# Using Weighted or Unweighted GPA



## justneededaname (May 20, 2022)

When emailing college coaches, is it better to use a weighted or an unweighted GPA. If weighted do you say "4.7 out of 4.8" or just 4.7? Or is "unweighted 3.93" better since it is simpler and everyone knows what it means?


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## Dargle (May 21, 2022)

Why not just list both and explain the first is unweighted and the second is weighted, especially for an e-mail rather than a form that only permits one number?

Anecdotally, my impression from admissions folks is that they find the weighted GPA arms race pretty tiring. It used to be that only AP classes had weighted grades and there weren't that many AP subjects.  Now, not only is there an AP for just about every subject (many of which don't even have a non-AP course option), but in many cases university departments don't actually consider them equivalent to their basic courses. You can get credit that allows you to skip an elective, but not place out of their required courses, which makes it hard for Admissions to view it with the excitement they used to have for an AP course in the past.  Plus, some high schools are not offering AP classes and either not offering weighted grades or just calling any course they consider "advanced" to be a weighted grade-eligible course.  That's why you end up with a fairly wide range of GPAs from students at different high schools who are really equivalent academic performers.

So, what admissions people will tell you is that they look at the true (unweighted) GPA to see how successful you were in your courses (as opposed to weighted, where you may be using several weighted grades to bring up a lower grade) and they look at the courses considered "advanced" by the school (whether weighted in grades or not) to see if you challenged yourself to take the most difficult curriculum possible at the school.

All of that, of course, means it's really hard for a soccer coach to just look at a single number now and know whether you have the academic chops to be competitive for admissions. That's why both is probably ideal (or telling them if your school doesn't offer weighted grades or if weighted courses only start in junior year etc) and if you can tell them what the weighted GPA is out of, might as well throw that in there too.


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## KJR (May 21, 2022)

I think this is good advice. My daughter used both, formatting it as: GPA (uw)/GPA(w)

If a coach/program is interested, they'll request transcripts, so the numbers are a very small part of the equation. And I've heard the same thing anecdotally -- throwing out a higher number with no context is irritating to some schools who then receive the full transcript and see that it's, perhaps, not an accurate reflection of the overall academic record. 



Dargle said:


> Why not just list both and explain the first is unweighted and the second is weighted, especially for an e-mail rather than a form that only permits one number?
> 
> Anecdotally, my impression from admissions folks is that they find the weighted GPA arms race pretty tiring. It used to be that only AP classes had weighted grades and there weren't that many AP subjects.  Now, not only is there an AP for just about every subject (many of which don't even have a non-AP course option), but in many cases university departments don't actually consider them equivalent to their basic courses. You can get credit that allows you to skip an elective, but not place out of their required courses, which makes it hard for Admissions to view it with the excitement they used to have for an AP course in the past.  Plus, some high schools are not offering AP classes and either not offering weighted grades or just calling any course they consider "advanced" to be a weighted grade-eligible course.  That's why you end up with a fairly wide range of GPAs from students at different high schools who are really equivalent academic performers.
> 
> ...


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## justneededaname (May 21, 2022)

Thanks for the advice. I hear people throwing around these amazing GPAs for their kids but my daughter's school does not offer weighted classes at all and my son's school only has one for freshman, two for sophomores, and juniors and seniors are limited to a maximum of 4 per semester. I realize when it comes to admissions time, the admissions folks will understand the schools and the differences in grading (my dd's school puts more kids into UCLA and Berkeley each year than the "every class is weighted, ultra academic, college prep, private school that my kids used to go to), but a soccer coach that gets hundreds of emails might not be thinking about grade inflation at one school compared to another. In an intro email I just want to make sure they pass whatever that coach has been told is their minimum standard.


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## crush (May 21, 2022)

justneededaname said:


> Thanks for the advice. I hear people throwing around these amazing GPAs for their kids but my daughter's school does not offer weighted classes at all and my son's school only has one for freshman, two for sophomores, and juniors and seniors are limited to a maximum of 4 per semester. I realize when it comes to admissions time, the admissions folks will understand the schools and the differences in grading (my dd's school puts more kids into UCLA and Berkeley each year than the "every class is weighted, ultra academic, college prep, private school that my kids used to go to), but a soccer coach that gets hundreds of emails might not be thinking about grade inflation at one school compared to another. In an intro email I just want to make sure they pass whatever that coach has been told is their minimum standard.


My dd has old friend with a 5.0 and 1600 SAT, no joke.


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## MamaBear5 (May 21, 2022)

Your student is compared against students at like schools. Essentially you kid needs to succeed in the most rigorous courses your school offers. My kiddo started at the school I taught at where IB is the top and then transferred during covid where AP Capstone was the highest. Students are her new school are not compared apples to oranges against the students at her old school. In addition her GPA puts her in the top 5% of students at her new school whereas she would be tough to break the top 20% at her old school. Of course that is difficult as well since schools don't want to give out ranking anymore (and I think ranking tells a story - how much grade inflation is there, how rigorous is the school, how competitive is the school
 etc)


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## cerebro de fútbol (May 23, 2022)

Coaches understand academics. That being said, 4.7 is clearly a weighted score.  It only gets confusing when the weighted score is less than 4.0. 

Most importantly, make sure the school fits academically and "soccer-ability" wise.  Look at a college team's roster to see where the girls lived and who they played for and at what level (ECNL/GA) while they were in high school. You can also look at Top Drawer Soccer to see when they were committed.  

Good luck on your DD's journey.


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