GPA Recalculation

Centurion210

5-Year Member
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
14
Hi all,
How does USAFA recalculate my GPA? It seems like mine should be slightly higher than it is listed on my application portal...
Thanks!
 
I don't think anyone has the exact formula. Many kids see theirs rise or fall because they use their formula. My DSs went up by 0.25. His school used a 7 point scale. An A- at 94 was a 3.6 in his school. A 90 at his school would be a solid B and give you a 3.4. Whereas, for my DD when we moved to a new school a 94 was a 3.76 because they multiplied out the actual percentage by 4.0. Yet, at another HS a 94 maybe 3.8 because to them it is a solid A.

Three different scenarios with 3 different cgpas for a 94.

I would ask for an official transcript from your HS to make sure all of the grades are correct.

I would also say that every college you are applying to may vary in what they deem as your official cgpa. Every admissions board has their own algorithm that they use for selection. If you received a hard copy of your SAT and if you sent the scores electronically to the 5 colleges than at the bottom you should see a grading scale. It will show what the HS says is your official cgpa and what college board converted it to for that schools admission.
~ Out of 5 schools for our DS only one matched his official cgpa, which was Notre Dame. Two others had a slight higher cgpa and two more had a substantial bump.
 
Last edited:
When my son applied, there was a USAFA portal note that his gpa may not be weighted if it was weighted when his high school detemined class ranking. His high school calculated and used a weighted grade when determining class rank, so his USAFA portal showed his unweighted grade on a 4.0 scale.

I would suspect that they use the same conversion as they use in the USAFA classes themselves. If you look up the USAFA conversion of grades to gpa you may be able to figure out how they did it. The one thing we never discovered what how much they added to a grade in order to weigh it.

Good luck!
 
Does USAFA take WGPA into account at all?


Sent using the Service Academy Forums® mobile app
 
I can't recall, but doesn't the portal only show the uwcgpa?

They do look at it, but if I recall it is from a different perspective. It is from your course curriculum aspect. The GC will submit a school profile and in that report it will say how many AP/IBs are offered. Percentage of students that take APs. The weight that they assign to APs. If class rank is figured into their system using uwcgpa or wcgpa.
~~ Some schools rank using just the uwcgpa, which means the kid that took all the easy classes could rank higher than the kid that took all APs.

So as you can see, they do give a look and weight to the wgpa. It is also why they want the GC to submit the school profile so they can get every candidate on an equal footing.

Again, it comes down to the fact that HS differ not only nationally, but can differ from county to county in the same state. It would not be fair to ding the candidate where the school does not allow anyone to take APs until their junior or senior year, regardless of how academically gifted they are, while at another HS they get to chose as freshmen between standard, honors or AP classes like Bio.

JMPO, but without knowing the weight given, you can't take it with more than a grain of salt. A 4.37 might seem high, but some schools give it on a 5.0 or even 6.0 scale. Would you still be impressed? Or would a 4.17 on a 4.5 scale seem better? The reality is the lower one is better because the weight is less. Which is why again they look at everything on your transcript, including the profile.
~ I believe somewhere in the bowels here they have said that they use a 4.5 for APs, so again, yes somewhere in the PAR it does come into play, but not sure if it is a direct or indirect manner. (Indirect would be profile, rank changing,etc)

I am sure Flieger and Christcorp will respond and correct my post! So hold tight until they do!
 
Last edited:
Back
Top