Let’s be honest … there are a lot of things about the college application process that are confusing (that’s why you have US)! But understanding the difference between weighted and unweighted GPA doesn’t need to be one of them.
Your GPA (grade point average) is an important part of your college application (for that, here's our College Application Hub with more information about college applications than you ever dreamed of), so figuring out if your GPA is weighted or unweighted, whether colleges look at weighted or unweighted GPAs, and how to calculate your cumulative GPA are all things you should know. After all, these are YOUR grades and YOUR transcripts, so there is no reason for you to be in the dark about any of this.
But before we jump into explaining what a weighted GPA is and what an unweighted GPA is, we want to remind you that this is just a part of your college application. It’s a key part, to be sure, but we always want you to remember that you are more than just your grades.
Ready to figure all of this out? Let’s jump in!
Weighted vs Unweighted GPA
An unweighted GPA calculates your average grade on a 4.0 scale (usually) regardless of how easy or difficult a class may be, so an A in, say, 9th grade English counts the same as an A in AP Lang. A weighted GPA takes difficulty into account, so harder courses can actually bump you above a 4.0. We’ll get into greater detail and examples below.
To break down some basics: When we talk about your GPA, all this really means is the average of all your high school courses when your grades are added up and then divided by the number of credits you’ve earned (this is typically on a 4-point scale). So you might have seen something like a 3.5 GPA on your transcripts, and what that number means is that you’ve earned that average amongst all the high school courses you’ve taken so far (elementary and middle school grades don’t count towards your GPA, so if you got a C in 7th grade math, for example, that won’t be reflected in your high school transcripts).
But just to make things a little more interesting, some schools use weighted GPAs and some schools use unweighted GPAs. So let’s get into detail about those.
What is a weighted GPA
A weighted GPA is still an average of your grades and credits, but it also considers if you’re taking advanced courses like Honors, IB, or AP courses (here's a little more information about AP courses for you). So instead of using a 4-point scale, weighted GPAs usually use a 5-point scale that accounts for the bump schools give for advanced courses. Confused? Think of it this way … if you earn a B in an AP class, that translates to a 4 in a weighted GPA instead of a 3 in an unweighted GPA.
How to calculate weighted GPA
This part is a little tricky, but never fear, we’ve done the math for you! Just remember your weighted GPA will be out of a 5-point scale instead of a 4-point scale.
Ok, so here’s a scenario in which a student is taking 5 AP classes (this is just for demonstration’s sake … we are definitely NOT saying you need to take 5 AP classes to get into college). Let’s pretend this student is taking AP English, AP Statistics, AP Spanish, AP Chemistry, and AP Art History.
This student has the potential to earn 5 GPA points for each class. Make sense so far?
Because this student is not super-human, they are not getting an A in all of these classes. Instead, they are getting an A in AP English (5 points), an A in AP Spanish (5 points), a B in AP Statistics (4 points) a B in AP Art History (4 points), and a C in AP Chemistry (3 points, because let’s face it, AP Chem is HARD—generally one of the harder AP classes).
Now, all we have to do is figure out the average by first calculating the total GPA points: 5 + 5 + 4 + 4 +3 = 21
Next, we divide that total number of points by the number of classes: 21/5 = 4.2
And 4.2 is our weighted GPA!
What is unweighted GPA
Again, the difference between weighted and unweighted GPA is that unweighted GPA does not account for the different difficulty levels of classes you are taking. Instead, your unweighted GPA uses a 4-point scale and does not convert advanced courses to a 5-point scale. So, the highest unweighted GPA you could get is a 4.0.
How to calculate unweighted GPA
Let’s go back to our pretend student and figure out their unweighted GPA using the same classes and grades.
So, AP English, AP Spanish, AP Statistics, AP Art History, and AP Chemistry—but since this is unweighted, each with a potential for 4 grade points.
Remember our student earned an A in English (4 points), an A in Spanish (4 points), a B in Statistics (3 points), a B in Art History (3 points), and a C in Chemistry (2 points, because Chem is STILL hard).
We go through the exact same steps as we did when figuring out the weighted GPA.
First, we calculate the total GPA points: 4 + 4 + 3 + 3 + 2 = 16
Again, we divide the total number of points by the number of classes: 16/5 = 3.2
Our unweighted GPA is 3.2!
