<p>3.9+ (UW) GPA = All As but 1 or 2 Bs</p>
<p>How is it possible for someone with 3.9+ GPA to get below 2000 on SAT or below 30 on ACT?</p>
<p>Grade inflation?</p>
<p>^ Exactly. .</p>
<p>Sounds like our local public! My son attends a prep school where it is the other way around. Kids getting 2000’s with low 3.0’s.</p>
<p>At many, many high schools (at least in America), you don’t have to be very smart to get really good grades. At my school, as long as you do all the homework and spend hours cramming for each test, it’s pretty hard not to get at least straight Bs. In fact, when tests comprise more than 50% of the grade, people complain to the teacher that it’s unfair not to give them good grades because “look at how good my homework is!”</p>
<p>But you get 0 points from SAT prep work, and you can’t argue about how the grading system wasn’t fair to you. That’s how this happens.</p>
<p>It has a lot to do with what kind of school you attend. Obviously, you attend a very competitive school. However, many schools across the country do not have the same standards. In order to prevent failing half the class, teachers tend to lower their standards. </p>
<p>But in all fairness, I have read several books in which former admissions officers admit that the most elite colleges expect both outstanding performance in the context of your school and SAT scores.</p>
<p>Not everyone is a good Standardized Test taker.</p>
<p>*--------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p>
<p>3.9+ (UW) GPA = All A’s but 1 or 2 B’s</p>
<p>How is it possible for someone with 3.9+ GPA to get below 2000 on SAT or below 30 on ACT?</p>
<p>Grade inflation? *</p>
<p>Yes, grade inflation.</p>
<p>A 30 ACT is the 96th percentile. Do you think only the top 3-4% of students have 3.9+ GPA? No…I would imagine that at least the top 10% (or more) of students have 3.9+ GPAs. Probably even a greater percentage when you look at weighted GPAs.</p>
<p>So, yes, grade inflation.</p>
<p>There ARE people who honestly are not good test takers. There are many more people who CLAIM they aren’t good test takers, but really just don’t do well if they can’t go look up the answers in the textbook.</p>
<p>3.9 is good by almost any definition. Scoring 1900 doesn’t seem too much out of whack for that kind of student, especially if it was first try, and if there was minimal SAT prep work done.</p>
<p>However, grade inflation is a very real phenomenon in high schools. A friend of mine is on a scholarship committee in our city, and she says the SAT scores seem to be a better reflection of the typical student. </p>
<p>For example, there are 5 high schools in our city that have top students applying for generous schollies that this lady helps select. She says it is uncanny that she can almost predict which kids will score well on the SAT, simply by the high school they attend.</p>
<p>In other words, each of the schools has a fair share of 4.0 students with lots of honors credits, whereby it is difficult to see much difference in the students. Yet the performances on the SAT fall almost predictably by school. Top students from the #1 rate school average 1300-1600 on the SAT (CR+M). Top students from the #5 ranked school average 1100-1400.</p>
<p>So, yes, there is relative grade inflation.</p>
<p>I would say it may not be just grade inflation, it could be a school that doesn’t focus on prepareing its graduates for college. What percent of graduates attend a 4 year college? Lots of stuff in my son’s HS was focussed on how it would help in preparing for college.</p>
<p>Reference [How</a> can there be so many 4.0 students out there?]( <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/844929-how-can-there-so-many-4-0-students-out-there.html]How”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/844929-how-can-there-so-many-4-0-students-out-there.html)</p>
<p>Yes, there are good students with bona fide high GPA’s from good high schools who just don’t test well on the SAT, but they are the exceptions, not the norm. When the top 5% of a high school consistently score low on the SAT, you have a genuine problem.</p>
<p>My sons profile… 4.3 1895 sat 29act. No grade inflation my son likes to have cram sessions before any test with his buddies. He had no test prep whatsoever didnt even pick up the study book! He likes to have fun. Oh and by the way he had 4 AP classes and got two B’S no grade inflation!! He plays varsity sports and is on a travel comp soccer team, is in leadership and has had tons of hours in community service! My sons grades were not inflated, but he is a well rounded happy go lucky smart kid !!!</p>
<p>getting good grades is school for most can be attained by studying hard for tests…and know exactly what to study. SAT is a different beast…</p>
<p>Quite a number of people at my high school have near perfect GPAs (the grading system runs on a 100 point scale where anything 95+ is considered a 4). However, though only the top students in the school opt to take the SAT, our average SAT score is still around 1500 even during the best years. Admittedly, it’s not low at all but around the national average, but that’s kind of low by CC standards. I know the person who ranks fifth or sixth in my class only had SAT in the 1800s, so high GPA doesn’t always correlate to a really high SAT score. </p>
<p>The majority of students at my school don’t consider the SAT to be that important, so many never spend significant time preparing for it at all - the ones who do usually do fairly well in the end.</p>
<p>roflcopter, i like how the OP implies that a 29 on the ACT and a 1900 on the SAT are “low” scores. . .</p>
<p>They are below the 50th percentile of admitted students for most elite colleges, so they can accurately be classified as “low” in some cases.</p>
<p>Yeah, in SOME cases. Nationally speaking, however, they’re high.</p>
<p>I don’t see anything wrong with a 3.9+ student scoring a 1900 on his SAT. Your GPA is a much better indication of the hard work you put into school. I’ve known many arrogant and unintelligent people with high GPAs and high test scores, the two do not correlate to one’s thinking process and should not be considered as tests to measure one’s philosophical thinking abilities. In fact, the most intelligent people i know, on a purely philosophical/psychological point of view, are the people who generally don’t care much for school. They offer so much more to a conversation about life and experiences than any 4.0 student i know can offer. They can keep a conversation captivating but for whatever reason(s) lack motivation is succeed under a school atmosphere.</p>
<p>Our class has 10+ 4.0 students(not including myself) and the highest(again, excluding myself) ACT score is a 27. Our school isn’t really inflated, but more of “you can take easy classes and get valedictorian”.</p>
<p>My hard course load actually hurts me, I have a 3.8 and a 33. Highest ACT in my class by 7 points and barely top ten percent.(class of ~400) So for our school this happens all the time, GPA is relative to the school and how it works. Standardized tests are the only thing you can compare the whole nation by, so GPA and test scores don’t always line up.</p>
<p>grade inflation
many B students at my school score above 2000…
and the A students, much higher than that.</p>