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The grade point average (GPA) is the sum of all the academic course grades taken throughout the student's high school career divided by the total number of credits. Kolbe transcripts record both the weighted and unweighted GPA. The unweighted GPA is the average of all grades on the 4.0 scale. The weighted GPA gives more points to grades in honors and AP courses.
Academic Courses
The Kolbe Academy GPA is calculated using the semester grades from academic coursework only. An academic course comes from an academic subject area such as theology, literature, history, math, etc and has been approved for academic credit with Kolbe Academy. High school academic courses such as these receive 1 credit per year, or .5 credit per semester. The grades from each semester are given a grade point value on the 4.0 scale:
Weighted Courses
The weighted GPA is calculated after adding extra points for honors or Advanced Placement courses. The weighted GPA is scaled based on the difficulty level of a course, and these more challenging courses receive an added value of +1. This means that an A in these courses receives 5 points rather than 4 and a B receives 4 rather than 3, so the overall weighted GPA can exceed 4.0. If you’d like to learn more about choosing honors courses, please see our Help Center article about Discerning When to Take Honors Courses.
Non-Academic Courses
High school non-academic courses receive a Pass/Fail grade and are not calculated into the student’s GPA. A non-academic course includes Physical Education, Music, Art, Computer Applications, etc. Courses such as theses receive 1 credit per year, or .5 credits per semester on the high school transcript.
Calculation
GPA, or Grade Point Average, is a numerical representation of a student's academic performance. It's calculated by assigning a numerical value to each grade a student receives and then taking an average of those values. Here's a simple explanation of how the GPA is calculated:
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Assign numerical values to grades. See chart above.
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For each course, multiply the numerical value of the grade received by the number of credit hours the course is worth. For example, if you got a B (3.0) in a 3-credit course, you would calculate 3.0 x 3 = 9.0 grade points for that course.
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Repeat this calculation for all your academic courses.
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Add up all the grade points you've calculated for your academic courses.
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Add up the total number of credit hours for all your academic courses.
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Finally, divide the total grade points by the total academic credit hours to get your GPA.
Additional Information
Please see the Student Handbook for more details concerning the grade scale, how the GPA is calculated for high school transcripts, and additional information regarding Withdraw (W) and Incomplete (I) designations.
