A worked side-by-side example showing exactly how the same three grades produce a 3.67 unweighted GPA and a 4.17 weighted GPA.
A weighted GPA gives extra credit for taking harder courses, so it rewards a B in AP Chemistry more than a B in a regular section of the same subject. An unweighted GPA treats every course the same regardless of difficulty, topping out at 4.0. There is no single national standard for how much bonus to add — individual high schools set their own policy — but the most common approach nationally adds 0.5 points for Honors courses and 1.0 point for AP, IB, or Dual Enrollment courses, on top of the standard 4.0-scale grade point.
Both GPAs are calculated the same way once you decide whether to add the bonus: convert each grade to its base point value (A = 4.0, B = 3.0, etc.), add the course-type bonus for the weighted version only, multiply by that course's credit hours, sum across all courses, then divide by total credit hours — Weighted GPA = Σ((Base Points + Bonus) × Credits) ÷ Σ(Credits), and Unweighted GPA uses the same formula with the bonus left at zero for every course.
This is why a weighted GPA can climb above 4.0 while an unweighted GPA never does — the bonus points are added on top of, not in place of, the base scale. Colleges typically look at both numbers together with the difficulty of your actual course schedule, since a 3.9 unweighted with five AP classes and a 3.9 unweighted with none tell very different stories that the unweighted number alone can't show.
Worked example (Standard scheme): an AP Calculus A (4.0 + 1.0 = 5.0), an Honors English B+ (3.3 + 0.5 = 3.8), and a Regular History A− (3.7 + 0.0 = 3.7), all 1 credit each, give a weighted GPA of (5.0 + 3.8 + 3.7) ÷ 3 = 4.17, while the same three courses give an unweighted GPA of (4.0 + 3.3 + 3.7) ÷ 3 = 3.67 — the same grades, a very different number, purely from accounting for course difficulty.
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Unweighted GPA treats every course equally on a 4.0-max scale — an A is 4.0 whether it’s a regular class or AP. Weighted GPA adds bonus points for Honors, AP, or IB courses before averaging, which is why it can exceed 4.0.
The default "Standard" scheme adds 0.5 for Honors and 1.0 for AP/IB, which is the most common policy nationally — but there is no universal rule, and some schools use different values (like +1.0/+2.0, included here as the "Six-Point" option) or don’t weight at all. Check your school’s official policy, usually in the student handbook, if your transcript doesn’t match.
Because the bonus points for Honors and AP/IB courses are added on top of the standard 4.0-scale grade point, not capped by it — an A in an AP class becomes 5.0 rather than staying at 4.0.
Most colleges look at both, and many recalculate applicants’ GPAs on their own internal scale regardless of what a transcript shows — the weighted number signals course rigor, and the unweighted number gives a scale-independent comparison across applicants from different schools.