Since the 2008-2009 school year, Georgia has standardized on GPA calculation for high school graduates with respect to Hope Scholarship qualification requirements. School districts can choose to implement their own grading systems locally; however, when reported to the Georgia Student Finance Commission for hope scholarship, the following rules must be followed.
- A Complete, official high school transcript must be reported.
- All grades must be converted to a 4.0 scale. This means no letter grades and no grades higher than 4.0 are allowed. Letter grade conversions to numerical are as follows: 90-100 (A) = 4.0; 80-89 (B) = 3.0; 70-79(C) = 2.0; 60-69(D) = 1.0; 59 and below(F) = 0.0 Schools may implement sliding scales or +/-. For example A- = 3.2 A = 3.7 A+ = 4.0, for example.
- If any weighting is given for AP or other advanced courses, the weighting must be removed in the grade reporting.
- The GSFC will add 0.5 points to all grades reported for AP and Baccalaureate courses. But, no grade will be above 4.0 after the weighting.
- Only Academic courses are counted in the hope scholarship gpa. Academic courses are: English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Foreign Language. This means PE, Band, Art, etc… are not used in the hope scholarship gpa calculation. All academic courses Freshman-Senior are included in the calculation.
- After taking steps 1-5, a GPA of 3.0 or higher is qualified for hope scholarship.
The most difficult steps are removing weighting for AP or Baccalaureate courses that your school may use and recalculating the GPA. Many schools now have one gpa used for determining class rank, which probably uses all classes taken in the calculation along with weighting differences, and a second gpa called the hope scholarship qualification gpa.
It is best practice to talk with your guidance counselor at your school to ask for a non-weighted gpa, or the hope scholarship qualified gpa.
The key thing to remember is that grades earned during Freshman year are just as important as grades earned during the Junior and Senior year; so, work hard early and you will not find yourself behind later.
Hope Scholarship GPA Calculation Example
Hope GPA Calculation Example
| Course | Grade | Hope GPA Conversion |
|---|---|---|
| English | 88 | 3.0 |
| English | 85 | 3.0 |
| English | 82 | 3.0 |
| English | 80 | 3.0 |
| Math | 91 | 4.0 |
| Math | 89 | 3.0 |
| Math | 95 | 4.0 |
| Math AP Calculus | 83 | 3.0 + 0.5 for AP Weighting |
| Science | 79 | 2.0 |
| Science | 71 | 2.0 |
| Science AP | 75 | 2.0 + 0.5 for AP Weighting |
| Social Studies | 90 | 4.0 |
| Social Studies | 95 | 4.0 |
| Social Studies AP | 92 | 4.0 (AP grades of A not weighted) |
| Spanish | 81 | 3.0 |
| Spanish | 83 | 3.0 |
Calculation:
Add all GPA scores in third column for total of 51. Divide by number of classes (16). Hope GPA Calculation is 51/16 = 3.1875. This qualifies for the regular Hope Scholarship but does not qualify for the Zell Miller which requires a 3.7 or higher GPA.
IMPORTANT! The Hope GPA Calculation is NOT rounded up. On the example above, if the total GPA scores was 47 instead of 51, the GPA calculation would be 47/16 = 2.9375. Since the score is NOT rounded up, this is not eligible for the Hope Scholarship. The minimum GPA must be 3.0 on this calculation for eligibility.
Thanks for using the calculator
Hi does ap computer science count as a science class when doing hope scholarship calculations?
Hi does ap computer science count as a science class when doing hope scholarship calculations and is it true that if you have an average of 3.0 when hope scholarship is calculated you can get 90% of college paid?
The AP Computer Science class should be considered science, I think. Also, the 90% paid is 90% of the college tuition amount on the 2011 tuition costs. It does not scale each year.
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I understand the new HB 131 will go into effect July 1. If I graduate in June, will these changes be used to count my hope GPA?
Thanks!
Yes,
Any legislation pass and signed on July 1st will immediately go into effect.
Hi, does AP Art history count as part of hope gpa?
According to the GSFC website, only Math, Science, English, Social Studies, and college prep foreign language classes are used in the GPA calculation. Whether or not AP Art History counts as a social studies class requirement is a great question for your high school counselor.
Would AP music theory be counted toward the hope calculations?… (It is an AP level class and my son took it as he intends on majoring in music performance in college).
Only completed hours at the university/college count toward hope hours.