<p>Oh, and no, there was no explanation other than top 10%.</p>
<p>I’m still rather confused by the convolutions of eligibility for PBK and Latin Honors; perhaps some day it will become clear, but in any case, congratulations, Lost in translat, on your daughter’s election to PBK! What an especially wonderful accomplishment, given that English is not her first language!</p>
<p>Congratulations to your D, LiT. The journey has had a few bumps but so far, so good. Now to finesse a visa status…</p>
<p>One of D’s classmates just took a banking job in Paris. Maybe your D can be her reciprocal counterpart in the NY office. (French company, fwiw.)</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone. She’s done a great job. I’m proud and glad for her, and it was good for her morale, as she is having a very bumpy time with her thesis adviser who has been pretty negative re Grad school.
Sorry, TheDad, surely you remember that D can’t count!!!
Carolyn, the ceremony is in December ( just to frustrate me once again), and I will ask D to request precise information on the different requirements.</p>
<p>No more than 10 percent of the entire senior class can be elected for the year. If 5 percent of the class is elected in fall, only 5 percent can be elected in the spring</p>
<p>PBK inductees are in the top 3 percent (gpa) of the class.</p>
<p>I understand about the 10 percent of the class, but how can you have inductees in the top 3 percent GPA when you’re already inducting up to 10 percent of the class?</p>
<p>On another note (pun intended!), we got back a little while ago from the Autumn Serenade in Sage Hall (I love the acoustics in that place!). It was really lovely. It’s quite wonderful that Smith keeps commissioning composers to write music for the Smith choruses–very cool! I’m looking forward to hearing the Britten Ceremony of Carols at Vespers in a few weeks.</p>
<p>LiT, perhaps she can count in English but not French? (Looking for a vein of hope…)</p>
<p>
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<p>There’s a distinction between 10 percent of class and top 3 percent GPA. </p>
<p>For argument, assume the top 3 percent GPA is 3.8-4.0. Hence, 97 percent of the GPA’s are below 3.8
Also assume there are 600 women in the graduating class.</p>
<p>For simplicity, 5 women have a 4.0 GPA, 20 women a 3.9, 35 women a 3.8. IOW, 60 women, 10 percent of the graduates, have a GPA in the top 3 percent. Make sense?</p>
<p>I hope you visited the Mum display. Truly amazing.</p>
<p>CD, I find that statistical explanation pretty tortured. Iow, no, it doesn’t make sense. “top percent GPA” carries the implication of “GPA’s earned,” not “GPA’s possible,” to me.</p>
<p>And the GPA range is a highly punctuated continuum, not discrete at .1 intervals. E.g., 3.9723 vs. 3.9718… Once you drop below the perfect 4.0, there are many slightly different GPA’s because of differences in # of units taken, # of units taken P/NP (including “abroad” units in programs not run by Smith), and whether a + or a - was in a 4-unit class or a 2-unit class or whatever.</p>
<p>D has three different GPA’s depending upon how you count for various purposes, with a range of .0321 between top and bottom. In most cases it’s all applesauce but for some awards it makes a difference and I bet for some grad school admissions it might make a difference.</p>
<p>OK, CrewDad, I understand that example but what I don’t understand is how you determine the top 3%. Are you taking the whole range of GPA from 4.0 (or whatever the top GPA is) to whatever the lowest GPA is in that particular class year and finding the 3% from that? What happens if there are too many students with 3.8 or whatever the bottom GPA is of the top 3%? You’d have to take it to the next decimal place, right?</p>
<p>Sorry, we missed the mum show. :-(</p>
<p>TD, graduate school would not be out of the question for our daughter, so I am interested in knowing how these figures and decisions are computed. While I’m not a math person, I know that the first year doesn’t count towards your GPA, but the rest does, and I can imagine that a non-Smith study abroad experience wouldn’t be counted either. Our daughter is planning to study abroad in the spring of her junior year.</p>
<p>The first year DOES count toward GPA. The first year does not count toward Latin Honors GPA.</p>
<p>More about grad school and grades: they care about the overall GPA from first year on, but they also care about major GPA.</p>
<p>MWFN, thank you for the clarification about how GPA counts. For grad school, I hadn’t even thought about a separate GPA for your major, as my social work grad school experience wasn’t a continuation of my undergrad major and happened several years later. So, in other words, first year counts towards PBK eligibility but not for Latin Honors eligibility. No wonder TD talks about three different GPAs for his daughter! :)</p>
<p>Well, LiT says that first year grades do not count for PBK, so I don’t know what to say about that. One thing is for sure: first year grades do not count toward Latin Honors. </p>
<p>Many but not all graduate programs want you to calculate your major GPA. Even if they don’t, however, they will still look at the applicant’s performance in courses, particularly upper level ones, relevant to the program.</p>
<p>Okay, of D’s three GPA’s as I have them:</p>
<p>Smith Overall: doesn’t count one semester’s “abroad” grades in program not run by Smith.</p>
<p>Latin Honors: doesn’t count first year, doesn’t count one semester’s worth of grades in an “abroad” program Her highest GPA.</p>
<p>Overall GPA as likely recalculated by graduate schools:
recalculates, includes grades in one semester of “abroad” grades </p>
<p>Her Overall GPA as recalculated is the lowest of the three. Not that it’s low. But it’s a maddening number if you’re into such things, looking psychologically much better if you round to two decimal places instead of extending to three or four.</p>
<p>Don’t know what her major GPA’s were and it’s an interesting question because she’s applying for grad work in a third field.</p>
<p>In my experience, there is not much difference between 3.8 or 4.0 amongst grad school applicants. It’s all about the rigor of courses taken in the proposed field of study, seeking out and demonstrating aptitude for research. A 3.5 GPA would be admitted in place of a 4.0 if the former had superior research experience.</p>
<p>TD, thanks for the distinctions about GPAs for different purposes. Upbeat, thanks for the reassurance that grad schools are looking at a larger admission picture.</p>
<p>UpBeat, I peeked at some of the acceptance rates & other info for some of the programs D is applying to. Not being a helicopter, she and I haven’t even talked about it, just having fun with the binoculars. Anyway, I got queasy reading. But her GPA is a) extremely fine and b) it’s all moot now anyway. But reading the acceptance profiles for her target programs is worse than reading the undergrad Ivy profiles and induces a similar level of paranoia.
Having a 4.3 undergrad <em>and</em> discovering a cure for cancer looks as it might have fairly good odds…</p>
<p>Hang out in the grad forum for a while, and you’ll learn within a post or two that research experience is the most important factor for getting into graduate school. After that, it depends on the field. For instance, in the humanities, foreign language preparation and the writing sample are tipping points, while in economics, you need a solid background in math. In the sciences, your research experience is measured in years and summers. </p>
<p>GPA and test scores are just keys to get in the door. Everything else is about preparation.</p>