Then it’ll be easy for you to recalculate based on what anyone can see on your transcript. It doesn’t matter what the internal cut-off is for an A/A- – just do the ones where the minus sign appears on the transcript, see what your GPA is and look up where it falls in the Common Data Set for your preferred schools. It is what those schools will do (based on what they see). Then you will have as realistic a picture as one can have, which is all you can really do. The rest is out of your hands. But, not to worry – you look like a great applicant and you’ll end up somewhere awesome.
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They don’t need to know whether it is a 92 or 93…
For “unweighted” an A- is a 3.7, not a 4.0. They may then apply their own weights for honors/AP, etc.
Of the colleges that recalculate GPAs for admission purposes (which can be different than for CDS purposes), which use +/-?
Not sure what you mean – Without +/-, grades would be pretty meaningless. In my local high school, about 75% of the students are in the “A” range. So without +/-, 75% of the school would simply have a perfect GPA.
The way schools are supposed to calculate GPA for the CDS… the way the various “chance” websites work, is 3.7 for an A-, 4.0 for A and for A+.
Now, each school may apply their own formula internally. A certain weight for AP science classes, which may be different than AP humanities classes… Or maybe they will exclude that Phys Ed grade from the GPA… For schools that don’t have particular honors tracks, they may weight differently.
But since we don’t know the weighting systems schools use, that’s why we discuss unweighted here – So there is a common baseline.
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There is no guidance from CDS for how schools are supposed to calculate GPA to my knowledge. If you have a source please do share. We do know some schools ignore the plus minus in admissions, like the UCs.
If you ask some large public AOs if they recalculate GPAs for admission purposes, they laugh. For example, Wisconsin and IU. IU uses the highest GPA off the transcript for admission purposes (even for direct admit to Kelley) which is typically a wGPA.
And I’ll say this again because it’s important for people to understand…CDS GPA calculations can be a wildly different calculation than the one used in admissions, because institutional reporting completes CDSs, not admissions.
It does help to ask chance me posters to give calculated unweighted GPA, core courses only.
BUT, we don’t know what unweighted calc schools use either (for those that do recalculate GPA, and many don’t.) They might use core courses only, they might include electives. What is considered core vs. elective…Engineering PLTW? CS classes? There is no standardization among the schools that recalculate unweighted GPAs.
ETA: you are welcome to PM me so that we can stay on topic for OP
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Bryn Mawr would not be committing to single-sex education. The consortium is active and used. Majors not offered at the school at which a student is enrolled are pursued at one of the other schools. I think Geology is one that BM offers that, I believe, Haverford does not, so Haverford kids take those courses at BM. This means, as we’ve been told at least, that there are men on Bryn Mawr’s campus everyday fulfilling actual degree requirements. The Main Line area is a very busy suburb of Philly with lots of schools close by, including Villanova. BM seems like a great choice for you.
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I’m worried we are veering too far off topic with the GPA discussions but hopefully they are helpful to the OP in understanding how different it is from school to school and college to college.
That said, I’m adding to that conversation. I find this discussion interesting because when I first joined CC I asked about calculating unweighted GPA for my D21 whose school was on a 100 point scale. I was told A=4, B=3, etc. with no distinction for ±. That made sense to me because our state flagship is clear about how they recalculate GPAs and it is the same (note: with + 0.5 for honors and +1 for AP when weighting). Now the general wisdom seems to be that A- is 3.7. I’m not arguing for or against either of these calculation methods but it is no wonder parents and students are confused!
So is the “CC standard unweighted” A- = 3.7 and so on?
For the OP, your best bet may be looking at each college/uni website to see if they define their GPA calculation. I don’t see privates sharing that information as transparently as publics so I’m not certain it is readily available for the majority of your list.
Good luck! You have a strong application. Please look into Questbridge and research the other schools suggested here to have some solid safeties/matches you would be happy to attend.
