Hi All! I am wondering how common this (or similar) scale is and how people handle it on applications. My concern isn’t just for college admissions because they should hopefully be getting a school report so they can see how the gpa is calculated but applying for other things too like scholarships where they just ask your unweighted gpa without context. For example, at our school a kid with a 93% average in all their classes has an unweighted gpa of 3.6 not a 4.0 like at a lot of other schools.
So you reported 93 instead of 3.6 for example?
Their transcript shows the “unweighted gpa” as 3.6. It doesn’t even show the 93 it shows all the scores and grades in a list e.g. AP physics 94 A, english lit 92 A, etc. and at the end it shows 3.6 unweighted gpa and 4.6 weighted gpa. So it doesn’t show the unconverted average on the transcript. They calculate the average and convert it but only put the conversion on the transcript.
For example, On outside scholarship apps and competive summer programs the applications ask unweighted gpa with no space to provide context or scale. They do not recalculate like colleges do. These are just scholarship committes like the rotary club or some womens league reviewing applications and comparing students gpa, activities etc without school info for context. Students from our school district have lower gpas than some other districts. same grades, but lower unweighted gpa. but the scholarships don’t ask about grades just unweighted gpa.
I get it and that’s a tough situation. Have you asked your kid’s HS counselor their take on how to handle this? If not, you might do so…perhaps they could write up a one paragraph GPA explainer or something like that. You also might check if there is a good explanation on the school profile and send that along with the scholarship/program apps. Good luck.
It was a similar grading scale at my child’s school as well, but the raw percentage, UW and weighted GPA were all on her transcript.
As noted, talk to the guidance counselor because ours recommended reporting the weighted GPA wherever she could, and if they asked for UW, to report the percentage.
Haven’t heard back from guidance counselor but the John Hopkins competitive summer program responded. I inquired because they provide stats on the previous applicants that were accepted in prior years and the profile of the accepted student is unweighted gpa of 4.0
“The admissions committee primarily considers the unweighted GPA and encourages applicants to provide additional information (such as the information you have provided) so that the student’s GPA can be properly interpreted and standardized compared to the other applicants. In your son’s case, the committee would consider numerical grade 90-100 as 4.0.”
We have a similar situation and it stinks. An A is a college prep course is a 3.7, and A in AP or Honors is a 4.0 so a WEIGHTED GPA with straight A’s but all in college prep is a max of a 3.7., straight A’s if every single class is AP weighted would be a 4.0. For schools that recalculate it’s not an issue, but not every school does. Our school also does not rank which is where I think it would help. Our guidance counselor says “oh, they read the school report so they know” but I am not convinced admissions has the time to get into the weeds like that. If its a school near the High school yes I think they know, but otherwise, I personally think it hurts. There are a few scholarships my kid is applying to that use GPA as one of the factors and I am worried they will not pay attention to the scale.
