Grading - GPA Weighting & Rank 

Grading System

Teachers grade students on a numerical range from 1-100. 

Marking period averages are calculated numerically, then converted to a letter grade according to the following conversion scale:

Grade Numeric Equivalency

A+: 100 - 98

A: 97 - 92

A-: 91 - 90

B+: 89 - 88

B: 87 - 82

B-: 81 - 80

C+: 79 - 78

C: 77 - 72

C-: 71 - 70

D+: 68-69

D: 67 - 62

D-: 60-61

F: below 60

SI: 0

Additional Grade Report Symbols

AW        - Administrative Withdrawal 

INC         - Work Not Completed

ME       - Medically Excused

AU     -  Audit

P        - Pass

WF        - Withdrawal Failing 

WP      - Withdrawal Passing 

EX        - Exam Excused

SI       - Student Infraction

• Student infractions (i.e., plagiarism, cheating) see Integrity Policy-Plagiarism/Cheating Policy under Disciplinary information.

• Grades for full year courses are the average of all 4 quarterly marks.

• Grades for semester courses are the average of two quarterly marks.

Statement of the Value of and F (clarification):

• An Assignment / Assessment Grade may earn an F grade valued between 30 and 59.49. 

• Assignments / Assessments that are never completed or made up may receive an F grade of 0.

• In the case where an Assignment / Assessment is a course requirement (usually research paper/project), the student must still submit work considered acceptable by the teacher (with supervisor review if needed) for the student to earn credit for the course itself. 

• A Marking Period Grade is to be no lower than 55% (beginning in 2021).

To pass a course and to get credit for that course a student must:

(a) Fulfill all course requirements. 

(b) Have a passing average.

Grade Scale, Weighting, GPA and Class Rank                

100-point scale course grades correlate to letter grades. Final letter grades convert to a 4.0 GPA scale (revised starting Fall 2018). Prior to 2018-19, Honors and AP courses received +1.0 in the weighted GPA. Beginning 2018-19, Enriched (E), Honors (H) and Advanced Placement (AP) courses receive additional GPA weight according to the table below.

Grade point average (GPA) is calculated using the final grades in all courses completed. Un-weighted GPA includes grades in all courses - with no reflection of weight for any course.  Weighted GPA includes grades for all courses – with reflections of weight for qualifying courses.  As of 2018-19, qualifying courses include those with (E), Honors or AP titles. 

While grades for remedial courses are included in the GPA, grades for new credit courses taken during summer school, through virtual schools or through a third party provider are not included. Transfer grades from other schools are converted into the Northern Valley grading scale and included where possible; otherwise, they are awarded P or F based on passing or failing status of each course. These do not calculate into the GPA.  Official GPA is calculated at the conclusion of the 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th semesters. Final letter grades are converted to the 4.0 scale (see table).

Class Rank

The academic environment at Northern Valley is very challenging, and the majority of our students earn exemplary grades.  Comparisons among students inherent in class rank unnecessarily increase competition among students. Further, we believe that our students' levels of achievement are not equitably or fully communicated by this single statistic.  

Therefore, beginning with the class of 2017 Northern Valley does not publish class rank, percentile or decile.