Is it better to increase your weighted GPA or increase unweighted GPA?

I think that this is a very reasonable question.

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.

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