Valedictorian says key to 7.62 GPA was time management

A 7.62 GPA (grade point average)! This is utterly and completely ridiculous!

Gaither's valedictorian says key to 7.62 GPA was time management

"When Hillsborough County's high school graduates cross the stage to get their diplomas, there will be some pretty impressive GPAs announced. 

[A student] of Durant High School has a 7.83.

[A student] of Blake has a 7.76.

[A student] from Durant has a 7.64.

And then there's [the student] from Gaither with a 7.62.

They are the four highest in the county.

"Of course, studying came first," [the valedictorian] said about getting the high marks."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37447111/

That's a 7.83 out of 4.0 in case you're wondering. I pity those lazy underachievers with their 4.0s... Seriously, what the heck?! I'm sure these were all exceptionally smart and hard-working students. By no means am I trying to downplay their amazing accomplishments. They should feel proud of themselves because they definitely must have done something right to earn the highest grade point averages in their county. 

However, how on Earth can a school district start out with a 4.0 grading scale and end up with students "earning" above 7 GPA's? I'm sure there were dozens, maybe even hundreds, of students in that county with ridiculously inflated GPA's. The author of the article fails to attempts to explain how a 7 out of 4.0 is possible:

"An A in an honors class nets a student a 4.04. In a traditional class it's a 4.0. In advanced placement and dual enrollment classes, an A is a 4.08."

 My first impulse is to accuse these school officials of being unable to perform basic, elementary arithmetic; they clearly don't understand what an average is, ya kno', as in grade point average? They obviously average the grades from regular classes out of 4.0. Then add this to the sum of everything after the decimal point for the honors/AP classes divided by 3.86740331 (literally, I did the math). Still, how could one student take 32 honors and AP classes within 4 years? Most high school students take 7 classes a year (maybe 8 if they skip lunch). Plus, this student had 7 dual enrollment classes. Does dual enrollment that mean double the GPA? So an A would be an 8.0? Yippee! I'm also assuming there were a bunch of classes like Honors Bask-weaving 1 and AP Aerobics for the students to fulfill their core requirements.

Again, I have to wonder what the people running this school district are thinking. The whole point of a GPA is to have a relatively standardized system of evaluating and measuring the performance of students across the country. How could an artificially inflated GPA be meaningful to anyone?

The author himself raises this question:

"But what happens when students apply to colleges and universities? When a student with an unweighted 4.0 applies next to a student with a weighted 7.0, who gets the nod from admissions first?"

Without a doubt, the school district officials are intentionally inflating their students' grade point averages. Is it to show off these impressive grades to colleges? To get publicity for their students and school district? And the most important question of all, should school officials be punished for academic dishonesty?

Don't forget that one valedictorian's remark, "Of course, studying came first", when addressing her high marks. Sweetie, keep on telling yourself that you earned every bit of your 7.62 out of 4.0 (or 190.5%)!! ;) (Congrats on Georgetown, BTW.)

[FYI, you can memorize entire lectures and textbooks, and the highest GPA you could possibly get in 99.9% of school districts across America is around a 4.8. That's with honors and AP classes being weighted at 5.0 for A's. Remember kids, gym and art class don't count as honors.]