The Case Against Weighted GPAs

The class of 2023 will be the first class at Needham High School to graduate with an unweighted Grade Point Average (GPA). The major difference between weighted and unweighted GPAs is that weighted GPAs are on a 5.0 scale and base student’s GPA on their grades combined with the rigor of their classes. For example, an A in an AP class is a 5.0, while an A in a CP class is a 3.5 because CP classes are significantly less rigorous than AP classes. However, unweighted GPAs are on a 4.0 scale and do not consider the rigor of courses in calculating a student's GPA, so an A is equivalent in AP and CP classes. Despite proponents of the school’s current GPA policy arguing that unweighted GPAs are fairer and encourage students to take a good balance of courses, in reality, unweighted GPAs are unfair, have no effect on student’s course selection decisions, and has led to the accomplishments of students who take challenging courses to be overlooked by the school. Therefore, Needham High School should re-implement a weighted GPA.

One of the most common arguments against weighted GPAs is that they cause students to take classes that they can not handle in order to increase their GPA. As Roshan Pillai put it, “I feel that if it [GPAs] were weighted, people might force themselves to take a course that isn’t right for them.” It is highly unhealthy for students’ mental health to take classes that do not provide sufficient support or go too fast for their learning style. However, even without weighted GPAs, students still take classes that are too hard for them because of pressure to get into colleges and pressure from parents. As Leah Freedman anecdotally observed, “people still feel pressure to take accelerated courses.” There are many considerations in deciding whether to take a class other than GPA, but suppose a student was somehow solely concerned about getting the highest GPA possible. In that case, weighted GPAs would not incentivize them to take classes that are too challenging for them because the GPA boost between levels is only equivalent to a little more than half a letter grade, but if someone is struggling in a class, the grade difference between the higher and lower leveled class is likely to be significantly greater.

Another argument for the status-quo GPA system is that unweighted GPAs are equitable. As an 11th grader, who wishes to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the topic, argues unweighted GPAs, “contribute to equity within the school [because…] there is [not] any reason that an honors class’s A should only be an accelerated classes B.” As a school community, we must work to achieve greater equity, but having unweighted GPAs does not help accomplish this important goal. To rectify differences in learning styles and strengths, the school has created leveled classes, wherein lower-level courses, students are taught material longer and are in smaller class sizes for more individual attention. But, due to these differences, students in lower-level classes have significantly less rigorous work. By the school’s own admission, there is a massive difference between lower-level and higher-level classes’ rigor. For example, in the time management activity given to each student before course selection, the list states that students who take CP classes should expect, at most, one hour of homework a week. In comparison, the activity says that AP students should expect about one hour of homework every day. If equity is the goal, as it should be, how is it equitable for AP and CP students to have the same GPA, despite CP students having only 20 percent of the amount of homework that AP students have? Ultimately, unweighted GPAs do not promote equity. Instead, they unintentionally create an unfair GPA boost for those who take lower-level classes.

Unweighted GPAs also overlook the accomplishments of many students. As Madison Boudreau argues: “It’s frustrating for many students to have an unweighted GPA as it often makes them feel like their hard work in a more rigorous class is unseen.” School administrators profess to care about students’ accomplishments. Still, they seem to have fallen significantly short in celebrating students’ achievements with a GPA system that fails to acknowledge differences in the rigor of classes. Additionally, Accelerated and AP classes are incredibly challenging, and, as Luke Phafthman put it, “Having a weighted GPA, rewards people for challenging themselves.” If you decide to challenge yourself, you should be rewarded for your hard work, but unweighted GPAs do not reward that hard work. Ultimately, having a weighted GPA is not about punishing students that choose to take lower-level courses, but it is about ensuring that students who decide to take academically-challenging courses feel their accomplishments, as Madison Boudreau put it, are “seen.”

Unweighted GPAs do not promote equity, nor do they help students take healthier class loads. Instead, they overlook the achievements of students who take challenging courses. While colleges reweight GPAs, mitigating the long-term effects of unweighted GPAs, having a weighted system still matters because it serves as an important acknowledgment from the school of students’ accomplishments throughout their time at Needham High. Ultimately, the school must acknowledge the failure of their harmful unweighted GPA system and adopt a weighted GPA.