kitchen table math, the sequel: weighted GPA

Friday, January 5, 2007

weighted GPA

Our High School is proposing to change the way high school grade point average is calculated. We currently use a a weighted GPA scale that gives more "credit" to Honors and AP level courses. Honors and AP are graded on a 6.25 scale (an A+ gets a 6.25) and the non-Honors/AP courses use a 5.25 scale. Also, health and physical ed courses are not included in the GPA calculation.

The high school administration proposes to end this and grade all students on a single 4.0 scale that includes all graded courses (scooping in band, pe, health, maybe others). I'm on the fence on this because I really don't know what the pros and cons are and I am hoping maybe some of you out there might help clarify.

Here's what we've come up with so far -- the change would primarily affect the class "rank." By taking easier courses and getting an A, you'll get a better GPA and a better class rank than if you take AP and Honors courses and get a B. The kids graduating in that all important (is it?) top 10% might be those that avoid AP and Honors and take easier courses for a better grade. Would this new system penalize kids that stretch themselves in AP and Honors? Or do colleges really not care about GPA and class rank, caring much more about the courses on the transcript rather than the grades achieved?
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11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always assumed that colleges looked beyond GPA and examined transcripts to see if the student took challenging courses. But in some states, admission to top state universities depends on class rank. I don't think CT is one of those states, though.

January 5, 2007 at 11:33 AM
Anonymous said...

I was thrown for a moment, until I realized that "weighted GPA" means something very different at the university, where a grade is calculated with a formula that weights it according to the mean score of the class. So an A in a class where the mean GPA is 3.5 (out of 4.0) would be weighted less than an A in a class where the mean GPA is 2.25, for example.

See here for more information, but here's the relevant quotation:

"We propose the following: in addition to the "real GPA" as presently calculated on the student's transcript a "relative" or "weighted" GPA be added. The weighted GPA would take into consideration the relative value of a grade in a class based upon overall grade distribution in that class. In courses where few As are given, those As would be more heavily weighted than in those classes where many As are given. Moreover, the transcript would contain the distribution—in raw numbers—of grades in every course. That is, next to a student’s grade in a class, the transcript would list the number of As, Bs, and so forth in that same class. If the listing of the entire grade distribution would crowd the transcript too much, the mean grade for each class could be listed next to the student’s grade and the weighted or “relative” grade. The transcript would also contain the unqualified and relative (overall) GPA."

January 5, 2007 at 12:02 PM
Karen A said...

Our high school uses a weighted average system for calculating grades. A 5.0 scale is used; an A or B in an Honors or AP class is worth 5 points, and an A in a regular course is worth 5 points. Bonus GPA points are awarded to students who receive a A in an Honors or AP course.

My daughter, K, is a senior in high school and I must say, based on our experience, that the system works quite well. In fact, it seems to have been very thoroughly thought through.

In K's opinion, the weighted system provides an incentive for the student who wishes to take harder classes; the student is rewarded for working harder and challenging him/herself. It has been her experience that it is much harder to receive an A in an Honors or AP course than it is in a regular course.

A friend of the family graduated from one of the top high schools in Indiana a year ago; this school was not using a weighted system, but apparently is in the process of converting to such a system. Our friend's comment was that many students chose to take easier classes in order to boost their GPA/class rank.

We have been primarily looking at midwestern colleges and universities, both private and public. With that reference point in mind, it has been our experience that colleges look at a number of factors. The importance of the student's ACT or SAT score cannot be underestimated. A number of colleges place a lot of importance on the average ACT/SAT score of their freshman class.

However, class rank and GPA are also important, as is the degree of difficulty of the courses chosen. Also, rural schools (which are smaller and have more limited resources) can't offer as many opportunites for AP and Honors courses, so the GPA/class rank is particularly important as a measuring tool.

I'm curious what advantage there is to a system that doesn't use a weighted average for Honors and AP courses.

January 5, 2007 at 2:00 PM
SteveH said...

A friend of mine told me that some of the colleges his daughter applied to wanted to see both the weighted and unweighted GPA. His comment was that some colleges did a two pass evaluation of applications. The first pass looked at and sorted based on the unweighted GPA. He thought it was better to get higher grades on easier courses than lower grades on harder courses. The higher unweighted grades get you past the initial sort where they start looking at things other than numbers.

However, high schools should weight difficult courses higher. Otherwise, there would be an incentive for kids to take easier courses. Forget what colleges think. This is the wrong incentive for education.

January 5, 2007 at 2:36 PM
Tex said...