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I do wonder then, for schools that do not factor in +/-, what do they do about high schools that practically only give A’s (yes… tons of grade inflation)? Do they just give every person from the high school a 4.0 when they recalculate the GPA? As I mentioned, in my local high school, about 75% of the class is in the “A” range. B’s are rarely given, and grades below a B are virtually non-existent… there are really no honors track classes outside of math. So with test blind/optional, if they don’t adjust for a “-”, then there would be no way to differentiate between any of the top 200 students. (The A- today was the B of yesterday). Anyway, it certainly can be confusing.
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That is the point of the school profile isnt it? At our school only weighted GPA is given since unweighted is meaningless. It is almost impossible to get an A in an honors class but A- is a common grade. The school profile will give the number of kids in the class with each GPA.
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Unless you achieve a significantly higher SAT score, you should go test optional. Write the essay you described, about how being the child of Albanian immigrants, and then your father’s deaths affected you. Don’t write it as a sob story. Written well, with the right angle, this could be a fantastic essay, that shows a great deal about who you are. There’s an essay that was published years ago in the NYT about background, and the loss of a parent, that was written as an account of the dining room table and who sat around it… Poor, but intact family, ravaged by death of matriarch and then applicant’s mother. It was a very creative angle that told the story of her childhood and background. I thought it was powerful, and affecting. Point is, write it in a way that shows who you are, rather than tells who you are, and it could be a truly memorable essay. There won’t be that many applicants who have stories like yours.
I agree with the notion of Questbridge, and of skewing less competitive yet meet full need on your college list. You’ve had some excellent suggestions given to you in this thread.
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Or the OP could look at other sources of ‘truth’ and opinion. For example, each of the schools @Dadto2NY mentioned, as well as Bryn Mawr, outranks all of the liberal arts colleges listed on your linked US News ranking when it comes to R&D expenditure dollars through 2020 (of course, the national universities are on another tier of spending). Brandeis and Tufts (not really LACs) are in the 100s, Wesleyan and Bryn Mawr are in the 300s (with Wellesley), Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, Harvey, Haverford, Pomona, and Swat are in the 400s, Hamilton and Vassar are in the 500s and Agnes Scott in the 900s. NSF – NCSES Academic Institution Profiles – Rankings by total R&D expenditures
Maybe R&D dollars don’t tell the whole story, but ostensibly a good indication of the amount of research activity on campus. I would think more research activity would generally lead to more research opportunity. So common sense would suggest not ignoring two of the top (if not THE top 2) R&D spending LACs, each of which hosts some minor MS and PhD activity, because they randomly don’t appear on a US News sub-ranking. For one example I know well, Wesleyan is a leader in the NE KNAC consortium (to which neither Hamilton nor Amherst belong) and often hosts more consortium exchange students than other members for summer REU work because of its budget and amount of research it can offer in that area.
As to classroom experience, the Fiske Guide rankings of school “Academics” includes "consideration about the overall academic climate of the institution, including its reputation in the academic world, the quality of the faculty, the level of teaching and research, the academic ability of students, the quality of libraries and other facilities, and the level of academic seriousness among students and faculty members”. I would think the bolded considerations factor into most ideas of what “classroom experience” means. In its 2020 iteration, Bryn Mawr was #5 and Wesleyan #33 of the 36 schools that received the tippy top 5 pens rating. Amherst, Barnard, Bowdoin, Carleton, Pomona, Haverford, Swat, Wellesley and Williams were the other LACs included in that top category. Most Elite Colleges & Universities for Academics--2020 Fiske Guide To Colleges
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One of your examples links to a CC post compiled, ostensibly from an original source, in 2019. I’d encourage the OP to verify all information through original, current sources whenever possible. In doing so, she can better determine topicality, accuracy, context and objectivity.
Yes, though the much less important of the two sources I cited, btw. And I’m not going to buy the Fiske Guide for 2022 to make an obvious point: whatever the Fiske Guide has to say this particular year (I really don’t know), it’s unlikely that either school’s “quality of faculty [and] level of teaching and research” went to hell in a handbasket in a mere two years. Things don’t work that way, so your concern is, I think, misplaced.
As to the other point, the OP expressed research as a point of consideration; and I would posit that the NSF list is fairly objective.
