It's pretty widely accepted that most colleges and universities will evaluate GPA as a criteria for acceptance into their respective institutions.
What is not so well understood is how this evaluation happens! As a financial advisor with a particular specialty in planning for college, I decided to perform a bit of an inquiry to a nice cross section of high learning institutions.
I talked to admissions counselors and financial aid officials at STATE schools at PRIVATE schools at highly selective schools and at not-so-highly selective schools.
In all, I talked to 15 different "authorities" to find out how they view and how heavily they weigh a prospective student's GPA.
Unfortunately, the answers that I got were a bit disconcerting.
So much so that I took my investigation to the next level: talking to administrators at high schools.
My findings became even more unsettling.
Here's what makes sense: Across the board, colleges and universities use a 4.
0 system to evaluate GPA's.
Great.
Next step: High Schools use a common translation formula to go from a 10 point grading scale to a 4.
0 system.
Simply put, if a student gets a 92, that's an A and A translates to a 4.
0.
Granted, there could be gradations from 3.
1 to 4.
0 to account for A- to A+, but let's stay very general for the purpose of this conversation.
An A is a 4.
0 and a B is a 3.
0.
Now, let's look at the reality: Not all high schools use a 10 point system.
What does that mean? Assume GENERAL HIGH SCHOOL uses a 10 point system and MODIFIED HIGH SCHOOL uses an 8 point system.
Joe Student at GHS earns a 92 for his final numeric grade from Chemistry.
That's an A, so Joe gets a 4.
0 credited to his GPA.
Mary Senior at MHS also gets a 92 for her final numeric grade in Chemistry.
That's a B, so Mary gets a 3.
0 credited to her GPA.
Now comes college application time: Joe consistently earned 92's and reports a 4.
0 on his college applications.
Mary also earned 92's and reports a 3.
0 on her college applications.
Since the Administration office at the College doesn't have an intimate knowledge of the grading system at Mary and Joe's schools, he simply sees a 4.
0 and a 3.
0.
Hmmm, fortunately, they both manage to get IN to the school..
..
but here comes the big problem.
When it comes to financial aid, Mary is going to learn a hard life lesson.
It's not fair! In fact, in discussion with 15 different colleges, with the exception of the very elite and very selective schools, NONE OF THEM GO TO ANY GREAT LENGTH to properly evaluate GPA.
They simply take GPA at face value.
Again, many of them suggested that they don't use GPA as greatly to determine ADMISSIONS, however, they almost all use GPA to make financial aid (MERIT BASED AWARD) decisions.
Having talked to principals of high schools and superintendents of school systems, I hear an almost uncaring, disinterested response when I shared the above realities: In almost every case, there is simply blind faith on the part of the high school administrators, that colleges will assess and understand GPA formulas prior to making any decisions with respect to admissions and merit based aid at the next level.
The consistent refrain from the Colleges and Universities on the other hand, is an extreme desire that they would standardize.
"With more than 18,000 applications to review every Fall, there is no way I can know the nuances of every school system's grading scales".
"I WISH they would standardize.
"" I know we don't make the decision fairly and I wish there was something we could do about it.
" My simple recommendation for parents of college bound high school students is to find out exactly how your child's school system reports GPA and how the colleges that your student will apply to will handle the variations.
Unfortunately a simple or even elaborate explanation of the variation from a 10 point scale probably won't win you any decision re-do's from colleges.
Again, the response I hear from the admissions offices, is that they can't change or help which grading scale you were in when you went to high school.
That wasn't their responsibility.
So even if you think your system has a much harder grading system, it's just not going to do you much good at the next level.
The cynic in me suggests that just taking cake courses and jacking up the GPA will do it if you're not looking in to selective colleges.
Manage a 4.
0 and you're likely going to be in line for merit based money at college...
anything less, FOR ANY REASON, and you're probably going to find yourself looking for money elsewhere!