Additional reporting by Livia Kam ’26.
Going into effect during the 2025-2026 school year, Advanced Placement (AP) and Honors courses will be weighed differently when calculating Grade Point Average (GPA) at Moorestown Friends School. Currently, AP and Honors courses carry the same weight of 0.3. Starting next year, honors classes will carry a weight of 0.35, and AP courses will carry a weight of 0.7.
Upper School Director Noah Rachlin was involved in the decision to change the GPA calculation system.
“The rationale behind the decision is that there is a difference or should be a difference in the level of rigor in a honors class and a[n] AP class, and so if we are acknowledging the difference between CP classes and honors classes, we thought it was appropriate to honor the difference between honors and AP classes,” Rachlin explained.
According to Rachlin and MFS College Counselor Chris LaTempa, the specific choice of weighing honors classes with a 0.35 and AP classes with a 0.7 was made after meetings with local high schools, college counselors, and college admission officers.
LaTempa, who participated in the process of the GPA calculation change, explained the reasoning behind why honors have the specific weight of 0.35 and why AP courses have the specific weight of 0.7.
“A 0.7 for AP and 0.35 for honors essentially equates to the letter scale,” LaTempa stated.
He elaborated, saying that the overall idea is for a B plus in an AP course to be equivalent to an A minus in an honors course, and equal to an A in a CP class.
LaTempa added that the benefits of this change in the college process are very case-specific, depending on the colleges that the student is applying to.
“From the data that we collected, there weren’t many colleges that took GPA at face value.”
Additionally, MFS Upper Schoolers seem to view this change as a positive; however, some do wish that this change had been announced to the school on a larger scale.
“I think that this change was definitely needed,” stated ninth-grader Aryanna Dalal ’28. “I just wish that it was announced more publicly.”
Arjun Khandhar ’27 also said that he thinks the GPA calculation change is a good thing.
“I think that the new change is going to be beneficial in the sense that APs, which are known to be more rigorous, are going to have more value when you put it onto the GPA scale, and same thing with honors, I think increasing it a little bit makes sense if your going to increase APs.”
Similarly to Dalal, Khandhar also said that he wished that the change was more public.
“There should have been more communication about this new update,” he said. “I never even knew about [the GPA change]; I heard about it from a friend, and I’m not sure how they found out. It never came through Agenda, [or] Meeting for Worship for Business. It’s never been truly announced through the community, so I think that they could be a little better about being transparent on that.”