We’ve covered the difference between weighted and unweighted GPA, and your head might be spinning a little with all these numbers. But there is one more piece to the GPA puzzle, and that is your cumulative GPA.
What is cumulative GPA
Cumulative GPA is actually pretty simple: Instead of your GPA for a trimester or a quarter or a semester (depending on your school’s system), your cumulative GPA is your grade point average for all of your high school classes. That’s it!
How do you calculate cumulative GPA?
Since you’re looking for a total grade point average when calculating your cumulative GPA, you don’t need to do a separate calculation for each grading period. Instead, you can go through the same steps we did above, but just do this for all of your high school classes together (here's a Cumulative GPA calculator to help you).
Do colleges look at weighted or unweighted GPA?
Both, and also neither: Because different high schools use different systems, and since colleges want to compare apples to apples, many of them convert GPAs so they have the same information for every student. In this way, you don’t have much control over which GPA colleges consider as part of your application. It really depends on the specific school and what they’ve decided.
Is weighted or unweighted GPA better?
The short answer is neither one is “better,” since colleges frequently recalculate GPAs for their own system. That said, a strong weighted GPA can indicate that a student is capable of academic success with a rigorous course load, which is perhaps more useful to an admission reader, since an unweighted GPA on its own doesn’t tell them as much. Because you don’t get to determine which one of these they pay attention to, it’s hard to say if your weighted or unweighted GPA gives you an upper hand.
And a heads up: high schools that use weighted GPAs sometimes find that students take advanced courses just for the purpose of bumping up their GPAs on their transcripts instead of taking courses that really interest and engage them. Colleges generally see through this. And we definitely don’t recommend letting concerns about what makes your transcript look “better” guide your decisions about what classes to take.
So, we think the answer is to arm yourself with all of the information possible when you start the college application process and challenge yourself in school while making sure you’re still enjoying your time in high school and not worrying too much about whether unweighted or weighted GPA is better (here are some more ideas about how to make the most of your high school experience).
How much does GPA matter to colleges?
In general, your GPA matters a lot to colleges (and some colleges, such as UCs, have a GPA requirement). While many admission officers are considering the whole student when reading applications (which is why your application essay is so important), your grades are still the indicator they turn to most often to get a sense of your high school experience (at least from an academic standpoint). And if you’re an international student wanting to attend an American college or university, it’s important for you to consider how schools use GPAs when you build your college list (check this link out for more information about the importance of GPAs for international students).
This doesn’t mean you have to earn a 4.0 or a 5.0 to get into an amazing school (check out Santa Clara's stats on the students they admitted this year). And this doesn’t mean you won’t have many, many options for college if you didn’t do as well as you would have liked in some of your high school classes. Admission officers know that a few missteps do not define a student, so we want to make it super clear by saying one more time—you are more than your grades! Look at Stanford's Admission Overview if you don’t believe us!
What might happen if your weighted or unweighted GPA is not as strong as it could be is that colleges will want you to explain why. Maybe you were dealing with some family stuff that had nothing to do with school and that impacted how well you did in 10th grade. Maybe you simply overextended yourself when you took those 4 AP classes in one semester. Or maybe it just took you awhile to find your stride in high school.
If you are worried about how your cumulative GPA might impact your college applications, there are almost always opportunities in other parts of your application to account for this (Often the Additional Info section is great for this, though maybe it’s in your essay or in your response to a supplemental question. Or maybe your counselor can convey this information to admission officers on your behalf).
So here’s our advice … try to find the balance between challenging yourself and still taking classes that you’ll actually find interesting. Understand that your GPA is important to colleges but that it is still just part of your application. And keep doing more of what you’re doing in terms of gathering as much information about the college application process as you can.
Special thanks for Jessica for writing this blog post
Jessica has a Ph.D in English from the University of Southern California and teaches English at a Los Angeles-area independent school, where she has also been English department chair and a class dean. Sandra Cisneros is her hero, and she loves books, her awesomely-sarcastic family, the beach, and more books. Oh, and her sweet pitbull/lab mix named Ruby.
Top values: Curiosity, equity, wonder
