What does this mean? Weighted and not weighted grades

[Parrothead]

When I was in high school there was only one grading system used. Add up all the assignments/by number of assignments and one got one's grade.

 

That is the only way I know how to do it.

 

I've tried to google weighted v. non-weighted, and it the couple websites that I read went right over my head. Kind of like they assumed I had some knowledge that I don't.

 

So could someone talk to me like I am 5, and explain what and how and the advantages of using each?

[regentrude]

You know you can assign a letter grade a number, right? A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1. From those, you can calculate a GPA. that is the unweighted one.

 

Now, some schools want to give extra weight to especially challenging classes and decide to give a 5 for an A in an AP class, or even a 6, and a 5 for an honors class. the GPA that results from such a scale is the weighted GPA.

 

the problem comes in as soon as one realizes that some schools DO weight the GPA like this, and others don't, and that some schools go as high as 6 and some only to 5 and some only to 4. So, the weighted GPA does not compare well between schools.

For this reason, many parents on these boards decide to simply report the unweighted GPA and list the course level separately. This way, a college who wishes to use a weighted scale can compute a weighted GPA themselves, but if they don't want that, they can use the unweighted one.

 

Clear as mud?

[snowbeltmom]

My public school weights grades. In an AP class, an "A" is worth 5 points, an "A" in an honors class is worth 4.5 points, and an "A" in a regular class is worth 4 points. Ironically, classes taken at the community college, even if those classes are in math classes beyond AP Calc BC, are also awarded 4 points for an A.

 

Class rank is based on GPA. At many colleges, merit scholarships are based to some degree on a student's class rank.

 

Weighted gpa's have some negative consequences, imo: kids who elect to take band, orchestra, extra art classes, etc. take a hit to their gpa and class rank because those classes are not weighted, i.e. an A is worth 4 points. Kids who enjoy foreign languages also take a hit to their gpa since foreign language classes are not weighted either until you get to the AP level.

[dirty ethel rackham]

Are you talking about, within a single class, some assignments weighted more than others? In some classes, that would mean that the number of points for homework would be a certain percentage of the total, the number of points for papers another percentage and the tests another percentage, etc.

 

In the case of weighted GPAs, some classes like honors classes and AP classes are worth more than regular classes. At our local high school, an A in a regular class is worth 4 points. In an honors class, that same A is worth 4.5 points. In an AP class, that A is worth 5 points. So, if you have two students with the same grades, but one is taking harder classes, the student with harder classes would have a higher GPA. Some schools will go ahead an unweight the grades when making admission decisions (but still keeping in mind the difficulty of the classes.) If that is the case, then many say that there is no advantage to weighting the grades. However, I found that the scholarship people in many schools did not unweight the grades, so having weighted grades was an advantage. I used weighted and unweighted on my son's transcript.

[snowbeltmom]

The student with the 100 average in Regents level who stopped math after Alg 2 will get a better scholarship than someone who challenged themselves and earned a 95 in AP/honors level here and finished Calc 3.

Yet one more example of why the system is insane. It really makes me question the intelligence level of the people who are setting the schools' policies.

[Parrothead]

The student with the 100 average in Regents level who stopped math after Alg 2 will get a better scholarship than someone who challenged themselves and earned a 95 in AP/honors level here and finished Calc 3.

 

That's so wrong.

[Parrothead]

Thanks for the explanation. I should just come here instead of googling things.

[Storm Bay]

To add to Regentrude's info, which covers high school beautifully.

 

Some colleges, private and state, also weight GPAs, but they don't do it the same way that high schools do. First they usually drop all high school weights, change the GPA to a 4.0 and then add their own, but don't bother to tell you exactly how they do this most of the time. AP classes are given more weight, but be sure it's officially an AP class and recognized by the College Board. Some also weight honours classes more, and Community College courses are sometimes weighted differently. At least one state college we went to uses whichever system your high school uses.

 

Therefore, it's good to check each college you would like to apply to and decide how you want to do your transcript afterward. These can be very important when it comes to merit scholarships, particularly ones based solely on your application that looks primarily or exclusively at test scores and GPA and/or class ranking.

 

Karin, who visited at least 10 universities/colleges with her eldest, and who is very happy her next one is still a freshman and that she dragged her freshman along to all 10 schools to avoid repeating ones her freshman hated.

[8filltheheart]

 

Therefore, it's good to check each college you would like to apply to and decide how you want to do your transcript afterward. These can be very important when it comes to merit scholarships, particularly ones based solely on your application that looks primarily or exclusively at test scores and GPA and/or class ranking.