Our high school uses a weighted system for honors & AP courses. They use different formulas than the two examples given so far. An A in our school would be a GPA of 4.4 (AP), 4.2 (honors) or 4 (regular). I can see why colleges want to see unweighted GPAs.

I also like the weighting for the reasons listed so far.

Steve’s comment about how some colleges seemed to encourage students to take easier courses is a little disconcerting.

I have just started to educate myself about the college application process and I have found collegeconfidential.com chock full of good information, including a very active forum.

January 5, 2007 at 3:28 PM
LynnG said...

The High School has listed several items as their "Rationale for Discussion" on the GPA change.
The first point seems to be that colleges recalculate GPA anyway and don't consider the weighted grades from the school.

The new policy "ties to the mission statement" (this is not explained).

The new policy will "provide a clearer and more realistic focus on
student achievement and growth" (this is also not explained

Finally: "Allows for equity for ALL students"

It is the belief of a few of us that the equity issue is the main thing. Kids that never take an Honors level course feel bad when they are beat out by the smarter kids that ace AP.

I believe it is another attempt to homogenize.

January 5, 2007 at 3:43 PM
Ben Calvin said...

Finally: "Allows for equity for ALL students"

Could this tie into a mandate, in your state, for the state university system to accept all students who place in the top x percentile of their class?

This is the system that has been adopted in California when affirmative action by government entities was banned in California by a voter initiative.

January 5, 2007 at 4:51 PM
Catherine Johnson said...

Hi everyone - I'm out of town 'til Wednesday.

We learned something interesting about grades in the middle school this fall.

Ms. K, the accelerated math teacher, was told by her superiors "to keep the number of As down."

We know because she told a parent she'd been given this order.

In the rest of the state the practice is to grade kids in accelerated or Honors courses up slightly (according to a specified formula) so that they aren't penalized for taking harder courses.

Our middle school grades accelerated kids down. About one third of the class is in accelerated math, which means this group probably corresponds to the "fast thirds" we talked about on the original ktm.

So the school has been deliberately grading down its fastest learners.

All this has to be seen in light of the "Contract to Improve My Grades" the kids were supposed to sign in 6th grade stating that they were, at age 11, "fully responsible for my grades." (For newbies, Ed and I were the only parents in the class who refused to sign the thing or have our child sign it. Boy, were we right.)

The accelerated math class keeps the Honor roll numbers way down; many of the kids in the class will never be on the Honors roll because of it, Christopher included. He's reaching the point of being a straight-A kid, but he'll never make the Honors roll in middle school because of the math course which is a) a horrifically designed course not unlike the courses rightwingprof's Ricky has been taking and b) taught by a very weak teacher. It's the school's failures, not his, that will keep him from Honors.

I would really like to know how and why the upper schools in my district got to be the way they are.

In many ways they seem to be almost anti-achievement.

Now I'm starting to hear about drug and alcohol problems in the high school which, naturally, are chalked up to "wealthy parents who give their kids everything" (this is from a h.s. principal in another wealthy district) or "wealthy parents who don't care" or "wealthy parents who are never there."

The pervasive hostility to parents is a another theme, obviously.

Naturally I'm thinking, Gee, I wonder if schools with secret policies to grade kids down might contribute to alienation and drinking amongst the student population?

Or, alternatively, Gee, I wonder what roll the schools play in drug use and drinking?

Do we know anything yet about drug & alcohol use in successful charter high schools?

Or is the charter school movement still too young?

January 6, 2007 at 6:47 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

The book to get is Michele Hernandez's on college admissions.

I'm pretty sure colleges want to see weighted grades. (I think she may have said that colleges do their own weighting, but I don't remember.)

January 6, 2007 at 6:48 AM
LynnG said...

Catherine, I'll see if I can find the book. Apparently, there is a meeting on Monday in which this new grade policy will be discussed. I'm assuming now that this is a done deal. They've gotten out the big guns, you know -- claiming that this has something to do with the mission statement and equity. Even a parent riot can't top the mission statement and equity.

Connecticut, BTW, does not have a mandate to accept kids that perform at the top of their high school classes, like California. This GPA change is driven by the town only. We are going through our 10 year accreditation review at the HS, so I'm guessing that dusting off the mission statement and changing policies to promote equity is meant to impress those that judge us.

Nobody is arguing that this is actually beneficial for students.

January 6, 2007 at 6:34 PM
Anonymous said...

in Portland, Maine we are examining similar issues. An interesting study supporting weighted grades can be found at http://libraries.maine.edu/cre/35/No35.pdf

January 7, 2007 at 6:07 PM

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