I’ll cut right to the chase - I go to a competitive school in the school in which my 4.8 weighted GPA is only in the top 15%. My unweighted is 3.98 , I’ve gotten A’s in all my AP and AICE classes. The thing that took my GPA down was my arts classes. I love the performing arts and since I took classes like drama and choir - they were only counted as regular classes. I have a pretty great resume with tons of leadership positions, clubs, honor societies, teams, etc. It’s exactly how I want it EXCEPT for my rank.
My colleges include Notre Dame, Georgetown, Holy Cross, Fordham, Villanova, and Boston College.
What should I do?
How in the world is a 3.98 unweighted not in the top 10%? Thats insane!
Try your best to get into the Top 10% if you can- most top schools like to brag that X% of their students were in the top 10% of their graduating class, and X is often in the high nineties. If not, I am pretty sure colleges will understand if you have a 3.98 unweighted, especially if the B is in art.
@puzzled123 I am taking 5 APs this year and 6 next year - I am pretty sure that class rank can only budge so much! I also received all A’s in my arts classes, they just are regular classes that don’t help. They were quite enjoyable and I was able to win a few national awards though. I know exactly what you mean though about colleges bragging. Oh well - I guess I’ll just hope my full resume can pull me through. Thank you!
If you are still not in the top 10$ or so after junior year you can talk to your guidance counselor and see if he/she would include in the recommendation that your GPA/ranking is brought down by taking arts classes as electives. The GPAs at your HS do seem a bit inflated.
Looks like you picked your colleges based on this list that USA Today posted yesterday: http://college.usatoday.com/2015/05/18/the-10-best-roman-catholic-colleges/
My D’s school is like this and it really has an influence on what courses kids take. Class rank is based on weighted GPA and some courses only weight as a 4, with no option to take them at an honors level, so for the higher ranked kids, they bring you down, even if you get an A. Some good elective courses get no higher ranked students because they will only show as a weighted 4.
The school recently added a requirement for a new gym class that half the class would take junior year and half would take senior year. You should have heard the uproar among the kids who got assigned to it their junior year (including my D) because they were now all going to have a course with a max of 4 included in their weighted junior GPA which is the one used to determine the rank included on college apps, while the other half of the class wouldn’t.
Yeah, our school has that issue as well. Athletes and artists have to take a class that brings down their GPAs. Affected my kids.
You could have the counselor write a letter putting everything in perspective, I like that idea. If you end up writing about your art classes, you can mention how it pulled down your GPA but it was worth it. That isn’t exactly the tactic my kids took—they didn’t mention the GPA damage at all—but their hooks to schools were due to their GPA sucking ECs.