4.0 is still a perfect "A" grade, but many years ago the leftists running our public schools decided to start giving extra credit thus allowing for grades above 4.0 (just like people quoting percentages above 100%).
Twelve years ago my daughter graduated high school with a 4.29 GPA and she was beaten out by 21 other kids who had even higher scores (475 total graduates that year). The big problem was all but one of those kids had gamed the system to inflate their grades by taking garbage classes while my daughter took AP Calculus, AP Physics, and all the hardest classes she could find. There was one boy who beat her with a 4.3 GPA who took all the hard classes with my daughter.
She will win the “ race of life” as she has challenged herself.
Congrats to you and her ...