“I’m from the era when a 4.0 GPA was the highest possible, so what is a 4.4 GPA”
“Extra credit”, weighted courses (AP, honors class etc.)
Advanced placement college level classes.
Advanced Placement courses have an A grade count as 5.0
So the kid got straight A grades with the gut courses he took being Advanced Placement
An “B” in an AP course is equivalent to a non-AP “A”, ITGRC.
So, AP “A”s as a high school upperclassman, say, could start bumping your cumulative GPA above a 4.0, the more AP classes you take, and get “A”s in (provided you are also careful to avoid ending sentences with prepositions).
Where a lot of colleges weed-out these academic achievers is the public-service and outside-activities. Kids that grind on the school work to the exclusion of all else can be hurting their assessment.
If you take “Honors” or “Advanced Placement” courses, you get extra points. I don’t know whether the top of the scale is 5.0 or 4.5. The grade in excess of 4.0 because of the increased difficulty in the course is part of a “weighted” GPA. There is also an “unweighted” GPA where even the honors or AP courses only go up to 4.0
If the highest for an honors or AP course is 5.0, you still can’t get a 5.0 total weighted GPA because some not every subject has an honors course.
I’m going through this now with my kid.
In some scoring systems you get extra points for A+, also for taking college level courses in HS.
Converse of an A in AP courses = 5, an A in a Special Ed course = 3. As others have noted, AP courses aren’t offered in all high school subjects, so a 5.0 would be impossible.