The classes you take and the grades you earn are more important than the GPA that appears on your transcript.

I’m training two new Collegewise counselors who, between them, have worked in admissions at three different colleges. And not surprisingly, they compared past admissions notes and revealed that their former admissions offices each used a different formula to recalculate their applicants’ GPAs.

As I’ve discussed in past blog entries, most colleges don’t just take the GPA that’s calculated on your transcript at face value. They look at what classes were available at your high school, which ones you took, and then recalculate your GPA while paying attention to the rigor of your courses. Some colleges will also include college-level work outside of high school when calculating that GPA; others will not.

But that doesn’t change what virtually every college in the country is evaluating:

What was available at your high school? Which classes did you take, and how rigorous were they? And if you took classes outside of high school, colleges will be impressed by your initiative to pursue your academic interests, especially if you performed well. Whether or not those grades are calculated in your GPA for admissions purposes does not change the figurative credit for making additional efforts to learn.

Take the most rigorous curriculum you can reasonably handle. Thrive in your favorite subjects and do your best in those that don’t come as easily to you. And if you want to learn something outside of high school, from math to hip-hop dance, go for it. The GPA is one measure of your curiosity and work ethic, but it’s not the only one. A student who passes up a hard class just because it doesn’t come with a weighted grade is focusing more on his GPA than he is on the opportunity to take a great class. A student who takes an elective college course over the summer not because he’s interested in it, but because he hopes it will increase his GPA, is focusing on the wrong things.

You don’t have control over how a college treats your GPA. So focus more on your efforts to learn and your willingness to work hard. Academic rigor and performance are always rewarded in some way.