The introduction of the new GPA system for the last freshman class of ’27 created incredibly diverse reactions upon Hillsborough County students, parents and teachers. The system is designed to make student’s weighted GPAs more consistent with college admissions and other Florida districts, allowing for more informed and accurate postsecondary options. The new model aimed to simplify calculations motivating students to prioritize taking the most suitable courses and achieving the highest grades possible.
To make this possible they released a new GPA calculation chart stating that an ‘A’ level grade counts towards a 4.0 GPA for regular classes, a 4.5 weighted GPA for honors classes and a 5.0 weighted GPA for AP, IB, AICE, or dual enrollment classes. For every other passing grade you get you would earn 0.5 more weighted GPA doing an honors class and 1.0 more weighted GPA doing an either AP, IB, AICE or dual enrollment class.
To most, the main change is the fact that the highly inflated GPAs that Hillsborough County is known for aren’t possible. Just two years ago, a student from Gaither High School achieved a record breaking GPA of 11.84.
“It was achieved by getting straight A’s forever and by earning Florida Virtual School high-school credits in 6th grade and taking courses at Hillsborough Community College in 8th grade. And also loading up on so many classes you sometimes have 14 classes per semester,” ABC Action News said.
Some believe this is a welcome change because the stress of taking extra classes outside of your course load just to keep your rank high often burns out students and leads to a lack of passion in education. The newer GPA system eliminates some of the competitiveness of academics by capping out how high you can get at 5.0 and believing that grade quality is more substantial than grade quantity.
“I think the new system is more fair for the incoming freshmen, it will promote honest hard work and prevent people from taking a whole bunch of online classes and cheat their way through just to boost their GPA. I think it will force students to focus on the classes they are taking in school and actually learning from those classes,” Gabbie Rodrigues (’25) vice president of SGA said.
Even the last valedictorian of RHS, who had a high GPA of nearly 8.0, conceded that the new system has potential benefits.
“I think the new system might be a good thing in that it discourages taking an inordinate number of classes, for the sake of boosting their GPA,” Vikram Sambasivan (’24) said. “Ultimately this does not matter so much beyond high school since most universities will recalculate your GPA with their own formula anyways.”
However, some of the students that are currently being affected by the new system don’t share the same pleasant view on the new restrictions.
“I think it’s unfair to people who are working hard for a higher GPA, it should be a representation of the work they’re putting in and shouldn’t have a cut off,” Brennan Baryza (’27) said.
Although setting a limit does reduce the amount of academic stress put on students, students create such difficult course loads for themselves for a reason. It becomes incredibly hard to differentiate yourself from other straight-A students in the viewpoint of colleges, and setting a limit means there is no real show of the quantity of hard work you did.
“I think capping people’s weighted GPAs at 5.0 is not a good idea, as it limits a large way of distinguishing who took the most extra classes and challenged themselves. You place everyone as equal, and since IB requires so many weighted classes, everyone is usually at a 5.0 anyways. It makes it difficult to demonstrate where one could stand in rankings or regarding college applications,” Heath Berman (’26) said.
Whether it helps or it hurts, the new GPA system is here to stay and will affect all students from the class of ’27 and above. As Hillsborough County moves forward with the new GPA system, ongoing evaluation and feedback from students will be essential to refining its implementation and maximizing its benefits for all.
