A ONE INSTITUTE
Mar 29, 2025
Today, I’d like to address a question that frequently arises among students and parents alike: Should I take AP classes or Honors classes? This post will provide you with a definitive explanation.
A Recurring Dilemma When Choosing Courses
Many families face the same questions each year:How many Honors or AP classes should I take? Is it okay to take Honors classes instead of APs?
This post aims to settle those concerns once and for all.
Let’s begin by understanding how colleges calculate GPA.
Ivy League Academic Index & CGS
This chart illustrates the "Academic Index" utilized by Ivy League schools. It includes conversions across multiple grading systems: 4.0 unweighted GPA, letter grades, 4.0 weighted GPA, 5.0 scale, 11.0–12.0 scale, and percentage scores.
Since 2016, Ivy League institutions have been referring to this Academic Index when recalculating GPAs. Its purpose is to standardize and convert diverse high school GPA systems into the CGS (Converted Grade Score) format.
The primary objective for admissions readers when reviewing grades is to convert all applicants’ scores to a 4.0 scale—this is the first step in the academic evaluation.
Here's an example of how grade letters are converted to unweighted GPAs on a 4.0 scale:
A+ → 3.81–4.0
A → 3.53–3.80
A– → 3.16–3.52
B+ → 2.88–3.15
B → 2.61–2.87
B– → 2.23–2.60
Most high schools assign a 5.0 maximum for AP courses and 4.5 for Honors courses.
Think of it as a multi-step process: from unweighted GPA → weighted GPA → CGS.
Even though your transcript won’t display these conversions, rest assured that admissions offices use this system behind the scenes.
For students in the IB (International Baccalaureate) system, grades are scaled from 3 to 7:
IB 7 → Considered an A+, CGS 80
IB 6 → Considered an A, CGS 77
IB 5 → Considered a B, CGS 63
How Applications Are Evaluated
Initial Numeric Conversion
When regional readers review an application, all data must be translated into numeric values. Therefore, conversion to CGS is essential. Achieving a high score here is extremely important.
Regardless of how the scores are converted, one principle remains constant: you need high grades.
Using the Transcript As-Is
Ivy League schools begin by using the transcript exactly as it is provided by the high school. The raw scores shown on the transcript are what matter.
Unweighted GPA is Used First
If both weighted and unweighted GPAs are listed on the transcript, the unweighted GPA is used during the initial evaluation.
Yes, it may seem surprising or even frustrating that you took a rigorous AP or IB course only to be judged first by an unweighted GPA. But that’s how the first-round evaluation works.
Each Grade Level is Weighted Equally
Each academic year carries the same weight in GPA calculation. If the school follows a semester system, senior year grades may be weighted at 0.5; if on a trimester system, at 0.333.
You might be asking:“I focused on my junior year and first semester senior grades because they’re most important… Does that mean my lower 9th-grade GPA still carries equal weight?”Or,“I heard raising my grades in 10th and 11th grade makes up for 9th grade… but they’re all equally weighted?”
These are valid concerns, and I’ll explain them in greater detail in a future post.
GPA Calculation for AP Classes
Let’s say you took a difficult AP course like AP Literature or AP Physics C. These courses are typically calculated on a 5.0 scale.
If you earn an A or A+, your score might be translated into a 4.8 out of 5.0.
To convert this to the standard CGS 4.0 scale:
That 3.84 corresponds to a CGS score of 78—only slightly higher than a student who earned an A in a regular class.
This may raise some eyebrows, but I will explain the rationale behind this in the next part.
IB Score Review Process
For Early Applications
Only the final one year of grades is used. This is because the final HL (Higher Level) courses are typically composed based on the student’s academic history, so only that final year is considered in the conversion.
For Regular Applications
The final year + first semester (or one trimester) of senior year grades are reviewed.
Predicted Grades Matter
IB schools submit predicted grades from teachers, and these play a critical role in admissions. That’s why maintaining strong academic performance throughout high school is essential.
Outside the U.S.: HL Courses Get Double Weight
For IB schools located outside the U.S., Higher Level courses are weighted double. I’ll go into more detail on this in the next video.
Sample Case
Let’s say a student took 4 regular classes in a given year and received grades similar to those mentioned above.
When converted into CGS and added together, the total score might come out to 287.
Even if the courses were Honors or AP, the CGS result may look nearly identical to that of regular classes.
You may now be wondering, “Why are the scores all the same?”
What I’ve explained so far is only the quantitative (numeric) evaluation, which colleges conduct in the first round of their review process.
Final Thoughts
So here’s the process:
Step 1: Quantitative Evaluation = CGS score calculation
Step 2: Qualitative Evaluation = Contextual and holistic review
In the next post, I will clearly explain which factors are considered in the qualitative stage, and why it’s still important to take more AP or HL classes despite the initial numeric results.
Today, we’ve explored how Ivy League schools assess GPA using the Academic Index as a first-round filter.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll dive deeper into how qualitative evaluations work.
Thank you.