<p>I am new here so if this has been answered a million times I apologize. </p>
<p>DD is a soph. She is taking all of the hardest classes available. (4 H level, one AP, and Latin as her 3rd language which only has one level.) next year she will have 4APs one H and Latin2. Anyway, I keep reading about how kids have a 4.6 GPA. Our school just does numbers. her GPA is around a 92. I assume there are quite a few kids with less rigorous schedules that have higher GPAs so I'm thinking she is not in the top 10% if that is the only criteria for rank. </p>
<p>Will colleges figure out the weighted GPA on their own, or do they not really care? I'm pretty sure our HS doesn't rank the kids, (no val or sal) but will give the colleges an answer on this if they need it. Seems this can only count against her.</p>
<p>I know colleges have seen this all before.. Please make me feel better. </p>
<p>When your kiddo is a college applicant, the colleges will receive a HS Profile. This will contain the range of GPAs in your daughter’s senior class. It will be very easy for the college to see where your daughter sits in terms of her overall GPA.</p>
<p>Many colleges recompute GPAs themselves. The high schools do this in so many ways it is almost impossible to compare one school GPA to another. </p>
<p>And many colleges do not weigh the GPAs at all when they recompute.</p>
<p>Our high school only reports GPAs as numbers as well. They do weight some courses, but not by nearly as much as some schools do, and they weigh honors and APs equally. Sometimes a non-AP kid who gets excellent grades will slip into the top 25 students, but not that often. Colleges seem to figure it out, the kids with the most rigorous schedules are the ones who end up at the most selective colleges. The GC has to rate the rigor of your daughter’s schedules. So if she is taking the number of AP and honors courses that other advanced students take she’ll get the “Most rigourous curriculum” check mark. Colleges know that GPA is not everything - a student who gets straight A’s in easy courses is not judged the same as one who gets A’s in advanced ones.</p>
<p>Last year my D’s school had a night where they hosted a panel of admissions officers from 17 varied colleges/universities. Without exception, all recalculated GPA. Everyone had their own method: some ignored frosh grades, many did two calc (with and without electives), but ALL mentioned rigor and passion. They tried to explain how some top students with all the “right” numbers get denied and someone else gets in. Overall an informative night and one they hope to repeat every other year.<br>
We also received a sheet this year which highlighted info stated by adm. people who visited the hs. There were 42 visits at our hs last year and each had its own take on the process.
Take as many challenging courses as you can (without big grade drop) and stay active with your ec’s.</p>
<p>Ok… Thanks. She’s going to keep plugging away regardless… And I’m not sure if her school ranks at all. Just seems there is no real fair way to do it. She wants to have 9-10 APs and complete Calc3. Makes my head spin but so far she seems to be able to handle it. GPA is not as high as some others but she is holding her own and working very hard. So eerboco… Any great incite as to why some kids with all the right numbers get denied? sounds like an amazing panel.</p>
<p>There were some interesting facts that made me see a different side to admissions: want students who may actually go there, so if gpa is considered too high, may feel student likely to go to more “prestigious” university; looking for geographic diversity, want a student from every state; looking for students who will add “value” to the campus with interesting background, talent, passion, etc.; very honest that some schools have reputation for “overinflating” gpas and they don’t fully trust school info; and sometimes the college has admitted many past students and no one attends, so limit numbers down the road.
I learned (and the other parents did too) that you can’t take any denial or waitlist personally…factors beyond your control sometimes.</p>
<p>This is the use of “level of applicant’s interest” – if the high-stats student looks like s/he is applying to the school as a low-choice safety, the school may reject or waitlist that student. If the student actually has the school as a high choice, s/he needs to figure out what the school considers “interest” and do that. If the school is intended to be a low-choice safety, find a different school to be a safety.</p>
<p>I think if your daughter is on track to take Calc 3 (wow!), 3 languages, as well as 9-10 AP’s, she will certainly be a stand out. I don’t know how many kids in the US complete Calc 3 in high school, but it is probably a small number. I suspect the schools she will be applying to are savvy about handling GPA’s, transcripts, etc. </p>
<p>No need for head spinning - it sounds like your daughter is doing just fine. </p>
<p>The reason you are seeing such high GPA’s is because many schools add a weighting factor. Ours uses a common system, which adds 1 to each numerical letter-grade equivalent in honors and AP classes. An A in a regular class is a 4, and an A in an honors or AP class is a 5. Some schools use 0.5 for the honors. On this site, I’ve seen a few using even more than 1, giving students GPA’s over 5. There’s just no way to compare between schools, and really even no fair way to compare students within schools. For example, the weighting system used in our school, and I think this is typical, penalizes kids who take on extra languages or have special interests in the arts. Not because they don’t excel or work hard or have talent in those areas, but simply because they don’t have the opportunity to pursue their interest in “honors” level classes. </p>
<p>A program which includes 9-10 AP’s, calc3 and 3 languages is rigorous enough for admission to any top school, assuming she can keep her grades up. They will be looking at activities and personal qualities. You can probably find your school profile on the web or try asking the guidance counselor. </p>
<p>Thanks everybody. The third language is English. We are fortunate that they are offering Latin in the HS so she has just started that, and she is in Spanish 3H. They have also started a new program where 30-40 kids are double accel in math, so all of them are on track for BC next year and Calc3 in 12th. I didn’t realize until coming here how fortunate we are to have these higher math programs. (We are in a public school in Upstate NY.) It just makes me nervous that if her GPA stays in the low 90’s (she has a few grades in the high 80’s) that she won’t be in the top 10% since our school doesn’t weight. You’re all right though, schools will figure it out. She gets all of her brains and drive from her father, not me. </p>
sounds like an amazing panel.</p>