Florida district caps GPAs after student’s 11.99 record run
Hillsborough County is changing GPA rules after Steinbrenner valedictorian Vaibhav Bhaskar graduated with a weighted 11.99.
By Poppy Nakagawa · Culture Writer
2 min read
A Florida student’s 11.99 weighted GPA has pushed his school district to rewrite the rules.
Vaibhav Bhaskar, the valedictorian at Steinbrenner High School in Lutz, graduated with a weighted grade point average of 11.99, according to UPI. The mark topped the Florida record of 11.84 set in 2022 by Dylan Mazard, a graduate of Gaither High School, the Palm Beach Post reported.
Now Hillsborough County is putting a ceiling on how high GPAs can climb. The school board recently approved a new policy that caps GPAs beginning with next year’s graduating class, according to UPI.
The change means Bhaskar’s district record will not be matched or surpassed under the new system.
How the GPA climbed so high
Bhaskar’s number came from Hillsborough County’s weighted GPA system, which gave students extra credit beyond the standard 4.0 scale for Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment classes, according to UPI.
During high school, Bhaskar took 20 AP classes. He also completed 24 Dual Enrollment college courses through the University of Florida’s online program, enough to earn an associate’s degree, UPI reported.
Bhaskar told the Tampa Bay Times that once he decided he wanted to finish at the top, he tried to use every academic option available to him.
“Once I got that mindset that, ‘OK, I’m gonna be at the top,’ I just took advantage of every opportunity I could,” Bhaskar told the newspaper. “I took all the hardest classes. I kind of exhausted all of my school’s curriculum, and saw what I could do beyond that.”
Bhaskar is set to attend Duke University in the fall, according to UPI.
District says colleges were recalculating GPAs
Hillsborough County officials said the old weighting system created GPAs that college admissions offices had to adjust, according to district materials cited by UPI.
The district said admissions officers were being forced to “recalculate” the “unusually high” GPAs so they could be compared more fairly with grades from elsewhere in Florida.
District officials also raised concerns that the system was pushing students to load up on extra online coursework for the sake of boosting their numbers.
“In addition, the current weighting often encourages students to enroll in excessive online courses to achieve an inflated GPA, resulting in stressful and unhealthy learning habits and mental health concerns,” the district said.
The new cap will apply starting with the next graduating class, according to UPI. Bhaskar’s 11.99 will remain the high-water mark for Hillsborough County under the old rules.
This story draws on original reporting from UPI.