any problem with this.
Thanks so much for the detailed response! Forgot to mention; I’ve already taken the community college courses in fields I am interested in, and gotten As for what it’s worth. And I think that colleges will see my dual enrollment history anyhoo. It’s purely about what GPA to prioritize; I’ve got to make one choice or the other regardless.
High school credits are different from college credits, so a dual enrollment course will not count the same number of high school credits as college credits.
Colleges may recalculate your GPA with their own weighting, not your high school’s weighting. Your high school’s weighting matters mostly for things determined by your high school, like class rank if they base it on weighted GPA.