<p>Just curious...Ivy League coach told us that his school was familiar with the rigor of the New England Preps and held them in high regard academically. Thinking on it more, I am wondering....what gpa does the school use in its AI calculation? They must recalculate the GPA like other schools do. My son's school is academically rigorous and he is in all honors and AP classes. His guidance counselors say that the school is given about a 0.5 "bump" in GPA by colleges. Do they bump the number in the AI calculation as well? Right now, my son has an estimated AI of 196 (estimated because we don't have SAT II's yet) using his actual GPA. Wondering if they will up that GPA based on his particular school/curriculum.</p>
<p>Here on CC there are a couple of articles about the AI…and a calculator is there…but they don’t seem to indicate how each AdCom uses the AI or how each AdCom recalcualtes a kids transcript.</p>
<p>The calculator uses the SATs , 3 SAT2s and either the rank, decile, gpa etc…whichever the school reports…and the calculation is different for each…and it does ask for weighted gpa–meaning it seems to take into acct honors and AP</p>
<p>Don’t know if the AdCom recalculates the students GPA before using an AI calculation, or if they use the one on a transcript. From what little we know–our GCs have said the GPA must no include PE, drivers ed etc, the soft stuff…
…
it should include only hard academics–math, science, history, Eng and For Lang…so IF your transcript includes soft stuff in the GPA–my guess is you should check out what it will look like on the recalculation just so you can get an idea…also you need your sat scores and sat2 scores</p>
<p>My guess woudl be the school is telling you they add in .5 to the gpa and use that new gpa in the calculator before finding AI…thats a great thing!</p>
<p>^^No, son’s school does not give grades for “soft” courses. All grades are for core academics. Also, his school does not rank, so that is very helpful! </p>
<p>The college didn’t tell us they add 0.5, the guidance counselor at my son’s high school said that the school is given “about a 0.5 bump”. This seems to be backed up by Naviance pretty much for all colleges as this high school’s admitted gpa’s are quite a bit lower than the colleges’ printed ranges.</p>
<p>we’re at what i call a public-prep. 100% of the kids go to college, 85% to a 4 year school, and bunches to top 20 colleges. and what I’ve heard from the HS counselors and one college admissions officer (I know, that’s a rare event) is that they “know” the HS, and how it’s academically rigorous. </p>
<p>my guess is that it’s used as a mental tip in your favor in the mind of the admissions officer, but not actually a gpa recalculation</p>
<p>Ran across this article from 2007. Brown notes that they gave 75 Likely Letters in late March to high potential academic admits. It goes on to say they sent 35 Likely Letters in the Fall of 2006 to high potential athletic recruits.</p>
<p>For that class (2010) they had 1S8,316 student apply and 2,555 admitted. Athletes with Likely Letters represented 1.3% of the admittees.</p>
<p>This year, there were over 30,0000 applicants to Brown.</p>
<p>So much for schools corrupting their standards by admitting high number of underqualified applicants.</p>
<p>[The</a> Brown Daily Herald - Top scholars, athletes get ‘likely’ letters from Office of Admission](<a href=“http://www.browndailyherald.com/campus-news/top-scholars-athletes-get-likely-letters-from-office-of-admission-1.1673946]The”>http://www.browndailyherald.com/campus-news/top-scholars-athletes-get-likely-letters-from-office-of-admission-1.1673946)</p>
<p>^^ ??
