Some high schools assign different point values to grades based on the difficulty of the course, typically giving more weight to more rigorous courses, i.e., Honors, AP, or IB courses. This means a student taking more challenging courses can potentially have a higher GPA than the standard GPA scale, reflecting the increased academic rigor. A weighted GPA considers the level of difficulty of a course when measuring academic performance.
For example, in a school that has a standard 4.0 grade point scale, an "A" grade earns 4.0 grade points. If the same school weights certain courses on a 5.0 scale, a student would receive 5.0 grade points for that course if they earn an "A" grade, rather than a 4.0; a "B" would earn 4.0, rather than 3.0, and so on.
While the system described above is a common weighting system for GPA, there is no single standard for weighting secondary school grades. Different schools have different weighting practices, while others do not weight grades at all.
Please fill out the GPA section to the best of your ability using the scale your school provides, and select "School doesn't calculate" in the appropriate fields if your school does not provide either an unweighted or weighted GPA.