I am assumming that colleges look solely on your rank not GPA. It doesn’t make sense to me for colleges to base admissions on GPA. Rank provides a good comparison on how well you did compared to your peers with the same facility/resources/GPA weight scale.
Yet people keep on listing their GPA only and how your GPA is too low or is good. I am confused. Why would colleges look at your GPA? Isn’t GPA for your rank and nothing else?!
<p>I think 600 is better because there are more people in the rank and thus should be more a more accurate representation of how you compare to your peers.</p>
<p>umm from what i know only about half of high schools rank and colleges take into account both i'm sure. I mean if you want to a crappy school it could be easy to have a high rank with a crappy GPA meaning you could be top 5% without working all that hard. Or you could go to some prep school where you're bottom half of the class but you work your but off to get a 4.75 and 5s on 15 APs and a 1580 SAT. Colleges look at everything, they're not dumb, they know how to do it.</p>
<p>if they didnt take gpa into account it would effectively screw over students whose high schools didnt rank... like myself...
I think they look more at your gpa and school profile personally... not nearly as many colleges placed rank as a "VERY IMP" factor as opposed to what is essentially your gpa ........ according to the princeton review that is</p>
<p>That goes against the whole principle of GPA then. I can take blowoff classes and get a 4.0 but in the ranking "weighted" system, that puts your not among the top since you didnt take hard classes.</p>
<p>"and is say 50/600 better/worse than 5/60?"</p>
<p>When looking at things like the above, colleges take into account the quality of the high school. Being 50/600 in a high school that sends 95% of its students to 4-year colleges, annually has 50 National Merit Scholars and some Intel Finalists and typically 30 kids a year getting Ivy acceptances would be considered better than being 5/60 in a high school where 10% of the kids went on to 4-year colleges, the average SAT score was 900, and most of those going to college went to the local third tier college.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, there are public schools in which as many as 30 students a year may get acceptances to Harvard. I think that's the typical figure for Newton North in Mass. At NY's Styvestant High School, usually 30% of the 800 or so students in each graduating class go off to Ivy League schools. The average SAT score there for the old SAT I was 1400.</p>
<p>As for the questions about gpa: Many colleges recalculate gpas based on their own standards. Colleges that do this tend to throw out grades from nonacademic classes such as gym, health and band. Some such colleges also add weight to classes such as AP and IB courses.</p>
<p>There is no standard formula for how colleges recalculate. Each college decides on its own what to do.</p>
<p>Of course, when colleges add extra weight to IB and AP colleges, students who take such classes have a distinct advantage over students who did not.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Texas is the state in which rank probably counts the most when it comes to in-state public universities. This can make things very difficult for students who attend schools with lots of high achieving students.</p>
<p>"Top students in Texas are eligible for automatic admission to any public university in Texas. Under House Bill 588 passed by the 75th Legislature in 1997, students who are in the top 10 percent of their graduation class are eligible for automatic admission to any public university in Texas. Some institutions automatically admit students who are in the top 25 percent of their class.</p>
<p>To be eligible for automatic admission, a student must: </p>
<p>what i meant previously is that colleges place great emphasis on the courses you take, how hard your school is, and how those factors come together in your gpa</p>
<p>" I can take blowoff classes and get a 4.0 but in the ranking "weighted" system, that puts your not among the top since you didnt take hard classes."
I'm confused. Are you complaining because the GPA system won't let you take blowoff classes and still be in the top of your class? That seems fair to me. That reflects work effort. there are plenty of people who get a 4.0 because they get As in all slacker classes, but the top 10% at my school all have 4.0+. I'm number 5 out of about 500 and i have a 5.0something something because i take harder classes.</p>
<p>NO I am complaining that people can take blowoff "academic classes" and because colleges unweight it, making me at a disadvantage since I attend a VERY competitive high school.</p>
<p>oh alright, i was confused. Colleges know these things though. They'll see what classes you're taking and understand, and not all colleges unweight your scores, they mostly just readjust them.</p>
<p>Colleges also ask if student took the most challenging course load...pottery 101 does not cut it...so if you ace all the simplest classes, it will show that. well student had a 4.0, but it was a basics. But student Joe got a 3.5 unweighted in all AP classes,,,student B is what we want...read some books on admissions....</p>
<p>the admission people get a profile of your highschool along with our transcript, it describes your school- aps, gpas, student body profile, all kinds of stuff and the admin people are very used to figuring out what is what....</p>
<p>every private college is different, some take the gpa, some readjsut it, some count all the classes, some jsut count the core 5, some count freshman year, some don't</p>
<p>Many publics have a kind of rubric system and give you a total threshhold number you need to reach for admission- points for grades, points of ecs, points for aps...all kinds of stuff</p>
<p>there is no one standard, jsut do the best you can</p>