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I'm just wondering, which schools use the 100pt scale GPA, or is there a certain state/region that does so? I thought most, if not all, American schools use the 4pt scale.

I had this conversation with a teacher at school about how inefficient the 4pt scale is. It considers +'s and -'s in letter grades as the same value. It does not discern between high A's or low A's, etc. I think 100pt GPA's are much more accurate. Just my $0.02.

Also, I don't like the 4pt scale because I've had at least 3 classes where I had a border-line B+/A, but with a B+ on my report card... if it were on a 100pt scale, it would better represent the real situation.

When did the 4pt scale become instated? Why is it much more widespread? Was the 100pt scale more widely used way back when?

I'm just wondering b/c this issue has bothered me for a bit and I've read other CCers talking about their "95 GPA" etc.

By Dostoyevsky (Dostoyevsky) on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 08:28 am: Edit

i go to school in New Jersey, and i know that quite a few schools are STARTING to switch over to the 100pt system....mine already did, but our system is still dumb...our official class rank (how the valedictorian and stuff is selected) is UNweighted, so go figure....and if you take an AP class, you get 10 percentage points added to your final grade, but for a CP (lowest level) class you get 3 points added....7 point diff between a HARD class and a JOKE? yup....theres a lil insight on how my school works at least, hope that helps

By Bigtymer2454 (Bigtymer2454) on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 10:23 am: Edit

"...how inefficient the 4pt scale is. It considers +'s and -'s in letter grades as the same value."

my school is on the 4 point scale and we consider an A+ different from an A-. (i.e. A+ = 4.00; A = 3.75; A- = 3.5)

By Pezza0 (Pezza0) on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 01:21 pm: Edit

an A is an A .... its better to let someone with a 95% worry about working on other subjects as opposed to trying to get him 95 up to a 98. ... thats my opinion ( go figure, i have a 3.4)

By Sns22022 (Sns22022) on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 02:28 pm: Edit

My school is on the 4.0 scale and we have crazy-inflated GPAs. It's nothing to do with the dificulty of our classes, rather how many points are added into our weighted GPA. No plusses of minuses or anything like that. CP is a 4.0. Honors is a 5.0. AP is a 6.0. So I have a 4.83 with 1 B through all high school, and a 3.96 UW. Colleges will def. be recalculating.

By Somecanadianguy (Somecanadianguy) on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 03:25 pm: Edit

In Onatario all schools use the 100% scale, however, its a bitch to get higher scores though cuz its all based on % so if you get a 19/20 itll always be 95% so small mistakes can hurt you a hell of a lot and some teachers wont even give you a 100 on anything cuz nothing/no1 is perfect - like he gives questions that arent in the textbook on the test so that i get a 98 not 100 and then on projects he gives me a 95, anyway averages over 95 are like never seen, the highest single year average at my school was 97 and that was only one year, usually a 95 will rank you first in your year and get over 90 will put in the top 10

By Onesweetworld87 (Onesweetworld87) on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 06:55 pm: Edit

My school does a 4.4 point scale and +'s and -'s count.
4.4=A+
4.0=A
3.6=A-
3.4=B+
etc..
The only thing I dislike about this scale it is it makes everything really competitive. Like instead of worrying about getting a 93.5 percent or higher I have to worry about getting a 98.5 percent or higher in order to get the highest grade.

By Conker (Conker) on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 10:15 pm: Edit

Our school does it like this:

A: 4.00
A-: 3.67
B+: 3.33
B: 3.00
B-: 2.67
C+: 2.33
and so on, so forth...

So it does take into account +'s and -'s.

By Wolfpiper (Wolfpiper) on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 10:30 pm: Edit

Do most colleges (especially Ivies) include pluses and minuses in their GPA calcuatations? Do they use a ten point (90-100=A) scale or a different type?

By Unluckycharms (Unluckycharms) on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 11:10 pm: Edit

100 point scale - so easy to keep track of. AP classes get 15% weighting, honors get 10%, regents 2.5%.

By Nycneedhelp (Nycneedhelp) on Sunday, May 23, 2004 - 07:35 pm: Edit

100 Pt scale. AP Classes 7%, Honors 5%.

New York City HS.

By Marzipan (Marzipan) on Sunday, May 23, 2004 - 10:36 pm: Edit

my school calculates our weighted averages by the following. all classes times 1.1 (100=110), honors times 1.15, ap times 1.2. then they drop the lowest grade, average the remaining classes together, and (just for fun) add 1% of whatever that is to the already inflated number (for what reason? none, except to make everybody's averages look higher!) it's crazy... about 120 kids have "averages" over 100.

By Fusiachi (Fusiachi) on Monday, May 24, 2004 - 12:33 am: Edit

Here in rural PA we're on a 100 pt. scale. They recently started weighting grades, but did a horrible job. AP's were weighted at a huge percentage of the normal score. My average thusly was skewed to 118%. Someone in the class ahead of my was at 128%. Thank God they decided to scrap those, and to fix them retroactively - colleges would *really* start to wonder about my HS.