The following classes are weighted equally in MCPS

AP=Honors= AL (Advanced Learning, usually in signature or magnet programs).

However, colleges will also strip out courses that they do not care about from your GPA and weighted GPA and recalculate your GPA again.

If you are taking AP course, you should be aiming for a 5 or 4 in the AP exam by CollegeBoard. MCPS has been tagged for "grade inflation" by most colleges and universities so make sure that you can back up the AP GPAs with AP exam scores.

Many classes are not weighted -- first two years of language (which I guess now, MS kids do not need to include but for kids in HS), Algebra 1, Art, PE, IED, and many intro courses towards particular program like Biomedical. College do not bump down as long as the core classes you do take are the most rigorous available. Like if you do not take Calculus or at least 3 year of language, a couple AP Social Studies and at least one English AP -- that looks bad for a public school kid trying to get into a top college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was a kid they didn't give bonus points for AP or honors classes. Of course, there were a few kids who ended up fairly high in our class rank that never took a hard class but that was something colleges could sort out. The downside today is it incentivizes everyone to take these classes but not everyone should be in them. Consequently, the courses get dumbed down. I swear this is more of the everyone gets a trophy for showing up cult.

A kid who would earn a B in a regular class but a C in an honors class gets the same WGPA points (3), but they are exposed to more rigorous content which is good for them.

No one is taking AP instead of honors for a WGPA boost because there is no difference. AP doesn't get dumbed down. Kids get Bs and Cs in AP when they could have gotten an A in honors.

Exactly. In MCPS, kids that signed up for the AP class took the harder route 100% of the time. It was not to boost their wGPA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So in OP example what is the GPA. I have to admit, I don't really get it either.

It depends how many classes the DC had overall. But it would be a 5+5 for the APs, plus 4 x number of non AP/honors classes divided by total classes. If the DC had honors classes those count for 5 points as well.

5 AP/honors and 2 non AP/honors would be:

5x5=25
2x4=8

(25+8)/7=4.71

Assuming the student gets an A in every class.
An A for a regular class is a 4, in an honors or AP class, it’s a 5. A B in a regular class is a 3.0. In AP, it’s 4.0.
Pretend it’s college with only 4 classes per semester. Two As and two Bs would be 4+4+3+3=14 14/4=3.5. If it’s all weighted, it’s 4+4+5+5= 18/4=4.5 weighted gpa. If only the classes wit Bs are weighted, it’s 4+4+4+4, and the weighted gps is 4.0.

OP said the kid had a 4.0 so I assume that was unweighted, so all As

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was a kid they didn't give bonus points for AP or honors classes. Of course, there were a few kids who ended up fairly high in our class rank that never took a hard class but that was something colleges could sort out. The downside today is it incentivizes everyone to take these classes but not everyone should be in them. Consequently, the courses get dumbed down. I swear this is more of the everyone gets a trophy for showing up cult.

A kid who would earn a B in a regular class but a C in an honors class gets the same WGPA points (3), but they are exposed to more rigorous content which is good for them.

No one is taking AP instead of honors for a WGPA boost because there is no difference. AP doesn't get dumbed down. Kids get Bs and Cs in AP when they could have gotten an A in honors.

When I was a kid people took these classes to learn something, not to fluff their GPA.

Anonymous wrote:When I was a kid they didn't give bonus points for AP or honors classes. Of course, there were a few kids who ended up fairly high in our class rank that never took a hard class but that was something colleges could sort out. The downside today is it incentivizes everyone to take these classes but not everyone should be in them. Consequently, the courses get dumbed down. I swear this is more of the everyone gets a trophy for showing up cult.

A kid who would earn a B in a regular class but a C in an honors class gets the same WGPA points (3), but they are exposed to more rigorous content which is good for them.

No one is taking AP instead of honors for a WGPA boost because there is no difference. AP doesn't get dumbed down. Kids get Bs and Cs in AP when they could have gotten an A in honors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So in OP example what is the GPA. I have to admit, I don't really get it either.

It depends how many classes the DC had overall. But it would be a 5+5 for the APs, plus 4 x number of non AP/honors classes divided by total classes. If the DC had honors classes those count for 5 points as well.

5 AP/honors and 2 non AP/honors would be:

5x5=25
2x4=8

(25+8)/7=4.71

Assuming the student gets an A in every class.
An A for a regular class is a 4, in an honors or AP class, it’s a 5. A B in a regular class is a 3.0. In AP, it’s 4.0.
Pretend it’s college with only 4 classes per semester. Two As and two Bs would be 4+4+3+3=14 14/4=3.5. If it’s all weighted, it’s 4+4+5+5= 18/4=4.5 weighted gpa. If only the classes wit Bs are weighted, it’s 4+4+4+4, and the weighted gps is 4.0.