Each year, students and families ask the same key question: Should I take AP or Honors classes, and how many? This post offers a clear, data-driven explanation to help you decide.

Understanding the Ivy League Academic Index and CGS

The chart known as the "Academic Index" is used by Ivy League admissions offices to standardize GPAs from different grading systems. It converts your grades into a common CGS (Converted Grade Score) scale using various formats—letter grades, unweighted GPAs, 5.0/4.5 weighted scales, and even 11.0–12.0 or percentage systems.

Since 2016, this index has been a key tool for recalculating high school grades onto a 4.0 scale. Here's how letter grades generally convert:

A+ → 3.81–4.0
A → 3.53–3.80
A– → 3.16–3.52
B+ → 2.88–3.15
B → 2.61–2.87
B– → 2.23–2.60

AP courses are usually scored on a 5.0 scale, while Honors courses are often capped at 4.5. The overall process moves from unweighted GPA → weighted GPA → CGS.

Even though these conversions won’t appear on your official transcript, colleges use them behind the scenes.

IB (International Baccalaureate) Grade Conversions

For students in the IB system, grades are scaled 3 to 7:

IB 7 → A+ (CGS 80)
IB 6 → A (CGS 77)
IB 5 → B (CGS 63)

How Colleges Initially Review Transcripts

Step 1: Numeric Conversion
Admissions officers begin by translating every transcript into numbers. CGS is used for this first step—and scoring high is critical.

Step 2: Raw Transcript Review
Colleges first read the transcript exactly as it appears, focusing primarily on the unweighted GPA, even if a weighted GPA is also included.

This might seem counterintuitive—especially if you’ve challenged yourself with rigorous AP or IB coursework—but the initial evaluation emphasizes unweighted grades.

Equal Weight Across Grade Levels
Each academic year counts equally toward your GPA. Schools using semester systems may give half-weight to senior-year grades; trimester systems assign one-third. That means your 9th-grade GPA counts just as much as 11th or 12th, despite common advice to "focus more later."

How AP Courses Are Calculated

Let’s say you earn an A or A+ in a tough AP course like Literature or Physics C. Even if this is scored as 4.8 out of 5.0, when converted to a 4.0 scale, it translates to a CGS score around 3.84—only slightly higher than an A in a standard course.

This may seem surprising, and I’ll explain why this happens in Part 2.

How IB Grades Are Considered
For Early Applicants:
Only your final year of grades is used, as Higher Level (HL) classes are shaped by your academic history.

For Regular Applicants:
Colleges review both your final year and first semester or trimester of senior year.

Predicted Grades Matter:
Teachers submit predicted grades for IB students—these play a major role in admissions decisions. Strong performance throughout high school is essential.

Outside the U.S.:
IB Higher Level courses are often double-weighted for students applying from international schools. I’ll elaborate on this in the next post.

A Sample Scenario

If a student takes four regular courses and earns grades similar to the examples above, their combined CGS might total around 287.

Even if those courses were AP or Honors, the resulting CGS may not differ much from a student who took only standard-level classes.

This leads many to ask: “Why does the score barely change?”
The answer lies in how colleges separate quantitative and qualitative evaluation stages.

Wrapping Up: What This All Means

Here’s the basic structure of how selective colleges assess transcripts:

Step 1: Quantitative Review = CGS Conversion
Step 2: Qualitative Review = Holistic Contextual Analysis

Today’s post explained how the initial CGS evaluation works, including GPA conversion and how AP, Honors, and IB scores are interpreted.

In Part 2, I’ll walk you through the qualitative stage—what colleges look at beyond the numbers, and why rigorous courses still matter.

Thank you for reading, and stay tuned!