Class rank/G.P.A. vs Extracurriculars? What's more important?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Im a junior ranked top 1 or 2 in my class. However.... APUSH, AP Physics B and AP LANG this year are killing my grades. Part of the problem is that I've been involved in so many extracurriculars (especially art or engineering related) that I don't have as much time to focus on my grades.</p>

<p>So, would it be bad if I dropped a few ranks but had stellar extracurriculars that demonstrated my "passion". Or vice-versa? I have no idea (and I really should be studying right now....). Please help :)</p>

2

<p>It depends on what schools you are applying to. Different places use different weights. Do some research to see how they weight each aspect of the application. </p>

<p>In my opinion, grades are always most important. But that’s just me.</p>

3

<p>For almost all schools, especially Ivy’s,</p>

<p>Grade/Rank > SAT > EC’s</p>

<p>But EC’s are still in estimation about 35% of your total weight. While the other 55% is grade/sat.</p>

4

<p>^Eh, I don’t think it’s that straightforward. </p>

<p>It greatly varies, depending on where you’re applying.</p>

5

<p>It’s not, but it’s a rough estimate.</p>

6

<p>It depends on where you’re going.</p>

<p>With more competitive schools, they must look past test scores and use other sections of an application to make a decision since so many of them will have had perfect grades. The more competitive you get, the more important it is to be more than a set of great scores.</p>

<p>Most top schools would admit a 3.8/2250 with leadership positions and generally unique ECs with a lot of time commitment as opposed to somebody with a 4.0/2350 that didn’t do anything at all during their high school career.</p>

7

<p>I’ll probably apply to a few ivys, other top schools and a few state schools as safetys. </p>

<p>I think my ecs are really strong and unique… But very time consuming. Especially art. I know that I want to apply to architecture schools (esp Cornell and rice that look mainly at porttolios), but I also want to maybe apply to schools like Yale and Stanford, tht don’t have a b.arch. </p>

<p>Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using CC App</p>

8

<p>For academics, once you pass a certain threshold, it does not matter as much. If you have weak academics with no hooks, you won’t get in to an ivy. Now if you have good academics, you’re obviously not automatically in. That’s where ECs matter. Granted that you still stay in the top few percentiles, ECs will be useful. If you can’t be in the top few percentiles while doing ECs, then it might be better to drop off an activity.</p>