I get confused when people talk about their GPA, some weight, some don’t, some seem to be on a scale to 100? I thought it might be useful to hear what an excellent student’s stats look like at different high schools. At my daughter’s high school:
Valedictorian and salutatorian will be over a 4.7 GPA (incidentally this isn’t even possible to achieve on campus, one would have to take some electives and foreign language at the local college for weighted credit as well as a full AP and honors courseload with basically perfect grades.)
Weighted 4.0 or higher graduates with honors, this comprises about the top 15% of graduates. This student has likely taken many AP and honors classes, if you are an A student counselors funnel you into AP. No IB classes at our school.
Very few students go for national merit scholar, I hadn’t even heard of this until CC.
Large, highly rated, public high school in California.
Only way I can tell high GPAs is looking at “top” schools stats on Naviance. From what I can tell, highest GPA is around 4.6. I don’t see any markers at 4.7 (tough to tell on the scattergram full of Xs, squares and triangles). To get a 5.0 a student would need all AP classes, I think.
NMF Avg 14 / year
NMSF Avg 11 / year
NMC Avg 15 / year
Val and Sal are not necessarily top students as school doesn’t officially rank.
Oldest was top 10% of his class with 5.2
Middle was top 25% of his class with 4.6
Youngest is top 5% of his class with 5.6
We are not supposed to know but we found out (accidentally) that youngest is ranked 10th out of 350 even though that will not be reported to colleges. His 5.6 is a good GPA.
The grading scale is 4.67-A+, 4.33-A, 4.0-A- for unweighted (college prep) classes. +1 for honors, +2 for AP. Nobody can have a 6.67 GPA because there are some classes that are not available as AP classes and some classes that are not available as honors classes. An example of totally unweighted classes are, any PE classes, some arts classes (some are available as honors). English 1 & 2 are not available as AP. The school requires high school level Bio, Chem and Music Theory before taking the AP class. Some academic electives (any of the prelaw, premed, literary magazine, debate, music ensembles and a few others) are offered as college prep or honors level. The honors level usually has additional requirements even though both levels of the class will meet together.
My school is one of those with a strange GPA scale; it is a 6.0 weighted scale, which isn’t too uncommon I believe, but we have the ability to weight the four core classes up to a 7.0 if AP. For core classes there are three levels of teaching: grade level, honors/pre-ap, and AP. If there is no AP exam for that class the highest level is honors/pre-ap and it is weighted as 7.0, if there is an AP then the highest level is AP but no honors/pre-ap. Only the core classes (4) are weighted concerning GPA calculation, even if those outside the core are an AP class. Personally, I think not weighting electives is a great policy, for it allows students to take classes that interest them no matter what level they are taught at.
I go to a large (~650 per grade), highly rated, public school in Texas
NMF AVG: 5-15 per year
NMSF AVG: 5-15 per year
NMC AVG: 30-40 per year
Valedictorians: 10-20 a year, make a perfect 6.5714 (no + or - is factored in). If it were, 0-2 had a perfect GPA
Salutatorians: 3-8 a year, 1 B
Top Quarter: ~163 a year, 6.5714 - about 6.100
My son is scraping the bottom of top 5% with a 93.5. Top 10% is somewhere in the 92 range (no actual ranking, but the school profile lists how many kids are in particular ranges, so the math is pretty easy at the top). No weighting; the school’s view is that weighting is meaningless since everyone does it differently and colleges are just going to look at the transcript anyway (or use their own system). Our kids do great in college admissions. Parents get anxious, but colleges seem to understand our system. School profile does a good job explaining the grade scale and the lack of weighting and rank (I only know the exact percentile because his GC told him where he ranked).
Our HS is a joke. One year, I counted the honor roll and found 67% of S12’s grade had made it - 3.5 or better. Ironically, S12, who didn’t believe in HW, had an awful GPA but was a NMSF commended student - had they not had a writing component that year, he would have been a semi-finalist.
When I was in HS, they had the “Top 100 scholars list.” It was the top 100 of all four years (one list, not 4) and there were about 4000 kids in the school.
Kids’ school is one of those on a % scale. Very few ties when every grade counts for the % you earned, not just if you managed to get over the ‘A’ hurdle. The top 10 are announced with GPA at every graduation. Typically those range from 105-107. AP and pre-AP courses get an extra 10 points, so the max is something south of 110 (as not all subjects have an AP or pre-AP version). Since this is Texas, being in the top 10% is worth a lot for admissions, so the school tends to be top heavy. D1 was in the top 42% with a 3.78 GP unweighted (about a 4.0 weighted)
Typically they have 2-5 NMF out of a class of about 680.
My kid’s HS doesn’t rank so there is no valedictorian or salutatorian.
They add 1 grade for AP and honors that are one year courses and .5 for semester courses, so the highest gpa is potentially a 5.5.
Our graduating classes run about 400 kids and we get 2 - 6 semifinalists a year. I don’t remember any finalists in the 12 years I have had kids in the school, but I didn’t always pay attention. My middle son was a commended student in his year.
NYC selective rated top public HS in country by WSJ. Grad class averages 180 with ~ 60 NMS/F and ~ 60 NMC. Avg SAT ~ 2230. “Excellent student” at school = SAT 2350+ and GPA 96/100+