At the end of last year, the Jesuit administrators announced that the GPA system would change for the class of 2025 and onward. To learn more about what the new system, I met with Assistant Principal Mrs. O’Sullivan.

Interview

What was the main purpose for changing the GPA?

We’ve been looking at the system for a couple years on how to align it with other schools. Also, we have been talking to the colleges about how they receive our GPA’s. Most colleges are going to translate it to some kind of four-point scale. By using the 100-point scale, we were kind of an outlier. We wanted to align with what other schools were doing and look at ways that we could best position the students to be eligible for different scholarships and acceptances into different schools.

Were there any other reasons for changing the GPA besides college admissions?

The college’s examination of the the GPA is mostly what it’s going to be used for when you’re applying to colleges. Other than that, it really doesn’t count for a lot. We do want to align with our peers as much as possible, so we talked to the college reps and talked to a lot of the schools that we typically send students to. Then looking at how the different schools will translate our GPA. Because some colleges are going to take it, they’re just going to look at your transcript and create their own GPA. Specifically, colleges will conclude that through students’ taking the math, English, history, science classes, and language classes, we’re going to calculate our own GPA on our own scale. Then for those schools it doesn’t really matter what we do, they’re going to do their own thing anyway, but the ones that take our GPA as it is. Overall, we wanted to put the students in the best position. Then Dr. Kirby and I researched what peer schools are doing and we looked at schools in this area. We looked at a couple different layers: public schools, peer schools in this area which would include Bishop Lynch, St. Mark’s, and Ursuline. Finally, we looked at Jesuit schools nationwide to kind of see what they’re doing.

Do you have any hopes for how the students look at the new GPA system?

One of my hopes is to start the conversation that NCAA will only take a four-point GPA. When we were looking at how that worked for the athletes, it was easier to put them in a position to qualify for NCAA when ours is already in a four-point GPA. My other hope is just that it gives students a fair chance against students from other schools to be eligible for positions in universities but also for scholarships.

“Jesuit Dallas currently reports an official weighted GPA on a 100 point scale and an unofficial weighted GPA on a 4.0 scale on transcripts for college admissions purposes. The official GPA of a school is used for the determination of valedictorian and other academic honors at graduation (e.g., cum laude status).”- Mrs. O’Sullivan

Stay tuned to Jesuit Roundup for more academic news!