Summer is here and school is out! High schools should have your final grades for the year and you should be able to look up your final grades. But you should, also, look up your most updated grade point average (GPA). If your high school uses Naviance or Scoir, you should be able to find it there, if not, contact your school counselor and inquire as to where you can find your most updated GPA. Sometimes it can be found on your official transcript which you can also request from your school counselor as well.

Some high schools use a weighed GPA, some use unweighted GPAs and some calculate both. What does your high school use? It is important to know as you will need to input your GPA (weighted or unweighted or both) into your college applications.

Weighted GPA means that the high school factors in the level of difficulty of each core class (history, foreign language, science, math, English). Unweighted GPA does not factor in the level of difficulty of each core class. Typically, IB (international baccalaureate) , AP (advanced placement) and Honors courses are weighted more than CP (college prep) courses in high school.

It is especially important for rising high school seniors to look up their most updated GPA, after their junior year of high school ends because this is the GPA they will use to apply to college.