As you enter your senior year and are starting to prepare for college (or you are a junior and starting to prepare early) you have to request your transcript. Your transcript is basically all the classes you’ve taken and the grades you’ve received in those classes. Here at White Bear Lake we have a GPA system based on 4 point scale: A is a 4.0, A- is 3.667, B+ is 3.333, and B is 3 and so on. Yet some students will notice a 5.0 or 4.166 on their transcript this is because grades are weighted. Your grades are weighted because of the classes you took, such as AP or CIS classes. The honors classes are not weighted even though they could be tougher classes. Also PSEO classes aren’t weighted because you are taking them at the colleges and you go by their GPA system. The AP and CIS classes are weighted to help the people looking through transcripts recognize you took a harder class. So when you are requesting your transcript, you can either get the non-weighted one or a weighted one and a non-weighted one together.  Some colleges un-weight grades anyway, but it isn’t a waste of paper to get your weighted transcript. 

Some people do like weighted grades (usually the students who are in the AP or CIS classes,) and some people don’t like weighted grades (usually the students who aren’t in AP or CIS classes.) A number of students only take AP or CIS classes to improve their transcripts, rather than taking those classes because they are at that level and want a better education. Honors, AP, and CIS classes were made so that people who understood the basic level of a class could go further and learn at their own level with a bit of a challenge. Grades should be weighted because it’s silly when student who is in all AP or CIS classes and gets relatively good grades (A- to B range) has a lower rank in their grade than a person who is just in regular classes and gets good grades (A to B+ range.) Yet grades shouldn’t be weighted because if they are at that level they should be getting just as good grades as would a person in a regular class who is at that level.