My 22 has a weighted GPA of 4.13 but an unweighted of 3.67 (got a B in an AP course and one hons course last year. She landed up with a 5 on the AP exam though. Will the lower unweighted GPA hurt her chances or will AO’s look at course rigor too and AP exam grade? Looking at D3/NESCAC schools.
Academic standards at d3 schools vary; coaches are knowledgeable about what grades are in the ballpark for admissions. So if a coach is interested in your daughter, they’ll ask for her unofficial transcript to see if she’s in range quite early on. Course rigor definitely counts. I doubt a couple of B’s will hurt her.
I am not aware of any d3 schools that have an AI, that’s primarily an Ivy League thing (maybe Patriot League too).
Agree with the above.
Adding a 3.67 does sound like more than 2 Bs but coaches/AOs will take school and course rigor into account.
I encourage your '22 to get a standardized test under their belt sooner rather than later because a strong score will help in the recruiting process. December or Feb test dates could make sense for her.
Good luck.
Thanks, that makes sense. She is scheduled to take the Dec ACT. Also, is there a standard GPA scale that colleges use for athletic recruits (A=4;B=3 etc)?
No standard scale. For NCAA DI/II eligibility it’s unweighted core courses on a 4 point scale, as is the GPA piece of the AI at the Ivies (typically, this year is atypical).
There are two questions here, really: 1) How does admissions deal with the various high school grading processes; and 2) How does GPA translate to the A, B and C Bands for NESCAC athletic recruiting.
Colleges understand that high school grading varies - a lot - from one high school to another. Some grade on a scale of 5.0 to given extra value for honors and AP classes. Some grade with pluses and minuses for letter grades. Some grade by percentage. Many admission offices actually recalculate GPA to try to achieve a semblance of a true comparison among applicants. At a minimum, admission offices seem to know which schools are tough graders and which are otherwise.
As far as the Band system goes for NESCACs, the grades and scores needed to fall into the various bands varies among the schools, as some are tougher to get into than others. As a general matter, and excluding for the moment test scores, applicants with mostly all As are A-Band, those with a mix of As and Bs are B-Band and those with a few Cs are considered C-Band. How deep a coach will go into the lower Bands to provide admission support depends on how good an athlete the kid is.
Your best bet is to try to speak with a coach at the schools of interest. Ask them whether yours is at the right level for admission. There are so many variables, the coach is the only one who can give any kind of reasonably accurate answer.