I have been following various threads about admissions and there seems to be a lot of inconsistency among what GPA scores are acceptable. I have seen applicants with a 4.0 get rejected by the same school that admitted someone with a 3.2. It was puzzling to me until I noticed posts that indicated that the applicant attended a “very competitive high school”. I know public high schools are ranked, but what about private schools? Do admission officers have some sort of list about top private schools? So does a 3.2 from a more challenging high school mean more than a 4.3 from an average school?
FYI, I’m the mother of two high school boys, a junior and a sophomore, who attend a Catholic high school that has a very tough curriculum.
Each school submits a secondary school report which has lots of pertinent info such as:
what’s the most rigorous course offered?
what’s the GPA of the topmost students?
what’s the % of graduates in 4 years
what’s the % of graduates going to 2 yr / 4 yr colleges
what’s the % of eligible kids for free/reduced lunch
High schools don’t have to be ranked. By providing this sort of data, colleges will know that the context of each applicant and his/her GPA and test scores
I can’t imagine that colleges “rank” high schools per se, but the admissions officers do have an understanding of the curriculum at each school, the rigor of each school etc. and that is taken into account in admissions decisions.
In addition to school profiles, admissions officers are often each responsible for a particular geographic region and are thus familiar with the stronger performing “feeder” high schools within that region.
Thanks for the information. I know from our own experience, having recently moved and started kids at a new high school this year, that all high schools aren’t equal. Their current high school is much tougher than their previous one, and keeping their GPA up to where it was is going to be a huge challenge.