 

Karin, who visited at least 10 universities/colleges with her eldest, and who is very happy her next one is still a freshman and that she dragged her freshman along to all 10 schools to avoid repeating ones her freshman hated.

 

Another question. If you are using the Common App, can you upload different transcripts for different schools? IOW, if you weight and label honors for one, does it mean you have to do it for all and vice versa if you don't?

[Unicorn.]

Does this help (from our HS course catalog):

 

Weighted Rank GPA

o For ranking purposes , only core classes ,foreign language, and all qualifying PreAP, AP, and Dual Credit courses are counted toward rank.

**ISD uses an 8.0 weighted scale.

o A weighted numeric rank will be provided to each student at the end of the school year. Juniors and Seniors will additionally receive a mid-­â€year rank at

the end of the first semester. Rank is also available upon request.

o No rank points are awardedfor any class in which credit is denied(due to attendance or a grade below 70).

 

4.0 GPA

o Will include all courses with the exception of credit by exam, correspondence, online (such as A+LS), and courses taken at School ofChoice, including night school. This average can be converted to a traditional 4.0 scale in which each semester grade 90-­â€100 receives 4 points, 80-­â€89 receives 3 points, 70-­â€79 receives 2 points, and anything below 70 receives 0 points. The total number of points is divided by the total number of course semesters.

o Failed courses receiving 0 points will be included in this GPA.

[Brenda in MA]

 

Another question. If you are using the Common App, can you upload different transcripts for different schools? IOW, if you weight and label honors for one, does it mean you have to do it for all and vice versa if you don't?

 

This is a good question. When we did the Common App five years ago, you could only upload one transcript, counselor letter, etc., and it went to all the schools. I'm not sure if that is still the case now. The Common App version is new this year too, so this might have changed.

 

However, my guess is that it will not change because most brick/mortar schools aren't going to make different transcript formats for different colleges, so I don't see that there would be many requests to the Common App to incorporate that feature. I might be wrong, though.

 

I think that if I make a version of son's transcript with weighting for local scholarship apps, I would just keep it separate and use it for that. I'd send the unweighted one to all the colleges anyway. My guess is that the college ad coms are familiar with transcripts and weighting and would know how to interpret a transcript with course descriptions, but that a local scholarship committee might not be familiar with the different formats and just be looking at the GPA number.

 

Brenda

[MBM]

And yet another explanation from my son's high school which offers three tracks for core courses:

 

Level 2 track: An A receives 4.00 -- average.

Level 3 track: An A receives 4.67 -- college prep.

Level 4 track: An A receives 5.33 -- honors.

 

Weighted GPA includes only core courses.

 

Unweighted GPA includes electives, so in a nutshell, unweighted includes all courses, including failures, and all are calculated at the level 2 track of 4.00.

 

Only classes from this high school are used for both GPAs so I suppose transfer students have to include their transcripts from other schools? I don't know.

 

All students are initially tested into their levels but are allowed to drop down or move up. If they opt to move up, the student must maintain a C to stay in the class. The material will not change if the student is floundering. From what I've seen, the testing does a pretty good job placing students at the proper levels.

 

His high school no longer does class rankings.

[dirty ethel rackham]

The student with the 100 average in Regents level who stopped math after Alg 2 will get a better scholarship than someone who challenged themselves and earned a 95 in AP/honors level here and finished Calc 3.

 

That's a shame. But that is not necessarily the way most colleges look at them. Many scholarships don't just look at GPA, they also look at the rigor of the course load. I know many kids at my son's school got scholarships that took course difficulty into consideration. DS was a NMS so his scholarship was solely based upon that.

 

Another question. If you are using the Common App, can you upload different transcripts for different schools? IOW, if you weight and label honors for one, does it mean you have to do it for all and vice versa if you don't?

 

I wonder what would be the reason for not sending a weighted GPA on a transcript. If they are going to unweight it, then let them. If a weighted GPA will help, why wouldn't you use it? I haven't heard of anyone being adversely affected by a weighted transcript - or am I missing something? ETA: The local schools send weighted GPAs with their transcript. I would not want my child to be adversely affected by not having this.

[Dana]

Our state is stupid.

With state lottery scholarships for in state colleges, the legislature created a "uniform grading scale" for all districts. Students don't get A, B, C on transcripts. Instead, they get a numerical grade.

 

So a 93 in a college prep/tech prep course gets a 4.000 while in an honors course it'd get a 4.500 and an AP/IB/Dual Credit it'd be 5.000

A 94 would get GPA of: 4.125 or 4.625 or 5.125.

A 62 gets a GPA of zeros for any class, so I imagine that's why most districts don't give grades under 50 anymore.

