DCPS High School GPA, Walls

[Anonymous]

I can't back into the GPA that is calculated for my kid on their Walls report card. Does anyone have a link that explains how the year GPA is calculated?

I've been using 5 for an A in an honors/AP class, 4 for a B in an honors/AP class, 4 for an A in a regular class and 3 for a B in a regular class. Can someone confirm if that is correct? And then is there something tricky about how semester classes are factored in? I've been using the grade for each semester class. So if six year-long and two semester classes, then I add up the totals for each grade and divide by 8. This is not matching the year GPA showing on the report card.

And then because I can't back into the year GPA, I'm also not able to re-create the cumulative GPA.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Great question for the school counselor!

[Anonymous]

AP classes get a full point grade bump, but Honors classes only get .5 (so an A in Honors Humanities would be 4.5)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great question for the school counselor!

Isn't she off now for the summer?

[Anonymous]

Does Walls use a 4.5 or 5.0 grading scale?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AP classes get a full point grade bump, but Honors classes only get .5 (so an A in Honors Humanities would be 4.5)

OP here - this is what I was doing wrong! Thanks for pointing this out!

[Anonymous]

How are Pre AP scored

[Anonymous]

Honors gets a 0.5 bump. So an A- would be 4.2 (3.7 + 0.5)
An AP or Dual-enrollment gets a 1.0 bump. That A- would be 4.7.

[Anonymous]

The semester classes only get 0.5 credit. You have to multiply the grade by 0.5. The full year class is multiplied by 1.0. Add up the credits and divide the total of the grades by the total of the credits.

example for 3 classes:
PE (half year) A (4.0 x 0.5 = 2.0)
AP English B (3.0 + 1.0) x 1.0 = 4.0
Honors Geometry A- (3.7 + 0.5) x 1.0 = 4.2

Grades: 2.0 + 4.0 + 4.2 = 10.2
Credits: 0.5 + 1.0 + 1.0 = 2.5

GPA 10.2 / 2.5 = 4.08

[Anonymous]

Great post PP and also a great demonstration of how crazy grade inflation is.

[Anonymous]

Nuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nuts.

This is an extremely conventional GPA formula. Maybe your school doesn’t believe in grades, but pretty much every American high school and college that gives grades uses these equations or something very similar to compute GPA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nuts.

This is an extremely conventional GPA formula. Maybe your school doesn’t believe in grades, but pretty much every American high school and college that gives grades uses these equations or something very similar to compute GPA.

I am one of the PPs and it’s still nuts. You get an A-, B and an A (in a half credit course) and get a 4.08 gpa from that? That is such blatant grade inflation. What is the point of grades? This is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nuts.

This is an extremely conventional GPA formula. Maybe your school doesn’t believe in grades, but pretty much every American high school and college that gives grades uses these equations or something very similar to compute GPA.

I am one of the PPs and it’s still nuts. You get an A-, B and an A (in a half credit course) and get a 4.08 gpa from that? That is such blatant grade inflation. What is the point of grades? This is ridiculous.

Like I said before, if you don’t like grades there are alternative high schools that will provide a narrative instead.

You could also use the same grades in the same classes to compute an unweighted academic GPA. (No bumps and no PE.) Here that would be 3.35. Does that make you feel better?

Instead of getting upset, most people simply distinguish between weighted and unweighted GPA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nuts.

This is an extremely conventional GPA formula. Maybe your school doesn’t believe in grades, but pretty much every American high school and college that gives grades uses these equations or something very similar to compute GPA.

I am one of the PPs and it’s still nuts. You get an A-, B and an A (in a half credit course) and get a 4.08 gpa from that? That is such blatant grade inflation. What is the point of grades? This is ridiculous.

It makes perfect sense to me if you’re taking AP or Honors. Those classes are designed to be more rigorous. So if you have 2 students, one taking conventional classes and the other taking AP and they end up with the same grades, of course the one taking AP will end up with the higher GPA.