there is nothing in that news article of 2007 to indicate they corrupted their practices.</p>
<p>Article doesn’t imply this. Much of the commentary on the board regarding the “snarky” behavior of parent’s of non-athletes implies this.</p>
<p>^^ True</p>
<p>Just imagine if the college apps asked for
BMI, BP, ht, wt, general fitness–and the kinds of stuff we used to do for Presidential Fitness awards yrs ago…to rule out couch potatos… :rolleyes:</p>
<p>In another thread someone asked about stats…
some there said coaches asked for unwieghted GPA…
however the Ai calculator uses weighted GPA for AI…</p>
<p>anyone know about this first hand?</p>
<p>This is the info I have collected on this topic. Although there is significant subjectivity involved in calculating AI that varies by school (role of the writing section of the SAT, role of SAT II’s, etc.), I have assumed that CRS (calculated by either class rank or GPA) + SAT score (critical reading + math)/2 = AI score. Each school deals with the writing test differently. My understanding is that the SAT II’s can help you, but can’t hurt you in the calculation. Each school has slighting different method for this calculation.</p>
<p>Below, you’ll see the dynamic between the AI points given for schools that use class rank versus schools that only calculate GPA. Links to the tables used to calculate this info are below.</p>
<p>Difference In AI Score Using Class Rank versus GPA</p>
<p>GPA AI Points SAT Score (CR + M) To Get To AI of 200
3,0 Unweighted GPA 67 AI points 1330
3.0 Weighted GPA 63 AI points 1370</p>
<p>3,3 Unweighted GPA 70 AI points 1300
3,3 Weighted GPA 67 AI points 1330</p>
<p>3.5 Unweighted GPA 73 AI points 1270
3.5 Weighted GPA 69 AI Points 1310</p>
<p>Each AI Point = 10 SAT Points</p>
<p>Class Rank CRS Calculation (graduating of class size of 300 - 349 )</p>
<p>Class Rank/Size of Class AI Points SAT Score (CR + M) To Get To AI of 200
30 - 39/300 - 349 63 AI Points 1370
15-19/300 - 349 67 AI Points 1330
8-9/300 - 349 69 AI Points 1310
5/300 - 349 73 AI Points 1270</p>
<p>The big point here is that at for a school that does not calculate class rank, a 3.0 unweighted or a 3.3 weighted GPA gets you 67 AI points. In a school calculating class rank, to get these same 67 points, a student must finish 15-19 out of a class of 300 - 349. In how many s schools will a 3.0 unweighted or a 3.3 weighted GPA put you in the top 5% of the class?</p>
<p>Although this looks cut and dried, it is not. Class rank is class rank, calculated by the high school and not subject to recalculation by the admissions office. If your school does not calculate class rank and GPA is used, it raises the question of how GPA is calculated. The school calculates a GPA, but this is recalculated by the admissions office (sometimes with help/assistance/lobbying of the coach, depending on how interested he is in the candidate and the importance of the sport at the school - helmet sports and basketball to the front of the line). As a rule, only core academic subjects are used - no PE, extracurricular arts, etc. In addition, if the student has transferred, reclassed, or repeated subjects, it becomes subjective as to how this influences the GPA calculation. Last, and this may be where “challenging” schools get a leg up, it all comes down to the AI that the admissions office is willing to say yes to. The difference between a 3.0 and a 3.5 GPA is 4 AI points, or 40 SAT points to compensate for the difference between the GPAs and still get to the same AI. If the admissions office has a goal of a 200 AI point average for its non-football athletes, it has the latitude to take some under and some over this average, as long it gets to the average. Remember, the lowest possible AI they can take by Ivy standards is 171. They have their internal goals by team and their own practices regarding how they treat students with special situations, including the school they are from and their past track record with students from that school. At the end of admissions process, the admissions officers from all of the Ivies meet and compare the profiles of admitted classes, including the athletes. If you had to defend the admission of a low AI, it would be much easier if the applicant comes from a school that all of the Ivies have respect for and a track record of successful prior admittees. Again, helmet sports and basketball favored. Often athletes on teams that traditionally have high AIs (crew comes to mind) serve as “boosters” to allow sports with traditionally lower AI’s (helmet sports, basketball) to admit targeted athletes with lower AIs. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, it all has to start with the coach falling in love with you. An AI of 200 put you one standard deviation below the average admitted applicant of HYP. And those admittees were, on average, 1 out of 20 applicants, all of whom had great grades, SATs, extracurriculars, etc. This is an opportunity because the school has the desire to have athletic teams that are competitive and sports participation is viewed as an important part of their educational experience. They want sports to be a part of their community. And you still have to have very good grades, SATs, extracurriculars, etc. Once the coach buys into you, it comes down to the influence the coach has on the admissions process (significant in the case of Amaker at Harvard in recent years) and the relative importance that the school places on sports in general and your sport in particular (in basketball, high for Cornell, Princeton and Penn). The higher the degree of coach influence and the importance of the sport at the school, the more subjective the AI calculation can become.</p>
