Do Harvard and Princeton look at my weithted GPA or unweighted?

Question

Does anyone know for sure if Harvard and Princeton looks at your weighted GPA meaning if someone takes AP classes, their GPA will explode, or do they look at every class regardless of difficulty or level as a 4 point class?

Answer 1

Unweighted. When I sat through a Princeton admissions presentation last winter they specifically said that every GPA was recalculated leaving out the non-core courses and unweighted.

The Princeton and Harvard guys read over 20,000 applications every year. They know what you did. They probably know all about your highschool. Some years back when one of my sons was interviewing with the Duke recruiter the woman asked him by name how some of the teachers were doing and commented that a couple of them wrote really good letters of reference (He got letters from those teachers and was admitted but went to another top school)

Give them credit for knowing how to do their job. They are smart and experienced and they know what they are doing. So, send in your stuff and don't try to mislead them. Just give them the honest picture of who you are and they will decide.

Answer 2

weighted, they specifically say on their site that they don't recalculate as they don't have that time, and apologize for it. They say what ever we get is all we evaluate.