Since the colleges have not mentioned anything about the A level curriculum on their website, i’ve come hear to seek some help. I’ve recently got my Junior year grades back (A1 ) and they are not decent at all
1A* 2A’s 2B.
So how exactly do colleges interpret these grades? Also would someone be kind enough to tell me what the GPA would be? Lastly, with these grades do i have a chance at top US colleges considering of course that i have a really high ACT/SAT score and national level (maybe international) extra curricula rs? Can factors like these trump the B grades?
They don’t have requirements, and don’t make decisions by formulas. Those A-levels are not what Ivies are looking for. That you took 5 A-levels looks good to US schools though. Depends on what the national level ECs are. If they are like national math competitions or something else academic at a high level or athletics in a sport the coach wants you for, then they will be big.
Hmm Sounds fair. I was just convinced that i should give up on the ivies. I had this perception that they only take you in if you have like all A’s and A*'s.What should be my ACT score?
They probably are looking for mostly A*s, but it isn’t fixed. If they want you for other reasons, they can take you with those grades. Look at what the average ACTs are for the school. If you are international and don’t have a “hook”, you probably need at least the 75th percentile.
Note that the Ivies and equivalents (and I’m including 30 unis and liberal arts colleges in that category) offer maybe 1% of total higher education slots in the US. The 8 actual Ivies offer less than half of 1% of total college/uni slots in the US (as a way of comparison, Oxbridge, as a proportion of the UK’s population, offers a greater percentage of slots than all 30 Ivies/equivalents do in the US).
The Near-Ivies (and I’m including some big/giant unis like Cal, UMich, UVa, UCLA, NYU, and UW-Madison in there) offer another 1.5-2% of college/uni slots in the US. And faculty/academic talent in the US goes very deep. With roughly half the world’s top faculty, any school in the top 100 is better than something outside the top 5 (or even in the top 5) in other countries in the world.
Long way of saying that, depending on what your goals are, you may not need to concentrate on the tippy-top.
US schools are more into research and the faculty all has PhDs. Not sure that makes them better than schools elsewhere. However, yes top 50 US schools are all really good and competitive. Oxbridge is huge with multiple colleges, whereas top US schools take maybe 1000 freshmen each per year. I think OP is probably from the British Commonwealth though.
Ivies and so on, do take a significant percentage with “hooks” though, which are completely out of reach to most applicants. Then they usually take so many international students and so many from each country. So it is probably much harder to get in from south or east Asia and somewhat harder to get in from the UK, than it is from countries with weaker educational systems where English isn’t the native language.
Most Ivies/equivalents take about 1-2K each year (tiny Caltech and the LACs each take a few hundred while UPenn takes about 2.5K and Cornell roughly 3K). Oxbridge each take 3K+ (total of a little less than 7K). However, the US has 5 times the population of the UK.
And yes, it’s generally harder to get in to an Ivy/equivalent for an international. Many of the giant (mostly public) unis like full-pay international students, however (specifically, their money). And it’s possible that being an intetnational may actually work for you at some LACs, depending on what country you are from.
Half your GPA would be 3.9 because of the A* and a British B is an American A-, so, in US terms, technically an A.
You could simply submit your three top predicted A Levels since only 3 are expected (4 if you’re doing Further Maths).
The other half of your GPA would be your IGCSE’s or GCSE’s combined together.
ALevels are worth the same as ALL GCSE’s.
@MYOS1634 Thanks for your post. Can you please expand on how to convert GCSEs and A Levels into a numerical
GPA? Do you know if many schools actually do the conversion given that US vs UK courseloads are different and A levels are arguably more rigorous than most US high school courses?
Top schools essentially want A*, A, accepting perhaps one B at A level and a couple at gcse (out of 8+). Don’t know how they’ll handle the new 1-9 scale.
A=A, B=A-/B+, C= B, D= B-/C+, E= C, F= D, G= F
The issue is the volume of competition from some countries. Ivies can cherry pick among top performers. That’s where B grades can hurt- and in rigorous courses. And especially if those relate to your possible major.
This isn’t all about just the GPA number. They’ll look at the transcript, see the B’s. Never heard a B is magically converted to an A-. Any impression your B’s are highly competitive would depend on your school and what adcoms know of it. Even B grades from TJ or Stuy (top US hs) are still B’s.
You don’t need national level competition. You need to know what holistic patterns a given college is looking for.
@MYOS1634 and @lookingforward Thanks. Also, I wanted to add that the upcoming application (2016/2017) year should be interesting with 1) many UK schools dropping AS levels, although my kids’ schools have retained them; and 2) the various changes in the SATs will likely require some Unis to focus more on actual grades vs. standardised test scores. How will these schools compare the grades of one kid who has very high GSCEs, AS results and predicted A2 results to a similar kid whose school did not have him/her sit AS levels this year?