<p>And guess what? This can work to the benefit of exceptional students in non-helmet/basketball sports. For every 185 AI football player that is admitted to a HYP, a 215 AI rower or tennis player is pulled out of the 20,000 applicant pool and is admitted over the many applicants with 215 AI’s that don’t have a sport in their profile.</p>
<p>I hope this is useful. Anyone else with more, better, or different info, jump right in.</p>
<p>Links for GPA CRS calculation and class rank calculation</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.academicrecruits.com/crs%20final.pdf[/url]”>http://www.academicrecruits.com/crs%20final.pdf</a></p>
<p>[Determining</a> your Converted Rank Score](<a href=“http://home.comcast.net/~charles517/crs449.html]Determining”>http://home.comcast.net/~charles517/crs449.html)</p>
<p>excellent explanation bballdad. Thanks for posting that.</p>
<p>My son’s school does not weight grades…college-prep, honors and ap are all the same…so I can see why they might get the gpa “bump” then, particularly with the rigor of their basic college-prep program.</p>
<p>Thanks for that excellent information, bballdad.</p>
<p>^^ wow thats interesting–that means you can have kids taking easier level courses with higher GPAs and higher rankings (if school ranks)</p>
<p>^^Why would that be if weighted grades are used? At my son’s public high school, college-prep courses are all weighted 1.25; honors and AP’s are weighted 1.5, so a C becomes an A for purposes of the CRS. At his prep school, nothing is weighted; I am sure the colleges take this into account.</p>
<p>Fogfog is right. In schools with no class rank and unweighted GPA’s (most elite preps) athletes are encouraged to take those courses that will generate the highest unweighted GPA - usually not honors or AP. This is through the end of their junior year. Early acceptance at the Ivies and likely letters are generated in the Fall of the senior year, so if you have an AI that is within range and you are not borderline, you are then cut loose to take honors and APs.</p>
<p>Note that this holds true for athletes at good schools that are clearly in the Ivies’ recruiting sights. It’s also true for helmet sports/basketball, but not as true for those sports that the Ivies are looking at for athletes that can be “boosters” to raise their non-football AI (crew, squash, etc.). The downside and risk is that if you break a leg and have to apply as non-athlete, your failure to take honors courses or APs earlier can damage you chances as a regular applicant. At the high level preps, the regular level courses are very challenging, but if you are at a high school where there is a significant difference in the level of the material taught between regular, honors, and AP, it can have consequences for the quality of your education.</p>
<p>I don’t think any of this is written anywhere. It’s an informal process of athletes and the high school coaches and counselors interfacing with the Ivies coaches and admission office as they navigate the twists and turns of gaining admission for desirable athletes under the Ivy League rules and each schools admissions policies.</p>
<p>But…didn’t he say they use a weighted gpa?</p>
<p>This discussion is mostly about prep schools, as virtually all public school calculate class rank. Among prep school, there are thousands nationally. In an effort to forestall excessive competition among relatively small graduating classes and a desire not to force rank students in class where most may good students, but someone has to finish last, the schools have gone to an no class rank system. </p>
<p>To further forestall excessive competition, and recognize that even base level courses are challenging at their school, some challenging or elite preps have chosen to make their GPA’s unweighted and not offer additional quality points for honors or AP courses.</p>
<p>The weighted versus unweighted issue is one the Ivies have to deal with because even though many challenging prep schools and some public school do not rank their classes, most public schools and some prep schools introduce weighting into their GPA, which will in turn be used to calculate the student’s AI. According to the table on the attached link, you get a .3 GPA bump if your school does not use weighting in calculating your GPA. Thus, if class rank is used to calculate your AI, an unweighted GPA can be .3 lower than a weighted GPA to get the same AI points.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.academicrecruits.com/crs%20final.pdf[/url]”>http://www.academicrecruits.com/crs%20final.pdf</a></p>
