<p>For example, say I went to school X that's extremely competitive and as a result, got a lower GPA/ ranking/ etc than if I had attended school Y. Even if both schools have AP/ IB, school X is still much more competitive. </p>
<p>How do colleges determine how rigorous a school is? Is it based off of API or something along the lines of that? </p>
<p>If it is, then in my opinion, the API score is a flawed system in judging a school. My school is not located in the best area and has a special ed program which drags the score down. Whereas on the other hand, someone who lives in the affluent part of town may not be going to a more competitive school that doesn't have a special ed program, but their API is still higher.</p>
<p>They will take into account the schools they KNOW have resistance to grade inflation. Private schools generally have an edge over the public schools. A school’s profile will generally give info on how selective it is, and whether or not they rank is an indicator whether the talent pool is qualified or not.</p>
<p>So mostly the college determines competitiveness based on the information in the profile as well as reputation, if your school has one.</p>
<p>Probably not…But the correlation between SATs and GPA would be a good indicator if your school is intensive or not.</p>
<p>2400 SAT, 800s in SAT IIs with 3.2 GPA
vs
1800 SAT, 650s in SAT IIs with 4.0 GPA</p>
<p>Colleges will know the 2nd candidate goes to a crap school with grade inflation.
(another conclusion they could come to is that the first is a lazy worker but intelligent…)</p>
<p>Also, AP classes are standardized and externally assessed…so if you really go to an intensive school you’d get a higher grade on the AP exams than your counterpart.</p>
<p>When attending a well know prep your best chance for favorable college admission and merit scholarships is from the colleges that know the program well. Most likely these are colleges close by who know a “B” student from your prep is motivated and has recieved the education of a high track “A” student from the local public HS. Often prep schools do not list a course as “AP” yet everyone sits for the exam.</p>
<p>This is one of the reasons that many colleges read by region. An adcom, over time, acquires a feel for many of the schools in their region and so is much better suited to read for them.</p>
<p>They definitely do. I went to a highly competitive, very large public high school that did not practice grade inflation. As a result, no one in the advanced track of courses had a 4.0 in my grade and one could be in the top ten percent of the class with an unweighted GPA as low as 3.5 if they had taken all of the higher level courses. Even so, my graduating class did very well in college admissions. Around 40 went to the Ivies/MIT/Caltech, another 100 or so went to schools such as Johns Hopkins, Duke, University of Chicago, Vanderbilt, Wash U, top LACs, etc., and another 65-70 to the state flagship, a big ten school with outstanding engineering programs.</p>
<p>Yes, your counselor should include a school profile in their recommendation they send to schools. They not only look at the rigor of your high school, but if you took advantage of that and challenged yourself</p>