As the school year staggers into the final semester and next years schedules beginning to be made, students obviously have questions and concerns on what the next year should look like for them. Unsure of whether to incorporate higher level, college accredited classes or take the easier classes to boost their GPA and climb up their class rank.

At SHS, student GPA is weighted on a 5.0 scale, depending on the classes students decide to take. More difficult, collegiate classes like Advanced Placement, Dual Credit and honors classes are on a weighted scale that goes .0 to a 5.0 ( an F to an A). While all other classes are weighted on a regular scale, .0 to 4.0 (an F to an A).

Freshman Emma Fowerbaugh has decided to take weighted subjects for her first year at the high school and says she’s noticed a big difference between the two. Fowerbaugh says the high level classes have substantially more in-class work, homework and harder tests than the regular classes.

“It is better because it keeps your attention longer so you don’t get bored,” Fowerbaugh said. “We are in the harder classes, we chose that amount of work.”

Fowerbaugh additionally believes that, because of the work load, these scales are fair. But in contrast to that, honors student Dioneth Salas believes that the weighting is unfair, because in his opinion a large portion of students don’t fully comprehend the GPA scale, unaware that their B is the equivalent of a regular classes A.

A hot discussion point among honors and non-honors students is that kids taking less advanced courses can, and do, get better grades in their classes than AP students, resulting in the non-AP kids surpassing the AP kids in class rank. In summation, that means a kid whizzing through an easier class gets better marks for not challenging themselves than other kids who do.

“ I think it’s confusing how students try really hard at a higher level don’t receive a higher GPA,” Salas said. “When in regular classes it looks like it benefits more towards the GPA.”

Occasionally higher level students, who are not aware of the weighted, decide to drop the class to make their GPA higher to make it more beneficial to college. Part of the idea is that they can do better in a slower paced class, the other is based on the little known or talked about fact that almost all major public and private colleges do not accept weighted college transcripts, only non-weighted 4 point GPA’s.

The weighted GPA scores were most likely created as an incentive to get kids into taking more AP/honors classes to earn our school higher ratings, and then hopefully as a consequence, more financial aid. But it’s important to note that college care equally, if not more, about the difficult classes students take and their GPA. Also, more difficult classes are supposed to help with the SAT, so the relationship is an effective symbiosis for both student and school

According to both of these students, they and their classmates either don’t acknowledge the difference in the scales or they just don’t understand the scale itself. A regular scale and the weighted scale about GPA can be found  in the student’s agenda and on the SHS website.

Grade point average equivalency

Regular Scale: Weighted Scale for AP/DC/Honors Classes:

A = 4.0……………………..A = 5.0

A- = 3.667…………………A- = 4.473

B+ = 3.333………………..B+ = 3.972

B = 3.0……………………..B = 3.50

B- = 2.667…………………B- = 3.056

C+ = 2.333 ……………….C+ = 2.638

C = 2.0……………………..C = 2.25

C- = 1.667 ………………..C- = 1.667

D+ = 1.333 ……………….D+ = 1.333

D = 1.0……………………..D = 1.0

D- = .667 ………………….D- = .667

F = .0……………………….F = .0