High School GPAs getting out of control

[chorb]

Link to article

officials believe her GPA of 5.898 may be the highest in the high school's history

When I graduated from high school not that long ago (2002), the highest grade you could get in a normal class was a 4.0, if it was an AP class it was a 5.0. There were only a handful of AP classes that were offered, probably 6 or so. So even if you achieved the maximum in every class your total cumulative GPA would be in the low 4s (~4.40).

After reading the article I have to wonder how the hell people are getting over 5.0 gpas. Are schools making their classes worth more so their students have an advantage on getting into college? I would think that the weights for classes is standardized by the school board; or am I missing something here?

If this trend continues I'm going to look like [even more of] an idiot when my kid has a 27.43 gpa and laughs at me for having mere 3.80 when I graduated.

 

[OdiN]

heh....I had a 4.22 my Freshman year. Ended up with like 4.11 after 4 years.

Seems a bit more reasonable than 5.89....that's just nuts.

 

[Q]

WTFBBQ

 

[her209]

Now this is just sad.

 

[Gibson486]

I do not even remember mine. All i remember was in College. I ********barely******** missed 3.0.

 

[Gibson486]

I do not even remember mine. All i remember was in College. I ********barely******** missed 3.0.

 

[legoman666]

My brother and I went to a very prestigious (expensive) Jesuit high school. The highest grade we could get was a 100%. They didn't give us a grade on a 4pt scale. AP classes were worth the same as non AP. My sister goes to a private school also and she earns 5.0s for AP classes. My brother and I both think this is complete bullshit. She didn't score above 100, why should her GPA imply that she did?

Anything above a 4.0 is bullshit.

 

[JS80]

College application gpa =/= school gpa

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

WTF ever happened to a 98%?

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: legoman666
Anything above a 4.0 is bullshit.

QFT

 

[villageidiot111]

I think it is really getting out of hand. Most colleges make you submit your GPA on a 4.0 scale anyway. I doubt they're going to be impressed when you submit your 7.62; they'll have no idea what it means.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: JS80
College application gpa =/= school gpa

Ding ding ding. When you apply to any university they take your transcript and recalculate your GPA.

 

[Sphexi]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: legoman666
Anything above a 4.0 is bullshit.

QFT

Hell yes. Our highschool graded AP same as non-AP. What mattered was your transcript, and when a college looked at it and saw AP classes they knew they were harder.

 

[Slew Foot]

My High School gave you a 0.2 bonus to your GPA for every AP class you took. In that way you werent punished for taking extra non AP classes. I ended up with a 5.4 senior year, and a 4.74 overall.

 

[glutenberg]

Originally posted by: chorb
Link to article

officials believe her GPA of 5.898 may be the highest in the high school's history

When I graduated from high school not that long ago (2002), the highest grade you could get in a normal class was a 4.0, if it was an AP class it was a 5.0. There were only a handful of AP classes that were offered, probably 6 or so. So even if you achieved the maximum in every class your total cumulative GPA would be in the low 4s (~4.40).

After reading the article I have to wonder how the hell people are getting over 5.0 gpas. Are schools making their classes worth more so their students have an advantage on getting into college? I would think that the weights for classes is standardized by the school board; or am I missing something here?

If this trend continues I'm going to look like [even more of] an idiot when my kid has a 27.43 gpa and laughs at me for having mere 3.80 when I graduated.

What school did you go to in the OC?

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: Slew Foot
My High School gave you a 0.2 bonus to your GPA for every AP class you took. In that way you werent punished for taking extra non AP classes. I ended up with a 5.4 senior year, and a 4.74 overall.

Which is bullshit. In college, an A is an A, whether you earned it in Advanced Topics in Astrophysics or Introduction to Basketweaving. Sure one class is orders of magnitudes harder, but they still count the same toward your GPA.

 

[JS80]

Damn she got robbed of 1 year of free money

 

[NikolaeVarius]

The highest GPA in my school is also 5.9 out of a 6.0 scale. About 3 people have it. I think its actually impossible to go over that, because you HAVE to take non AP courses, which brings down your GPA.

 

[chorb]

What school did you go to in the OC?

I went to school in San Diego, moved to OC for college (UC Irvine) and still live in the area.

 

[Shawn]

How do you get above a 5?

 

[timosyy]

Originally posted by: Slew Foot
My High School gave you a 0.2 bonus to your GPA for every AP class you took. In that way you werent punished for taking extra non AP classes. I ended up with a 5.4 senior year, and a 4.74 overall.

ROFL... wait, a straight 0.2 bonus to your overall GPA for every AP class? That would've added a straight 2.0 bonus to my GPA, haha. Utter bull.

Like other posters have stated, colleges normally take a look at the grading system and readjust your GPA to an unweighted GPA. So its really nothing to be worried about, just silly as all heck.

Edit: I also don't understand how people are getting over 5s, that seems a tad ridiculous unless the system is like the one I quoted in this post. In my high school, AP's gave you 0.5 on top of whatever you got in the class. So if you got an A (94-100%), it was averaged into your GPA total as 4.5 instead of 4.0. This still only allowed a maximum GPA of like 4.2 or 4.3.

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: legoman666
My brother and I went to a very prestigious (expensive) Jesuit high school. The highest grade we could get was a 100%. They didn't give us a grade on a 4pt scale. AP classes were worth the same as non AP. My sister goes to a private school also and she earns 5.0s for AP classes. My brother and I both think this is complete bullshit. She didn't score above 100, why should her GPA imply that she did?

Anything above a 4.0 is bullshit.

I went to a Catholic HS (Dominican) that does the same thing as your sisters.

Grateful for that fact since I sucked ass at math and my good AP History/Bio/Psych scores helped keep my average afloat.

 

[Slew Foot]

Originally posted by: timosyy

Originally posted by: Slew Foot
My High School gave you a 0.2 bonus to your GPA for every AP class you took. In that way you werent punished for taking extra non AP classes. I ended up with a 5.4 senior year, and a 4.74 overall.

ROFL... wait, a straight 0.2 bonus to your overall GPA for every AP class? That would've added a straight 2.0 bonus to my GPA, haha. Utter bull.

Like other posters have stated, colleges normally take a look at the grading system and readjust your GPA to an unweighted GPA. So its really nothing to be worried about, just silly as all heck.

Edit: I also don't understand how people are getting over 5s, that seems a tad ridiculous unless the system is like the one I quoted in this post. In my high school, AP's gave you 0.5 on top of whatever you got in the class. So if you got an A (94-100%), it was averaged into your GPA total as 4.5 instead of 4.0. This still only allowed a maximum GPA of like 4.2 or 4.3.

To every AP class in the semester, so lets say you took 5 AP classes and got A's in all of them, you would have a 4.0 +5*0.2= 5.0

The benefit being that you dont get punished for taking an extra non-AP class. i.e. 6 classes 5 AP and one regular would still be a 5.0, but it would be a 29/6= ~4.9 something on the traditional scale.

 

[frostedflakes]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: Slew Foot
My High School gave you a 0.2 bonus to your GPA for every AP class you took. In that way you werent punished for taking extra non AP classes. I ended up with a 5.4 senior year, and a 4.74 overall.

Which is bullshit. In college, an A is an A, whether you earned it in Advanced Topics in Astrophysics or Introduction to Basketweaving. Sure one class is orders of magnitudes harder, but they still count the same toward your GPA.

Don't most colleges weight grades based on how many credit hours the class is?

 

[SpunkyJones]

Originally posted by: Shawn
How do you get above a 5?

5? Why the hell do we need to go over 4?????