Why doesn't collegevine use weighted GPA to determine chance of acceptance?Answered
Why does college vine only have unweighted GPA? It seems that weighted would give a better realistic chance of determining acceptance chance.
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3 answers
Short answer: CV like all admissions officers like to use a normalized UWGPA either on a 4.0 scale or a 100 pt scale. Why because that allows them to compare applicants "apple to apples"
Detailed Answer: Weighted GPA are not consistent between applicants. Imagine a random sample of 10 applicants with a 3.5 UWGPA. Imagine that they also have the same amount of APs, IBs, or honors classes. When CV or an application officer looks at all their WGPAs they are going to be all over the place. Some schools do not give add'l weight to course rigor so the WGPA is going to be 3.50. Other schools give anywhere between 1/2 point to 2.0 pts for each honors or AP or IB class. So the resulting WGPAs are going to look like 3.8, 3.95, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.6, 4.7 etc. How is anyone supposed to make sense of this? They can't so that's why everyone is asked to report their UWGPA. I mean a 4.5 WGPA looks impressive but not really if the UWGPA is 3.5 right?
At my most recent HS, none of the classes were weighted regardless of whether they were APs or college level 600 classes. Everyone was graded on a 100 point scale. Everyone was ranked in quintiles. If you were lucky to be in the top 20% your final GPA was like 92.8-95.2 something like that. And I think only 2 people out of 208 graduates had a 95+. So 80% of the senior class had a 92/100 or less and the mid avg. GPA was probably 89-90. Nevertheless, about 45 were admitted into the Ivy League (23%) and about 100 into Elites and Top liberal arts colleges.
So GPA is evaluated in relationship to the High School reputation, clout, # of recruited athletes, # of legacies, etc. rather than some mathematical threshold. I'm sharing this because too many HS students think that a high GPA is going to help them cut to the front of the line. If your school as severe grade deflation, then the school profile report has more say about who is qualified to get in than any other piece of information for the class on the whole.
Good luck.
I was wondering this too, and I think it's because different schools weigh GPA's differently. An AP course might be worth 1.5 credits at one high school, and 2 at another, so two students from different high schools could have taken the same courses but have completely different weighted GPAs. Colleges may weigh your GPA themselves, but unweighted is an easier way to compare them on collegevine.
I agree with other responses in that weighted GPA is determined differently within different school districts.
However, I'd like to add that yes, they technically do use weighted GPA. Collegevine takes in account the number of AP and Honors classes you take, so that they can easily compare weighted GPAs across the board regardless of how much they're weighted.
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