A note about GPA's

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Richmond
1

<p>Hello all--</p>

<p>I just wanted to make a comment based on so much of what I read and hear from prospective students about GPA's. When an admission office looks at your transcript, there is much more that directs us towards a particular decision than just a GPA. Admission Offices all over use very different practices in this regard, so there is not a singular approach, but I think it's important for you to have a deeper understanding of this statistic and its use in admission decisions from the point of view of UR. </p>

<p>The most important thing to us is rigor of curriculum. Not just how many honors or AP or IB or Dual Enrollment or whatever your school calls their best classes, but how deeply you've continued your studies into each of the five academic core disciplines of English, math, history, foreign language and lab science. A student who stops taking math after Algebra II/Trig is differently prepared for college than the student who goes on with higher level math, especially if they've gone on to calculus. Two students with the same GPA's can have made enormously different choices in regard to curriculum so when students "chance" themselves on these boards based just on this number (or in any other forum), a smart admission person would be very cautious about commenting. </p>

<p>Grades are also weighted in a myriad of ways, so we never really know what kind of performance a student has until we actually look at the transcript. I've seen straight B students with 4.0 GPA's. And the families really are convinced that their students are "4.0's". Highly selective schools would be looking for students with grades of A in weighted courses, not grades of B that are inflated in the GPA calculations. (Although most of us would much rather admit a student with a mix of A/B's in a weighted curriculum than straight A's in a straight college prep curriculum). I find this to be a source of great frustration to parents and students. Not all GPA's mean the same thing. </p>

<p>This is not even to mention the many different grading scales out there. We do look at what the scale is and expect a little higher GPA with more generous grading scale schools to try to offset that difference. Most students I've met in my years in this business think that their school's scale is the toughest in the world and puts them at a disadvantage. I think that most colleges and universities are smart enough to put measures into place to try to minimize the influence of different scales although no system is flawless in this regard. </p>

<p>A strong GPA can mask some serious individual grades that demonstrate weakness in a particular curricular area. If it's a curricular area that is required for graduation at UR, we can be reasonably concerned about a student's likelihood of success in required courses. </p>

<p>While most colleges look at grades from the fall semester of the senior year, the GPA they record is the one at the end of the junior year, since transcripts of 9-11 come in for the first part of the admission review. Semester grades can change a decision if they show dramatic decline from the previous performance. </p>

<p>When a college publishes an "average GPA" for its enrolling students, the smart prospective student would ask the source of that number. Is it a straight average of all the GPA's as calculated by the high schools? Or is it a recalculated GPA based on the way that college might recalculate? So many high schools give GPA's that are just numerical grade averages (i.e. 92.7) I wonder how those places that use the former system accommodate for the differences in school GPA's. There are plenty of schools that have now gone to bizarre GPA's as well (i.e. 6.0 = A). At schools like this, a 4.0 student is usually a straight C student. </p>

<p>Richmond reports what type of transcripts our typical admitted student by saying that most of our admitted students earn mostly grades of A- in highly rigorous courses. </p>

<p>Thanks for understanding that we're considering many more factors than the GPA when we make our decisions. </p>

<p>UR Admissions</p>

2

<p>This is interesting. Can you comment on the weight SAT / SAT II has in your evaluations?</p>

3

<p>I don't know that there is quite as much interpretation involved when it comes to test scores as with GPA's, but I'll comment any way. Test scores would be about 3rd on the list of importance among the criteria we consider. Rigor of courses is 1st, grades in rigorous courses is 2nd. Theoretically we'd rather admit a student with excellent grades in rigorous courses with modest test scores than one with modest courses, grades and great testing. But the theory breaks down with an intensely competitive applicant pool, since there are far more students who are strong in all those ways then we had space to accommodate. This year we had less flexibility on any of those factors than in the past. When students are "similarly qualified" the decision generally comes down to other factors--head-turning references, evidence of real intellectual curiosity, extra-curricular lives that made a difference to others or were rich in some special way (the arts for example). </p>

<p>I hope this makes some measure of sense. We do not use any sort of mathematical formula in our evaluation so it isn't easy to describe testing as being XX% of the decision factor.</p>

4

<p>Thanks for this explanation. I was curious because I've read that the standardized text scores are used or meant to predict success in college and even IQ. I appreciate that UR admissions takes a broader look at its applicants.</p>

5

<p>The SAT does have value in predicting first-year college grades (as unique from "success" which is a very broad term and certainly not IQ--really the SAT shows evidence of developed academic skills). But it is not as strong a predictor as excellent grades in rigorous courses. When you combine looking at all these factors you get a stronger prediction than with any of the factors standing alone. That's why most schools use them in combination. The SAT can't measure motivation or work ethic and it certainly doesn't measure self-discipline. All of those qualities are crucial for college success and in some respects can be assessed from the transcript. The challenge is that you can't really tell whether motivation is internal or external. Taking hard classes is evidence of motivation, but why the student chooses them is any one's best guess. I think usually it is because someone has told them they have to in order to get into a "good" college and I'd prefer they be more internally motivated than that. But they are young, right? We hope that internal drive will kick in for those that are just following the script in high school. </p>

<p>It would be a much simpler job if we did more number crunching and less one-at-a-time evaluating. But we don't think the results would be as good. </p>

<p>UR Admissions</p>