3.9+ UW GPA but low SAT/ACT score. How is it possible?

<p>No, the marks aren’t necessarily inflated.</p>

<p>If you haven’t noticed, the SAT claims to be a test to see if you can understand what the professors are saying and how well can you express yourself. It puts a lot of weight on English, and nothing else. (The math section is a joke. Anyone who wants to study any kind of math oriented course in college will agree with me)</p>

<p>On the other hand, if you are a student who takes all 3 sciences + math + calculus and all those number crunching courses, your English mark will only affect a little bit of your GPA. So a high GPA and a low SAT score is actually more common than we think, especially among those who will major in sciences or engineering but aren’t proficient in English.</p>

<p>Personally, I think the SAT doesn’t do justice for those math geeks and science geniuses out there.</p>

<p>They are low scores for top schools. The reason SAT scores are a better indicator is that you can’t suck up to the SAT to get a better grade.</p>

<p>Wow. I though my public school was average but I guess not. We have 20 people with 32+ on the ACT out of 450~. The average income for the are isn’t really super high, like 70k, but I guess the community does really value education, seeing as how the average teacher salary is ~68k.</p>

<p>Lots of possibilities.</p>

<p>1.) Bad at test taking. It happens; a couple of the higher ranked kids in my class GPA-wise take tests fairly slowly and suffer on the SAT as a consequence.</p>

<p>2.) Grade inflation, as explained in a dozen other posts</p>

<p>3.) Grimeballs who take easy classes for easy A’s instead of challenging themselves</p>

<p>Go ahead and pick your favorite.</p>

<p>I’m a junior. My GPA, as of the end of first semester, is a 4.375 (unweighted being a 4.0). I took my SAT a couple months ago, and I got an 1840. Most classes I’ve taken don’t rely on how logically you think, which is what the SAT seems to test. High school classes only seem to assess how dedicated you are to completing your workload on time and cramming for the tests. The exception to this is my Physics C: Mechanics class. I get the basic concepts fine, but when it comes to problem-solving, I’m at a loss at what to do. It doesn’t help that our teacher is pretty bad at his job.</p>

<p>Your not the only one who suffers the same fate. I have a 3.9 wighted GPA while in IB classes, I’m one out of maybe 15 or less who are deemed the top 5% of my graduating class. My teacher tell me I’m brilliant and sometimes I get the “short end of the stick” from them because they feel that way. Yet I have a 1450/2400 on the SAT’s and my act score was worse. So relax since it doesn’t matter were you get your bachelors from anyways.</p>

<p>"So relax since it doesn’t matter were you get your bachelors from anyways. "</p>

<p>eh, it does in a lot of cases if you don’t go for a master’s.</p>

<p>hopefully this kid is going to go on to graduate school</p>

<p>I go to a college prep school where I do the full IB diploma. Nobody in my grade has a career gpa of a 4.0. The highest grade someone got was a 3.98. The second person had around a 3.7 and then a few people between 3.0 and 3.5. More than half had below a 3.0 including me myself because of the difficulty of my high school classes. However our high school’s average SAT is around 1730 and I scored 1950 on it ( decent by CC standards, pretty good by normal people standards). The person who has that 3.98 also scored the same as me, a 30 on her ACT. I think more colleges should factor in course difficulty and standardized test for admissions. GPA is really relative and it means different things at all high school. At the next high school I know, more than 75% of people have a gpa above a 3.0 but half of these people can’t even break a 1600 on their SAT… </p>