Lilly Schilling

Students in honors classes will get the benefit of a weighted GPA starting next year.

AP classes and honors classes sometimes sound scary and stressful, but many Benilde-St. Margaret’s students enjoy challenging themselves. Luckily for them, BSM offers a wide range of AP and honors classes. At BSM, AP classes are weighted in the GPA calculation, and honors classes are not. Many other schools weigh honors classes, allowing students from those schools to achieve a higher weighted GPA. This creates frustration among BSM students because they are working hard in honors classes and don’t get the same GPA boost. Finally, after years of BSM students voicing their frustration regarding this policy, the BSM administration is changing it. Starting in the school year 2025-26, honors classes at BSM will be weighted in the GPA calculation.

Many current juniors, sophomores, and freshmen at BSM have taken honors courses in recent years. However, their transcripts will not reflect these courses, as they will remain calculated like regular courses on a 4.0 scale. This is unfair because students who take these courses in the future will benefit from a weighted GPA. In my opinion, students who previously completed honors courses should have their transcripts adjusted to reflect this new policy. This would ensure fairness, as future students will receive this advantage, and past students who took the same course should as well.

As a current junior who has taken five honors classes, the policy change frustrates me. Some of the honors classes I took at BSM were challenging, but I don’t think they were significantly harder than the regular courses in the same subject. AP classes are weighted on a 4.5 scale, and starting next year, honors classes will be weighted on a 4.25 scale. In my experience, AP classes have more homework, and you must prepare for the AP test at the end of the year. AP teachers follow a curriculum from the College Board to prepare students for the test. Compared to the rigorous classwork from AP classes, I felt that honors classes at BSM seemed similar to normal courses. Sometimes I had no homework, while students in regular courses did. Or we would cover the same material at a similar pace without a noticeable difference. This shows that the difference between honors and regular BSM courses is not apparent sometimes, so they shouldn’t be weighted toward a GPA.

Additionally, I predict that this new policy will create new challenges. The appeal of a weighted honors course could attract students who typically stick to regular courses. This might lead to overcrowding, as most honors courses are taught by only one or two teachers, while regular courses typically have three teachers. If a large number of students enroll in honors courses solely for the GPA boost, honors teachers could be faced with significantly more students than they are used to. BSM administration added this policy is meant to benefit students, but I believe that it is unfair to current students and might lead to unpredicted challenges.