 

Depending on high school accountability here, I don't know if I'll use the uniform scale or just go to letter grades. I think the idea of differentiating GPA by points on the grade definitely contribute to school policies that create begging. It makes no difference if an A is a 4.0 between a 95 or a 98, but with our state's scale, that 's a 3/8 difference.

 

Stupid state.

[snowbeltmom]

The local schools send weighted GPAs with their transcript. I would not want my child to be adversely affected by not having this.

 

Geez. I have gone from thinking I wouldn't assign grades for homebrewed classes, to wondering how the heck I should go about weighting the gpa. :svengo:

 

For those of you who did weight your grades, did you follow the weighting methodology used by your local public schools? My public school determines the gpa by taking the total grade points and dividing by the total credit hours. Is this how it is normally done?

 

If that is the normal procedure, then the next question is do you award the same credit hours for a class as your local public school? For example, my public school awards 1.5 credits for AP Chemistry and AP Physics B and two whole credits for BC calc (one for AB 1st semester and one for second semester BC) I have awarded each of these classes 1 credit hour on my son's transcript.

 

Last question, how do you factor in college credits? Are they treated the same as AP level classes even though they are above the AP level? :ack2: :svengo:

[8filltheheart]

 

Geez. I have gone from thinking I wouldn't assign grades for homebrewed classes, to wondering how the heck I should go about weighting the gpa. :svengo:

 

For those of you who did weight your grades, did you follow the weighting methodology used by your local public schools? My public school determines the gpa by taking the total grade points and dividing by the total credit hours. Is this how it is normally done?

 

If that is the normal procedure, then the next question is do you award the same credit hours for a class as your local public school? For example, my public school awards 1.5 credits for AP Chemistry and AP Physics B and two whole credits for BC calc (one for AB 1st semester and one for second semester BC) I have awarded each of these classes 1 credit hour on my son's transcript.

 

Last question, how do you factor in college credits? Are they treated the same as AP level classes even though they are above the AP level? :ack2: :svengo:

 

 

That was why I asked the question about uploading different transcripts! I asked this question in the honors thread

 

This conversation is really causing my brain to swirl. Am I really putting my ds at a disadvantage for scholarships by not weighting grades??? So, if you do weight, do you weight on a 6 pt scale or a 5 pt scale? It seems to me that if you are using a 5 pt scale your kids are at just as much of a disadvantage as if you don't weight at all. That also makes me wonder.......shouldn't there be some way to distinguish between AP level and students taking university level work for the courses beyond AP (like 200-300+ level college level courses?) Does it not make sense that if an AP course is weighted more that jr level college classes should be worth more than AP level?

 

See......in my mind it isn't just a simple yes or no question!! There are just so many variables that it makes no sense to me. But, at the same time, should he only get a 4 on his transcript for multivariable cal, diffEQ, modern physics, etc??? Blech!

 

 

I have never labelled any courses "honors" bc that would be most of them. How do you weight a 300 physics course? Most seem to be saying DE is the same weight as AP, but I would suspect that most DE students do not take 300 level courses. And then there is the question about an AP equivalent course that earns a 5 on the AP but isn't labelled AP(AOPS online calculus is certainly a more difficult course than AP cal.). And how about AP chem that gives 2 semesters of chem credit for a 5......similar to AP cal BC???

 

It seems to really just create a muddle!! I am not at all worried about admissions. But now I am wondering about scholarships. I am not ready to jump on board with weighting at this pt, though bc I just don't see how to do it in a way that makes sense.

[Brigid in NC]

For those of you who did weight your grades, did you follow the weighting methodology used by your local public schools? My public school determines the gpa by taking the total grade points and dividing by the total credit hours. Is this how it is normally done?

 

That is exactly what we did--we followed the weighting method of our county school system: A=4.0 regular/5.0 honors/6.0=AP/CC. We did not use +/- and we assigned 1 credit per class. :)

[Unicorn.]

One word about AP classes- AP classes must have a trained teacher that is approved by the College Board, or colleges/universities will only count it as a normal class. So just putting AP on your child's transcript, isn't going to mean anything. Anyone, however, can take the AP exam, which they may, or may not accept. They will look at most dual credit classes as honors, though not always, depending on the College they are applying to.

[regentrude]

One word about AP classes- AP classes must have a trained teacher that is approved by the College Board, or colleges/universities will only count it as a normal class.

 

This is not correct. AP classes must have the syllabus approved by the College Board, but there is no stipulation about teacher qualification. Quite a few users on these boards have gotten their syllabi approved. You do not have to submit proof of teacher qualification.

[Unicorn.]

