Weighted and Unweighted

[Anonymous]

A quarter of the graduates at our MCPS school had a 4.0 unweighted. Unweighted is meaningless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our FCPS public only reports weighted. We are not even completely sure what DDs unweighted GPA is. One school came up with 3.62 another with 3.78. Go figure.

It's not that hard to figure out.
A=4
B=3
C=2
D=1

Even within that framework there’s all kinds of variations. Some schools use +/-, others don’t. Among schools that use +/-, some have a A+ (4.33), others don’t. Some schools exclude nonacademic classes like gym, others include them. Some schools only use core classes.

[Anonymous]

+1

Our private only includes 5 core academic classes in UW GPA but includes all classes in weighted. Has -/+, no A+. Gives only 0.33 boost to honors and 0.67 for AP. No grade inflation, very few 4.0 kids taking full load of APs(maybe 1 per class, the rest of the tippy top students have 3.8-3.85 UW. APs limited to Jr /Sr year. Only 6 periods in a day, so really difficult to take more than 4 APs a year. Also most of the scattergrams in Scoir/Naviance to less popular smaller schools are hidden because “not enough data”. Frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A quarter of the graduates at our MCPS school had a 4.0 unweighted. Unweighted is meaningless.

That’s the truly scary part. Our DCs’ magnet HS has some seriously high weighted GPAs (and the rigor is, for the most part, for real - AP/DE/IB) but there are/were only a few UW 4.0s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UW is most important for colleges. They assess rigor independently and give a score for that.

The weighted GPA can also give you an idea of rigor. It shows how many AP and honors classes you have taken. A 3.98 UW can be a kid with 2 advanced classes or a kid with 10 advanced classes. Which do you think colleges will find more impressive?

This. It's why Virginia schools list weighted. That'sthe only type of GPA reported to SCHEV

[Anonymous]

Unweighted and uninflated are the only authentic GPAs.

[Anonymous]

But there are kids who have higher weighted gpas only because they took PE p/f. So not exactly the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A quarter of the graduates at our MCPS school had a 4.0 unweighted. Unweighted is meaningless.

This suggests grades generally are meaningless at your school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weighted does tell you more when looking at the same school/district. I was surprised that a MoCo student I know with a 4.0 UW had only a 4.63 W, whereas my kid who has a 3.95 UW has a 4.83 W. Clear signal that the rigor is different, which I had not realized.

yes the key for parents is that the GPA is evaluated in context of the rigor and within the school . AOs know the GPA trends of each high school, they track it across years on their own scoir/naviance. Plus the school report gives context to the current class, typically listing the quintile cutoffs or other metrics. course rigor is always more important than UW GPA, especially for the elite/ivies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I only mention UW on here. You can't compare FCPS, APS & MoCo b/c they are so different. Our different HS's can't even be compared b/c the weighting is based upon availability of classes for each grade.

Sorry but if you just compare unweighted then a kid who earns all As in only basic math and non honors or AP/IB classes would stack up evenly with a kid who has all As taking 12IB/AP classes and highest levels of math. But that doesn’t remotely paint an accurate picture of who the student is or the degree of depth or rigor they have engaged in and are prepared to tackle in college. (Not taking away that a student who gets all As should be proud of that achievement and effort no matter what the course—but pretending those two students are on par with one another academically does not compute.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But there are kids who have higher weighted gpas only because they took PE p/f. So not exactly the same.

In hindsight I def wish my kids had done that p/f for PE thing. It’s a brilliant 9th/10th grade hack that we didn’t realize would help until too late, because that 4.0 for two years actually did lower their GPAs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I only mention UW on here. You can't compare FCPS, APS & MoCo b/c they are so different. Our different HS's can't even be compared b/c the weighting is based upon availability of classes for each grade.

Sorry but if you just compare unweighted then a kid who earns all As in only basic math and non honors or AP/IB classes would stack up evenly with a kid who has all As taking 12IB/AP classes and highest levels of math. But that doesn’t remotely paint an accurate picture of who the student is or the degree of depth or rigor they have engaged in and are prepared to tackle in college. (Not taking away that a student who gets all As should be proud of that achievement and effort no matter what the course—but pretending those two students are on par with one another academically does not compute.)

Actually no. The colleges look at the rigor apart from the UW GPA so the two students would not stack up evenly or be on par. The UW GPA is the better measure. I will say that particularly with private schools that have no AP courses, rigor is assessed by the school itself and the competitive peer group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I only mention UW on here. You can't compare FCPS, APS & MoCo b/c they are so different. Our different HS's can't even be compared b/c the weighting is based upon availability of classes for each grade.

Sorry but if you just compare unweighted then a kid who earns all As in only basic math and non honors or AP/IB classes would stack up evenly with a kid who has all As taking 12IB/AP classes and highest levels of math. But that doesn’t remotely paint an accurate picture of who the student is or the degree of depth or rigor they have engaged in and are prepared to tackle in college. (Not taking away that a student who gets all As should be proud of that achievement and effort no matter what the course—but pretending those two students are on par with one another academically does not compute.)

Actually no. The colleges look at the rigor apart from the UW GPA so the two students would not stack up evenly or be on par. The UW GPA is the better measure. I will say that particularly with private schools that have no AP courses, rigor is assessed by the school itself and the competitive peer group.

Not all colleges. Less competitive colleges often just use the GPA printed on the transcript. Private school kids sometimes get tripped up on this when they apply to schools they think are safeties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UW is most important for colleges. They assess rigor independently and give a score for that.

The weighted GPA can also give you an idea of rigor. It shows how many AP and honors classes you have taken. A 3.98 UW can be a kid with 2 advanced classes or a kid with 10 advanced classes. Which do you think colleges will find more impressive?

Weighted GPA means nothing if you don't say the school. A 4.5 from FCPS is way higher than a 4.5 from MCPS which is way higher than a 4.5 from districts in Texas where some grades are weighted to 6.0.

Which is why most selective colleges don't use weighted gpa and look at rigor separate from performance

You mean they weight the GPA.

Do non-selective colleges look at rigor?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our FCPS public only reports weighted. We are not even completely sure what DDs unweighted GPA is. One school came up with 3.62 another with 3.78. Go figure.

It's not that hard to figure out.
A=4
B=3
C=2
D=1

Well, you'd think it was straight forward, but some schools do the GPA based year end grade for a 2-semester calss, and others assign a GPA to each semester and then divide it. The numbers will not be the same in many cases.