<p>One the other hand, you do not get the benefit of the additional quality points that honors and AP bring to an Ivy applicants GPA. If a student has taken a very heavy load of honors and AP courses and performed well, his weighted GPA could beat the .3 disadvantage that weighted GPAs have over unweighted GPA.</p>
<p>For some challenging prep schools that do not weight the GPA, they can make the argument that their students get the .3 bump plus the benefit of their school’s reputation and relationships with Ivy admissions officers that high schools that offer weighting but not as well known to the Ivies can offer.</p>
<p>The key points here are:</p>
<p>I. It’s a significant advantage to be applying from a school that does not rank it’s graduating class. You get more AI points for a respectable GPA versus the class rank that GPA would earn in most schools.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The weighted GPA versus unweighted GPA does not have significant effect on the AI. The gross difference between the same numeric GPA weighted versus unweighted is 3 to 4 AI points at most. The weighted GPA student would have to take a significant number of honors and AP classes and get the same grade that he would have earned in a regular level course to beat the .3 disadvantage for weighting grades.</p></li>
<li><p>The real opportunity to move one’s AI score is in SAT prep. An additional 100 points on the CR+M sections of the SAT will get you an additional 10 AI points. A .5 increase in one’s cumulative GPA will get you 6 - 8 AI points, depending on where you fall on the scale. Targeted math, verbal, and test taking preparation can easily generate a 100 - 200 point SAT score increase, raising one’s AI 10 - 20 points.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>A word of advice. If you are interested in the Ivies, get and initial SAT score early in your junior year to see where you stand. If additional preparation is needed, there is still time to get this done before the end of the junior year. You then go into the summer before your senior with a baseline class rank or GPA and SAT scores - the two components needs for Ivy coaches to put together a trial AI and determine if you can meet their admissions hurdle before they get serious about recruiting you.</p>
<p>The Ivy coaches cast a broader net than other D1 schools, because of the challenge of admission. In basketball, for example, during your junior year you may be getting mail once a month - so are several hundred other prospects. You may be getting regular phone calls from an assistant coach - so are several dozen other prospects. All for 4 - 6 potential slots. The best thing you can do is to work on your game, make the best grades you can, and prepare for the SAT and make good scores. Once you have done that, get your high school coach to contact the coaches of target Ivy schools, share your profile and get a read on if you are a prospect and if they have a need. If so, invest the money and go to their elite camp the summer before your senior year. Not just for one dream school, but for a couple of schools. If the stars align, you have met the first cut of getting the academic qualification done and you’ll get a chance to show your game off in a controlled setting.</p>
<p>Two of my son’s friends (both on his club team) have gained admission to the same Ivy this year. One of them has a 3.5 gpa (public school, so I am assuming he had to use rank) and 1900 SAT/28 ACT. Very close to my son’s profile and a very similar player. Coach has said that son’s stats are good and he is working to improve test scores in the fall. Both his SAT (1870) and ACT (28) were without any prep at all. Of course GPA won’t move much at all at this point as his school only offers three courses a block, so he is awaiting three grades. Not the only school we are looking at, though!</p>
<p>His chances look great. A 3.5 unweighted translates to 73 AI points. His current SAT score should translate to approximately 124 AI points, for a total approximate AI of 197. That’s very close to HYP’s athletes average AI of 200-210. If these numbers are close, he is well within the range of the other Ivies. If he hasn’t done SAT prep, there is gold in them hills!!</p>
<p>The next things are finding the program that wants and needs him and understanding and getting to the AI goals that that school has for that team.</p>
<p>Good luck. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.</p>
<p>Oh no…that is my son’s friend/teammate. He has already been accepted to an Ivy with those stats (3.5 and 1900 SAT). My son goes to a prep school and has a 3.3 GPA (lower gpa courtesy of extreme rigor coupled with honor’s classes). How does the .3 bump work…I didn’t understand that? The counselors at my son’s school say our kids are given an approximate bump of 0.5 - I was wondering if that is done for the AI calc. as well. Coach at Ivy did not really know. He said son should try to be within one standard deviation of 210…which I guess he pretty much is. Will definitely prep for those fall tests!
My son’s prep school sends a lot of athletes to the Ivies and per Naviance, the average GPA for this school is a 3.3 with a mid-1900 SAT or a 26 ACT.</p>