Do colleges know when GPA reflects rigorous high school?

Applying to College
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<p>........</p>

<p>First off, not all public schools are bad. I go to a public IB school that was just started 4 years ago. So far we have had 100% pass rate, we have all three senior valedictorians from 3 feeder highschools attending, we have 50% of our math students in the junior/senior classes qualify for the AIME, 4 national merit finalists, 6 commended, 9 hispanic recognized (total junior/senior class is 60 people). </p>

<p>Second, THERE ARE DIFFERENCES IN SCHOOL DIFFICULTY. If you don't understand this you are stupid. Up until junior year I maintained a 3.9 w/o breaking a sweat. I switched from my normal public AP school to the IB and have trouble keeping a 3.7 because</p>

<p>-my history does not believe in grades higher than 95
-my math teacher makes tests 30% longer than real IB tests. He curves it so we can all pass, but few if any can manage a 90+. Essentially, he makes it absurdly long so that when the real exam comes it appears to be easy.
-my english teacher is just a mad woman.......</p>

<p>My GPA in my AP classes this year (government, economics) is a 4.0 with about 1/3rd the effort that I put into my IB classes where I get about a 3.6.</p>

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<p>jw, are you in HL math? junior or senior?</p>

<p>on another note...
fine, i stand corrected; we are NOT the only public hs in America that forces kids to go through the IB curriculum</p>

<p>jw though, when were your IB high schools started?</p>

<p>fyi, Newsweek ranks public high schools every year, so sometimes bragging is justified =P</p>

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<p>aznoverachiever: my high school is also pretty darn high up there on the newsweek list, but it means absolutely nothing. newsweek bases its ranking on the # of AP/IB tests taken divided by the number of graduating seniors. (where the HECK did they come up with that?!)</p>

<p>so if a school forces all its seniors to take 5 tests each, but nobody passes them, is it still a top school in the nation?</p>

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<p>The Newsweek hs rankings are a farce. If margaritasalt17 hadn't made the point about the AP tests, I would have. How is a high school one of the the top national high schools when close to 70% of the AP tests are 1's or 2's. Newsweek is trying to cash in on the same thing that USNWR discovered.</p>

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<p>Disagree.</p>

<p>Us News uses things like peer assessment, endowment, graduation/retention rates, and selectivity that are actually pertinent to how good a University is. If you don't agree with their rankings, take ONE single fact such as endowment or peer assessment and rank only based on that. You'll come up with about the same list.</p>

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<p>fine, perhaps some hs in newsweek are overrated and have large numbers of people that fail the AP/IB tests...</p>

<p>anyways, i can at least say that my hs is ranked highly by newsweek and has a 93% IB diploma pass rate...</p>

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<p>Perhaps one way to rank high schools in the nation is by admit
rates to top 20 private and public colleges. That info is hard to find.
I'm not even sure that shcools track this. Perhaps they should.</p>

<p>I do have matriculation rates for my school. I'm sure most private
schools track these rates too, perhaps on a cumulative basis,
so they can look better to prospective students:</p>

<p>Infamous CA public shcool, presumably one grade behind schools
in new england, two grades behind schools in India and China.</p>

<p>Last year (2005):
Graduating seniors: 420
Matriculated to top 20 private including HYP/Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Caltech: 15
Matriculated to top 20 public including UCB, UCLA, UCSD: 130</p>

<p>I'd say class rank of 140/420 or 30% is pretty darn good at my
infamous CA public high school.</p>

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<p>Which is this infamous CA public school you are referring to?</p>

<p>Troy?
Whitney?
University?
Arcadia?
Lowell?</p>

<p>Excuse me if I missed your particular school!</p>

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<p>Fremont perhaps :/</p>

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<p>Right. Mission (Fremont), Lynbrook, Monte Vista, Gunn,
Piedmont, La Canada, San Marino are among the best anywhere.</p>