An Indian-origin student has broken the record of high school grade in Florida with an 11.99 GPA, but this impossible achievement shifted the focus of the administrators to the unhealthy race that they created, bogging down students with pressure. 17-year-old Vaibhav Bhaskar graduated from Steinbrenner High School with an 11.99 weighted GPA. A perfect unweighted GPA is 4.0. The previous record of the highest GPA from Hillsborough County was 11.84 in 2022.“Maybe who knows if the previous record was a 12.84 maybe I could add a 12.99, and it goes to show that we’ve really placed these limitations on our goals, but I believe that no goal is truly out of reach,” Vaibhav said on “Florida Matters Live & Local.”
Vaibhav took 20 AP classes, 23 dual enrollment classes
To reach this goal, he took 20 AP classes through his four years as well as 24 dual enrollment classes at Hillsborough College and the University of Florida. He also founded an investment club at his school as he’s passionate about finance and economics. He was even the president of the South Asian Student Association and the captain of the school’s mock trial team.“I was just your average high school kid,” he said. “I enjoy learning very much and taking those classes — kind of putting myself out of my comfort zone is what resulted in that.”“I have a whiteboard in my room, and I listed five goals on it for my high school career back when I was a sophomore,” Bhaskar told The New York Post, adding that his top aims were to “become valedictorian” and “break the state GPA record.”
Interested in math and economics, Bhaskar wants to run for office some day
With his state record that is making headlines and positive policy change, Bhaskar is heading to Duke University to earn a double major in economics and public policy. He said he chose Duke because he loves the sports culture there and it has good programs. Bhaskar said he may consider running for office and he wants to create positive change in the world.His father, Bhaskar Malayappan, said there has been no pressure on Vaibhav to be an overachiever. “We didn’t force him to read or do this much courses. So for example, we have a train track. So we laid the foundation, and here’s the train, and he went with his speed and we didn’t control his speed at all,” he explained.
Is it possible to score 11.99 GPA?
Hillsborough County school officials praised Bhaskar’s achievement but they said no student should be able to amass an 11.99 GPA. Principal Tiffany Ewell said the policy has now been changed.Many schools did not have a GPA ceiling, and students like Vaibhav push themselves hardest to achieve the highest. To combat this, many districts, like the Palm Beach school system, have turned to the Honors Point Average (HPA) system, which averages grades rather than stacking them. Bhaskar said he supports transitioning to a standardized approach, restricting GPA to a five-point scale. “I actually absolutely agree with the change because it’s a way more standardized way to calculate GPAs,” he said. He pointed out that “my 11.99 GPA on our district’s scale probably translates to a 4.93 on a standard 5.0 scale.”Bhaskar said the old scale obviously had certain novelty as 11,99 sounds a lot better than 4.93.He said he won’t call himself burned out, but he was definitely tired and after his graduation he was sleeping a lot. “It felt almost surreal that I didn’t have anything left to do.”
