I was wondering… When colleges consider various applicants from around the nation how much the academic reputation of a high school? Hypothetically… What would happen if a student with a 3.3 GPA from a top-100 school according to US News Rankings and Reviews (Gold Medal List to be exact) was compared to a student with a 3.5 GPA at a mediocre school, considering same SAT and ACT and ECs and essay? Or does the rigor of the school mean close to nothing and the opportunities that you took mean more? With rigor of the school, I mean the standards of an A, or a B is… and the difference between an English 1 at the mediocre school vs the better one. Surely, there should be something that should be taken into account if one course is harder at one school than another…
With the opportunities… does it necessarily mean when they say opportunities the AP courses? Would taking two extra classes on top of AP English class be considered taking advantage of the opportunity? And taking two unique languages mean that too?
Any insight is appreciated… This is one of those important questions that we have to ask ourselves. Apologies if I posted this in the wrong section, new to CC.
Many colleges already know the reputations of high schools around the country. Rigor does matter, but its mostly the rigor of the program that you are in, and not the entire school. What I mean is that I am in an honors/AP program at my school, which overall isnt very rigorous, but the honors/AP track is known to be particularly challenging, which many colleges know. This also manifests itself in SAT scores, because there tends to be a gap of 100-200 points between the top 100 students in a given class and the bottom 200 or so. A trend of SAT scores from students in similar classes at your and other schools can help indicate how rigorous the curriculum is, and therefore how much grade deflation occurs.
The school I go to is highly rated on Newsweek’s list and is well-known in the admissions departments of Ivies and other top schools, so I know it helps. I’m not sure I’d rely fully on it though.
Conversely, my school (rumor has it) was actually black listed from MIT’s admissions for a few years because of a student who get accepted and then slacked off and had to retake some courses in summer school.
That is one of the reasons why they take your class rank into consideration in order to put your academic rigor into perspective.