 

This is not correct. AP classes must have the syllabus approved by the College Board, but there is no stipulation about teacher qualification. Quite a few users on these boards have gotten their syllabi approved. You do not have to submit proof of teacher qualification.

Interesting. Ds is taking German at our local ps, and was told that the reason German 4 wasn't AP, was because the teacher hadn't taken the steps/training necessary to be considered an AP teacher. We follow an 8 pt weighted scale, so were not happy that only Spanish had an AP class, and not the German and French classes. We've been told similar things about teachers in other subjects. (there are a couple of AP teachers who suck, and should not be teaching these classes). Something I'll have to look into. Thanks.

[regentrude]

Interesting. Ds is taking German at our local ps, and was told that the reason German 4 wasn't AP, was because the teacher hadn't taken the steps/training necessary to be considered an AP teacher. We follow an 8 pt weighted scale, so were not happy that only Spanish had an AP class, and not the German and French classes. We've been told similar things about teachers in other subjects. (there are a couple of AP teachers who suck, and should not be teaching these classes). Something I'll have to look into. Thanks.

 

Might this be an issue of your school? Your school district may have specific requirements for the qualifications of AP teachers (and well they should!).

[Unicorn.]

 

Might this be an issue of your school? Your school district may have specific requirements for the qualifications of AP teachers (and well they should!).

 

Actually, I had that exact thought after I posted. I'm sure that's probably the case. (in which case, I may get my kids to beg on hands and knees for this most awesome German teacher to just go do it! )

[8filltheheart]

One word about AP classes- AP classes must have a trained teacher that is approved by the College Board, or colleges/universities will only count it as a normal class. So just putting AP on your child's transcript, isn't going to mean anything. Anyone, however, can take the AP exam, which they may, or may not accept. They will look at most dual credit classes as honors, though not always, depending on the College they are applying to.

 

Are you suggesting that colleges might deny credit if the course isn't approved by CB or simply that some colleges give credit for AP exams and some don't.

 

As far as AP classes must have a trained teacher that is approved by the College Board, or colleges/universities will only count it as a normal class. So just putting AP on your child's transcript, isn't going to mean anything. Regentrude is correct in that the only requirement is that the syllabus be approved. Also, you cannot put AP xyz on a transcript unless the course has been approved by the CB. However, you can put xyz with AP exam score___ on the transcript w/o any course approval or special teacher. I also have to question whether or not it is a given fact that universities will only count it as a normally weighted class. B/c it is pretty lacking in critical thinking skills for a school to take a 1 or 2 on an AP exam and weight an A in the course b/c the course had approval (and obviously did not prepare the student for the exam based on the given grade) and then take a 5 and not weight the grade b/c it didn't have CB approval since the CB is not a governing body over universities and their policies on calculating GPAs per their own formulas (which most universities do have). FWIW, I have no idea what universities' policies actually are.

 

FWIW, I have yet to encounter more than 1 single course out of the dozen+ courses my kids have taken from a CC that deserves the label honors. Most of them have been incredibility sub-par. I do not doubt that they are weighted.....just doubt that they deserve being weighted. ;)

[Storm Bay]

 

Another question. If you are using the Common App, can you upload different transcripts for different schools? IOW, if you weight and label honors for one, does it mean you have to do it for all and vice versa if you don't?

 

You could call the schools and see if you can mail your homeschool transcript separately; we did that with some of dd's teacher recommendations. In our case, the public school gave dd credit for enough of her homeschooled freshman classes that I didn't end up sending in my own transcript.

 

I didn't weight anything, but in hindsight it would have been helpful in this particular situation if I had due to class ranking. However, I'm not sure if they'd have taken it then. Our counsellor would now given my dd's track record, etc. We have a great counsellor.

 

Geez. I have gone from thinking I wouldn't assign grades for homebrewed classes, to wondering how the heck I should go about weighting the gpa. :svengo:

 

For those of you who did weight your grades, did you follow the weighting methodology used by your local public schools? My public school determines the gpa by taking the total grade points and dividing by the total credit hours. Is this how it is normally done?

 

If that is the normal procedure, then the next question is do you award the same credit hours for a class as your local public school? For example, my public school awards 1.5 credits for AP Chemistry and AP Physics B and two whole credits for BC calc (one for AB 1st semester and one for second semester BC) I have awarded each of these classes 1 credit hour on my son's transcript.

 

Last question, how do you factor in college credits? Are they treated the same as AP level classes even though they are above the AP level? :ack2: :svengo:

 

If I do this with ds, and I think I may since he's going to do part time public school, I'll do it the way our ps does. However, you can weight it any way you like as long as you explain your grading system on your transcript.