<p>Major: chem, possibly minor in economics
RD at Columbia College</p>
<p>SATI: 2120 (m:740, cr:650, ouch, w:730)
SATII: 800 (chem), 780 (ushistory), 760 (iic)
gpa: 4.3w, 3.9 uw
class rank: 60/300 (ouch, but the school does not officially rank or give out to colleges, internal use only...school is highly competitive but definitely no grade inflation)</p>
<p>ECs (only my top 5): 200+ hours comm. service (incl. hospital volunteer work), secretary of a club for 1 1/2 years(possibly president next semester, member in 2 others), head of Communications Commission (student government), newspaper staff (perspectives editor for 3 years), waitress at restaurant</p>
<p>Awards: NM commended (209), District Academic Scholar for 2 years, placed third in National History Day (but only state-wise, so it's not "national")</p>
<p>Would anyone like to rate my chances from 0-100%, maybe? It's a reach by all means, but I'd really like to go there. :)</p>
<p>Your scores are good enough. Your ECs are pretty generic/boring, so your chances are going to be rather slim unless you have some way of distinguishing yourself from the pack.</p>
<p>How do you have a 3.9 (that's like 1 B and the rest A's) but have 59 people ranked above you?</p>
<p>because our school is crazy competitive. there's a mentality of if you don't take an honors class if offered, you're stupid. in one of my classes, the midterm was by no means easy at all, but the entire class got A's and B's and there were only 3 D's and below (in five sections of it)...in another class, it was a bell curve midterm and people automatically dropped if their grade was below a c.</p>
<p>and the ranking is based on the weighted grades...crazy, I know.</p>
<p>So you've made an A in almost every single class but 59 people are ahead of you? You're either taking relatively easy course loads (and not getting the weighted bonus) or a ton of people have 4.0uws. Something isn't right here.</p>
<p>competitive or not, no school should have everyone getting 4.0uws (thats like 100/100) if you ask me the curve's pretty screwed up if you got 50 people getting 100/100 out of 300 people (1/6?) in my school teacher scales marks both up and down depending on the class average, if everyone got 90-100 then 95 would be scaled down to a b or low b so there's no way we could have 50 people getting 4.0 (as in all A)gpa.</p>
<p>Nope, in all of high school I've taken AP: chem, ushistory, calcbc, H: precalculus, algebra2, chemh, english III, and this year i'm taking AP: english lit, stats, bio, physicsB...</p>
<p>But seriously, the class ranking I have up there is based on weighted grades and you can honestly question people at school but just two of my friends alone I know have perfect 4.0uw's and about 4.5w...My other friends don't say anything. And hey, I'm not friends with everyone in my class, so if it all evens out, yes, there are about 59 people in front of my WEIGHTED average of 4.3...Either that, or I could be tied with 20 other people who have 4.3's as well.</p>
<p>We don't have the scaling system that lynda mentions, but most classes are strictly based on 90%+ = A, 80% = B, etc. And well, everyone studies like crazy...our school has 2 (i believe) perfect 2400s from the March sitting alone.</p>
<p>Hey...I have really stupid question? How do normal GPA's on a 4.0 scale work...my school uses a wacky 12 point scale, so that's all I really know about.</p>
<p>IronChef: I'm sorry you feel that way, but I definitely don't feel like there's grade inflation at my school, considering how at least 40% of the freshmen class currently has a D or F in some class. 20% of our (senior) class is either commended or a semifinalist and there are at least 2 perfect 2400s. I know that doesn't speak a lot for itself, but those who end up going to 4-years at UCs or Ivy Leagues do very very well (not 4.0s, but pretty close to that)...</p>
<p>Maybe I shouldn't have put that bit up there about my unofficial class rank, since this ended up being a grade inflation debate instead of evaluating my chances.</p>
<p>I'm still not buying her GPA/rank. 3.9unweighted + a very hard schedule + rank of 60 on a weighted scale STILL means that 59 people have only a couple B's at most.</p>
<p>Okayyyy well the point is that I either go to an extremely prestigious school (it's on the Newsweek top hs list) or in everyone's eyes here, an extremely grade-inflated-based school. So moving on...can I please know where I stand in terms of chances: better than the admit rate of ~10%, lower or higher. Let's just make it simple like that.</p>
<p>I'm going to have to agree with Columbia 2002's earlier post -- your test scores/grades are certainly good enough, but will get you only so far. With so many other applicants with scores like yours and better, I don't see anything about your EC's that are going to make you stand out from the crowd -- even with a great essay and terrific teacher recs. Sorry. I do, however, hope I'm wrong.</p>
<p>I'm over in SoCal, and I completely understand where you're coming from.
My school stopped with the ranking system couple years back; it's a really competitive atmosphere--especially for a public school.</p>