Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most schools will recalculate GPA based on their own formulas

This., so those ridiculous 4.8 MoCo gpas become something much lower.

Are they getting extra points for being in club

What club?

Some schools give GPA boosts for things like newspaper. Is that what you mean?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most schools will recalculate GPA based on their own formulas

This., so those ridiculous 4.8 MoCo gpas become something much lower.

Are they getting extra points for being in club

What club?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think many students take easy AP classes to boost their weighted GPAs, not realizing that most colleges primarily focus on grades in core subjects and the rigor of those courses. While something like AP ceramics might boost a GPA, I doubt colleges place much value on AP classes outside the core subjects unless they are considered particularly rigorous.

Unless you’re applying to a school that requires straight A’s, it’s not just the GPA that matters—it’s how you achieved that GPA.

I wouldn't assume AP Ceramics which is not widely provided anyway, is going to be an easy 5. The student is going to have to be pretty darn good at it.

The only "easy" AP is more likely to be Human Geography, Pre-calc (a total joke AP) and for students already fluent in a language and able to read and write it, any of the language AP's.

Precalc is not an AP class at my teens’ high school. Nor was it when I was in high school in a different state 20 yrs ago. When it is start becoming an AP class and why?

Poster you're responding to. I believe it is a very recent thing and largely taken on by MCPS to keep boosting the GPAs. Sadly.

My child's school introduced AP pre-calculus last year and has AP ceramics. At their school, there are several AP classes that are considered relatively easy. While the AP exams themselves may be challenging, the classes don't seem as rigorous. If AP courses are supposed to be so difficult, why do we see students with GPAs above 4.0 still opting for test-optional admissions?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think many students take easy AP classes to boost their weighted GPAs, not realizing that most colleges primarily focus on grades in core subjects and the rigor of those courses. While something like AP ceramics might boost a GPA, I doubt colleges place much value on AP classes outside the core subjects unless they are considered particularly rigorous.

Unless you’re applying to a school that requires straight A’s, it’s not just the GPA that matters—it’s how you achieved that GPA.

I wouldn't assume AP Ceramics which is not widely provided anyway, is going to be an easy 5. The student is going to have to be pretty darn good at it.

The only "easy" AP is more likely to be Human Geography, Pre-calc (a total joke AP) and for students already fluent in a language and able to read and write it, any of the language AP's.

Precalc is not an AP class at my teens’ high school. Nor was it when I was in high school in a different state 20 yrs ago. When it is start becoming an AP class and why?

Anonymous wrote:I think many students take easy AP classes to boost their weighted GPAs, not realizing that most colleges primarily focus on grades in core subjects and the rigor of those courses. While something like AP ceramics might boost a GPA, I doubt colleges place much value on AP classes outside the core subjects unless they are considered particularly rigorous.

Unless you’re applying to a school that requires straight A’s, it’s not just the GPA that matters—it’s how you achieved that GPA.

I wouldn't assume AP Ceramics which is not widely provided anyway, is going to be an easy 5. The student is going to have to be pretty darn good at it.

The only "easy" AP is more likely to be Human Geography, Pre-calc (a total joke AP) and for students already fluent in a language and able to read and write it, any of the language AP's.

Anonymous wrote:This is what makes all the chancing websites so useless. It is really hard to figure out reach/target/likely categories. The only thing somewhat reliable is Scoir/Naviance for your school. But things keep changing so much in last 4 years that even using Scoir is challenging.
Despite the limitations of SAT/ACT testing I wish colleges would just go back to requiring it so that college data points would level off to a realistic snapshot of their enrolled students. As well as curbing the trend to over apply to too many schools.

I feel like even Scoir/Naviance are not as helpful as I originally assumed because of the variance of the number and quality of APs that students are taking. I agree that standardized tests are the only true equalizer. We can't get back to test required soon enough!

This is what makes all the chancing websites so useless. It is really hard to figure out reach/target/likely categories. The only thing somewhat reliable is Scoir/Naviance for your school. But things keep changing so much in last 4 years that even using Scoir is challenging.
Despite the limitations of SAT/ACT testing I wish colleges would just go back to requiring it so that college data points would level off to a realistic snapshot of their enrolled students. As well as curbing the trend to over apply to too many schools.

I think many students take easy AP classes to boost their weighted GPAs, not realizing that most colleges primarily focus on grades in core subjects and the rigor of those courses. While something like AP ceramics might boost a GPA, I doubt colleges place much value on AP classes outside the core subjects unless they are considered particularly rigorous.

Unless you’re applying to a school that requires straight A’s, it’s not just the GPA that matters—it’s how you achieved that GPA.

all the Virginia publics report weighted GOA in SCHEV

Weighted GPA only matters in context of your own high school. Dean J and others have done detailed discussions on this: they can tell, from the school profile and prior years, what the WGPA means relative to peers. They know for example School A has a median graduating weighted GPA of 4.2, and they only admit from roughly the top 10% with top rigor, or 4.8+ with a VAL at 5.2(A+ in AP =5.5 at this school), whereas School B has a median Weighted of 3.9, the school is known to be very rigorous, so they take from roughly the top 20% with great rigor, which is 4.2+ with the VAL at 4.55. Context matters; AO's figure it out.
A 4.35 is very impressive at school B and they might get into an ivy in addition to UVA in state, and will lead to rejection at UVA, WM, and maybe WL at VT at school A.

Anonymous wrote:Most schools will recalculate GPA based on their own formulas

Correct. Your child will input their letter grade and course level (honors/advanced/AP/IB) and course length (ie year long or semester) for each course they take and the colleges standardize based on their own calculation. No need to worry about the folks on these boards saying their kid has a 4.7 etc grade when your kid’s school maxes out at 4.0.

Comparing weighted gpa is difficult. For example in Northern VA, in Arlington only AP/DE/IB is weighted, not honors (APS calls these intensified). But in FCPS both honors and AP/IB/DE are weighted resulting in higher weighted GPAs for the same courseload. Unweighted isn’t the same because it doesn’t show rigor- you can have an unweighted 4.0 with no honors or above if you get straight A’s just as my kid with straight A’s over AP/DE/honors also has straight A’s.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does this matter? Do colleges even consider the weight or do they recalibrate based on a 4.0 scale?

Asking because there seems to be a lot of inconsistency in which classes are weighted, if any, based on specific school and district. Ours doesn’t weight any honors classes. Only AP classes. Plus we don’t have fluff AP classes like AP precalc (since when did precalc become AP??).

I believe that if you search for Holy Cross admissions on youtube you will find a video where they show you the exact screen that an admissions officer would see when evaluating applications. They also explain how that software is programmed to take into account different grading scales.

+1 the program is called Slate and it takes into account grading scales, different weights, etc. The majority of competitive schools (T100) also consider rigor when reading the transcript and Slate can arrange classes according to each HS's school academic/class profile to help AO's quickly assess the transcript.