If we’re worried about accuracy, context and objectivity, as I agree we should be, then I’d suggest not propping up a research opportunity ranking that manages to omit even a mention of the top 2 LACs in research spending, as objectively sorted by the National Science Foundation. A ranking that also includes a bevy of national university research behemoths and thus really mixes apples and oranges. I’m sorry - I know you have an affinity for US News rankings (at least for the time being), but this one doesn’t even pass the look test and does not, IMO, help the OP to the extent it would lead her away from two potentially good targets. I think the OP is too smart for that, but the point stands.
The good news is I’m confident that neither of us is citing source material simply because our respective favorite schools tend to show up in said source material. So at least we’re being sincere, which is a positive.
Yes… exactly. But if you recalculate with A-being 4… then almost everyone would be a 4.0… so would they simply not recalculate for such a student?
To clarify, that list is in alphabetical order. “Bryn Mawr” closer to top and “Wesleyan” closer to bottom. There is no “ranking” beyond the five pens designation.
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OP is potentially interested in psychology… and there are many other types of research beyond the “bench science” or applied research many of you are arguing about.
There is behavioral research that flies under the radar of the massive spending (robotics, nanoscience) but is important nonetheless- both to society and to the OP’s education. There is interdisciplinary work (psych and econ-a powerful combo these days; psych and sociology focused on criminal justice, psych and poli sci, psych and public health (why are some people vax deniers? An important topic).
And OP- you don’t need a “research powerhouse” to have access to these types of projects. This is what professors do when they aren’t teaching, and a psych professor doesn’t need an NSF grant or a huge blank check from Boeing or Monsanto or Ford to do it.
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I don’t disagree with your point at all, and my intent wasn’t to argue that a psych-interested kid needs to target the ‘highest research output’ school. As a vocal supporter of LACs, that would be an odd stand for me to take. As someone pointed out here or in another thread, Skidmore College has a great psych. department and probably doesn’t show up at the top of any research spending lists.
But I do think research activity, and thus @Dadto2NY 's suggestions, are at least a relevant consideration. Unlike English or Philosophy, most or all psych. students have to get through stats and research methods, ostensibly for future participation in or understanding of formal studies, and those studies usually cost money. My D’s current (and first out of college) job is as a research analyst for a study being sponsored by a research university in upstate NY. That study costs money … she costs money. It’s her job and how she pays the rent. Even though there isn’t a lot of heavy equipment (if you don’t count the hospital) and that sort of thing, it has to be funded. So my point being, even though some people dismiss psychology as a “real science”, as a discipline of study it behaves like one.
Totally agree with your sub-point about psych and econ. Our lead corporate economist tells me that if he had it to do over again, he’d focus his PhD work on the interdisciplinary sweet spot of econ and psych., and noted that, in econ doctoral study circles, interdisciplinary focus is becoming the new norm.
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Yes. Should have picked up on that. TY.
I’d just hate to see the OP avoid the kind of colleges we both know could be fantastic for her with the research side-track this thread has taken. Not all research costs lots of money- I recently participated in a mental health type study for a neighbor’s kid who is a psych undergrad at a small college, not a research powerhouse at all, and frankly, not known for strengths in social sciences (it’s got a pre-professional reputation- accountants, nurses, early ed, etc.)
It was pretty impressive. She designed the survey (with help from both a psych professor and someone in the math department who taught her Matlab), she’ll be presenting the findings at a small regional conference which will have the heads of various public health departments from around the state, whether or not it yields anything actionable or not or advances the study of psychology, it’s given her a real live focus to the theoretical underpinnings of behavioral science. She’s not getting paid btw… course credit, with the expenses (likely under 10K) covered by the departmental budget.
So yeah, research is great. But you don’t need a particle accelerator to do research.
And there is research that goes on in the humanities too… just a reminder for all the Classics, history, and language majors out there…
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Totally agree with all of that. And great of you to participate in the study! That experience will no doubt prepare her, and make her more competitive, for grad school (assuming that’s where she’s headed).