During their October full block meeting, Student Government passed legislation that aims to implement a weighted GPA system here at Essex High School. In a weighted grade point average, or a weighted GPA, classes are scaled based on the perceived difficulty of the course. Each school establishes their own weighted system based on their priorities as an educational institution.

Student Body President, Darrian Michaelides, along with Student Body Vice President, Nathan Lesny, explained the reasoning behind Student Government’s decision to pass this legislation.

“The basic gist of it is to get a weighted GPA, so that when you’re applying to colleges, your GPA is more reflective of the classes you’ve taken, especially with Latin Honors,” Michaelides explained. 

Decile rankings show how high schoolers compare to their fellow students. They range from 1 to 10, with 1 meaning a student is in the top ten percent of their class, 2 meaning a student is in the top twenty percent, and so on. Some colleges require high school graduates to submit their decile rankings, so, depending on how a school weighs their grades, two students that are in the same decile may have taken different or similar classes. The Latin honors system here at Essex High School is based on a GPA, and only students that are in the first decile are in the Latin honors system. Students with a GPA of 4.1+ are a part of Summa Cum Laude. Students with a GPA of 3.9+ are a part of Magna Cum Laude, and students with a GPA of 3.7+ are a part of Cum Laude. Some colleges require graduates to submit their high school decile rankings.

“For the decile ranking,” Lesny added. “It can get tough for scholarships.”

Michaelides believes that the lack of a weighted GPA here at Essex High School negatively impacts students who often take honors classes and Advanced Placement (AP) classes that are applying for college scholarships. 

“When you apply to colleges that kind of compile your grades, they look at it; they choose what they want to add into your GPA and what they don’t. But when you apply for scholarships, you have to enter your GPA, what it is displayed by the school on your transcript,” Michaelides stated. “So that can be hard if you are taking AP classes, you’re pushing yourself. You’re getting slightly lower grades. That’s not reflected on your GPA currently.”

Similarly to Michaelides and Lesny, Director of School Counseling, Ben Skoglund, has strong opinions on the issue. 

When asked if he supports implementing a weighted GPA at Essex High School, Skoglund, bluntly stated, “No, not at all.”

Skoglund further argued that a weighted grade point average would violate school equity policies.

“In my mind, and I think if you’re really thinking about our equity policy, and where we’re going as a district, it shouldn’t matter that you’re in an AP Calculus class and I’m in Calc 200,” Skoglund argued.

 “If you’re working to the best of your ability, and I’m working in the best of my ability, why do we need something else to make you look a little bit better or a little bit smarter or a little bit more privileged than me?”

Along with scholarships, college applications are a large piece of the conversation surrounding weighted GPAs.

“It doesn’t really affect college applications,” Lesny clarified. “Because all the colleges re-weight GPAs on their own standards. All it really does affect is the cum laude and the deciles.”

Skoglund mentioned his thoughts on college scholarships as well.

“I think sometimes it’s well intentioned by the folks that start it every couple of years, but I think it’s usually an effort to stand out amongst your peers when you’re applying to schools,” Skogland agrees. “But then the college will say, ‘we’re gonna get rid of it anyway.’”

Skoglund explains that colleges often apply their own weighted system to the courses of applicants that may or may not correspond with how a high school chooses to set up their weighted system. He argues, due to the fact that colleges often strip away the weighted systems high schools establish, that colleges are removing the high school grading system and the effects it has on students and their perceived academic prowess.

With the implementation of a weighted GPA, admittance into clubs such as National Honors Society that require students to have a GPA above a specific threshold may change.

“So right now, if you’re taking really hard classes, and you’re pushing yourself, but you’re not necessarily getting high marks in those classes, you might not be able to get into NHS, but you’re still a good student and you’re still super focused. You’re learning a lot and maybe you’re not in NHS right now, but with a weighted GPA that would allow you to get into NHS,” Michaelides states. “They could get the same number of people, you could get a higher, more studious level of people in the National Honors Society, because you could raise the GPA. It was all theoretical, though.”

Skoglund believed that NHS may take a different path if weighted GPAs are added to our grading system.

“I suspect the advisors would do the same thing that colleges do and they would strip away the weighting and look at what the real GPA is,” Skoglund believes.

Due to the majority of Student Government’s members being high-achieving students, it was discussed whether or not these statistics impacted the outcome of the recent legislation. 

“I’d say that in Student Government we have high achievers who try to excel and try to take advantage of all the honors and AP classes we have,” Michaelides argues. “So that would make them more likely to vote for a weighted GPA, but at the same time, I think if you’re in normal classes, there’s no reason you wouldn’t want a weighted GPA because it doesn’t really affect you. It doesn’t make you look any worse. So I think that doesn’t really make a difference in the overall outcome.”

Skoglund looks at the honors classes issue from a different perspective.

“The goal, always, of anyone, whether it’s Student Government or state government is that they’re supposed to be speaking for the people or representative of the constituents,” Skoglund counters. “But that doesn’t always happen. …If I sit around the room and look 95% of us would benefit, but it’s a pretty small subset of the entire school population.”

Due to the nature of weighted GPAs, other high schools in our region that participate in a weighted GPA system have different scales that they use. Skoglund provides some potential examples.

“We’re gonna have our set of arbitrary numbers,” Skoglund mentions. “South Burlington is going to have their set of arbitrary numbers. CVU is going to have their set, and there’s not a set weight.”

Student Government continues to pursue a path towards weighted GPAs here at EHS, but Skoglund maintains his feelings that they are a “terrible idea.” 

No changes will be made in time to affect the EHS class of 2023 but, perhaps, some changes are coming for future Hornets.