Hey peeps! So, as part of my college application preparation, I'm trying to understand how GPA calculations work. I know there's some variance from college to college and I've heard that VCU has its own GPA calculator. Can someone explain how it works, or point me to a walkthrough of their calculation method? Big thanks in advance.
Sure, I'd be happy to explain how Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) calculates GPA. It's actually not too different from how most universities calculate GPA.
At VCU, the grade points are assigned as follows: A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1 and F=0. If you're enrolled in a weighted course (like Honors, AP, dual-enrollment, or IB), the A equals to 5, B equals to 4 etc. They count these courses as higher because of their increased difficulty level.
To calculate your GPA, you would multiply the number of credit hours the course is worth by the grade points you earned. So, for instance, if you have an A (which is 4 points) in a 3-credit hour course, you would earn 12 grade points for the course.
Once you have done this for all your courses, you would then add up all the grade points and divide this total by the total number of credit hours you took. This will give you your GPA.
Remember, this is a simplified version of how VCU calculates GPA, and actual calculations might involve some additional factors. Also, for high school courses, the weighting for honors and AP courses might vary from school to school, as not all high schools allocate an extra GPA point for these types of classes.
In calculating GPAs for admission, VCU considers all academic courses (English, Math, Science, Social Science, and Foreign Languages) from each year of high school, with additional weighting for AP, IB, dual-enrollment, and honors courses.
This explanation should give you a rough idea of how it works. To get the most accurate GPA calculation, you might want to reach out to VCU's admissions office and ask them for more specifics on how they calculate GPA for admission purposes.
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