<p>Basically there is no fair way of doing any of this stuff. For some reason, Foods & Nutrition at my school is an honors course, so if you get a 100 in that class (and how could you not…you just need to be able to make pre-packaged brownies and decorate cakes), you get a 5.0. That’s the same GPA you would receive if you got a 100 in AP/IB Calc BC (which is impossible). </p>
<p>So, neat!</p>
<p>I wanted to post this about all the posts on cc about gpa with some posters suggesting that other posters do not have gpas that are high enough. It really is ridiculous. I know of two applicants from two different schools twenty minuites from one another. Each has about the same unweighted grades in all of their classes, but one is graduating with an unweighted gpa of 93 and a weighted gpa of 98. The other applicant with the same unweighted grades in each class is graduating with a gpa close to 5.0. At school one school the applicant received for example a 93 in an honors history class. That 93 was converted to an unweighted 4.0, and then weighted to become a 4.5. The other student in the other school received the same unweighted grade of 93, but it remained a 93, and on their transcripts it was also shown as a weighted grade of 98. Similary the student at the first school had for example a grade in an AP class of 92. That was changed to a 4.0 before it was weighted and then weighted to become a 5.0. THe other student who received the 92 in the AP course at the other school received a 92 that remained a 92, but when weighted became a 102.
Both posters could be posting on cc with one graduation with a weighted average of 3.8 and the other with a weighted average close to 5.0, and they had similar grades. Thus, posters commenting that ones grades are not high enough is ridiculous. The reality is that many of the posters who indicate a weighted gpa of 3.8 have HIGHER gpas than many posters indicating ridiculously high gpas.
The colleges know that grading at every school is different. One school might grade on a 100 point scale with no one receiving grades weighted or unweighted abouve 100. Another school might grade on a 5.0 scale. Many change the grades before weighting them to a 4.0 when at another school they would never qualify to be a 4.0. ect.
Because colleges know grading at every school is different they look at three things 1) Did you take the most rigorous curriculum your school offered? 2) What was your unweighted grade in the class? Not what it was converted to. 3) How did the applicant do versus other students who took the same courseload? Do they rank, and if not what persent was the student in.
These selective colleges will see when they look at the transcript for example that both students earned similar grades in the classes they took.
All these posts about someones gpa being low are ridiculous. Grading is different at every school</p>
<p>^Yeah but a 3.4 is different from a 3.8</p>
<p>Collegebound I understand what you’re saying and that’s exactly my point…the whole idea of GPA and our trying to compare them is fairly futile because our systems are so different. However, if you do it like this:
90-100 = A = 4.0
80-89 = B = 3.0</p>
<p>Then you can sort of vaguely calculate the unweighted. That’s how I calculated my unweighted, at least. The way my school calculates weighted is complex and weird and unfair, so I don’t even talk about my weighted GPA.</p>
<p>^That is the system Stanford uses. I asked them. (straight 4.0 scale, no +/- grades)</p>
<p>I don’t really think it’s that helpful worrying about GPA, especially at this point. I mean we could try to guess how Princeton calculates it and things, but we’ll never know. Class rankings and GPA generally aren’t fair, but admissions isn’t either, and all of the unfairness may just possibly cancel??</p>
<p>I won’t even try to figure out what they’ll make of my GPA. I have a 6.3 out of 7, where 7=A+, 6=A-, 5=B, 4=C, and <4=F… which becomes a 3.6 if you recalculate, but is really equivalent to a low A (3.8-3.9?), according to the scale… which doesn’t even account for the fact that my school is ridiculously hard and 7’s are very difficult to come by, that no one who has graduated from my school has ever had a 7.0 unweighted, and that most people with a GPA over 6.0 at my school could easily get a 4.0 at the public school next door, or at a less difficult private.</p>
<p>None of which is evident from the transcript, obviously. I really hope that doesn’t hurt too much. 
</p>
<p>yes, j07, but at our school a 90-100 is an A for the actual grading if a student wanted to interpret what their grade meant ie. they received a 93 in a class unweighted and that means it is an A. However, a student could have all unweighted 90’s-100 in every class and still graduate with a weighted gpa of lets say 99, and that would still be less than a 4.0, even though they actually received unweighted A’s in every class.</p>
<p>Thanks guys :).</p>
<p>Also, my 3.4 gpa was just a guess based on an online gpa calculator. I’ve never seen a transcript with my actual gpa. My average is right between a B+ and an A-, with no A+ and very few if any As given as final grades. As an example of how rigorous my school is, I got a B in Chemistry junior year, but I got a 5 on the AP and a 770 on the SAT II.</p>
<p>It must be a pain for them to have to figure out all the junk and try to compare the applicants.</p>
<p>Yeah seriously. You also have to think about how differently teachers grade. My IB World Area Studies teacher reads our tests but doesn’t grade them…he just bases our six-weeks-averages of how much he thinks we care about history and his class. You can be a really diligent notetaker and not care at all about the stuff we’re learning and he won’t give you a high A. Then there’s somebody like me, who never turns in homework or takes notes but who listens really intently and writes extremely passionate essays, and I usually get by with a 93 or 94. Then next door is AP Micro/Macro, where the grades are based off of multiple choice tests, but where extra credit is incredibly easy to come by. It just makes for a really weird spectrum of people who “do well” based on having different teachers.</p>
<p>Yeah. I have the hardcore AP teachers who really prepare you for the test and grade super hard and only a few people can get an A in the class (I pulled an A- and got a 5 on the test and thought it was super easy). I also have the ridiculous old man who doesn’t have a real grading system and hasn’t changed his ciriculum (can’t spell) in about 10 years (his tests/study guides are typed on a typewriter) who doesn’t try to help people on the AP US History test (probably a 3 average). I didn’t even know what a DBQ was until maybe 2 days before the test. And you also have the Gym teachers: One takes her job way to seriously and gave one of the most talented and smartest athletes at our school (now a D1 athlete) an A- because she thought he didn’t participate enough (as in stretch during warm ups, but he was just really unflexable). He would have had a 4.0 UW without it. The other gym teacher is the football coach and grades based on if he likes you, for the most part. If you are a football player, you will get an A. One of the dumbest kids I know who struggles to keep eligible (you need a…2.0) got an A, while my brother did not.</p>
<p>Basically grades are ridiculous, standardized test scores aren’t fair, so college admissions are the most whack thing ever.</p>
<p>The end.</p>
<p>Agreed.
This is all quite pessimistic.
Let’s be happy and Princeton-y.</p>
<p>Yeah. I’m totally getting in. :)</p>
<p>Hahaha oh ungst. You make me smile.</p>
<p>Me too !</p>
<p>Haha, you make yourself smile? Well that’s good!</p>
<p>a 100 in AP/IB Calc BC (which is impossible)
<em>waves around my 99.8</em> but we do get a bit of extra credit for doing well on the AMC.</p>
<p>ungst, you say that you had a really hard teacher who prepped you for the test so well that you thought it was easy, but then you say that standardized tests aren’t fair? If anything, I think that the tests are what would have shown your proficiency and the difficulty of the class had you gotten a B+.</p>
<p>haha, yeah I do sometimes, but get a good smirk/smile/laugh out of your posts.</p>
<p>Can you guys just get each other’s screennames already? Lol.</p>