<p>Say an Asian student had A- in all of his/her classes. (Freshman yr~senior year) and so he had a low class rank (30/300) maybe?</p>
<p>but he/she had good EC activities, AP exams scores (mostly 5's and some 4's), Good SAT scores/ SAT II scores.</p>
<p>Are those A- scores going to make a whole lot of difference to get into Top schools? (Ivy+Stanford+MIT+Duke+Chicago+ good liberal arts schools). I mean I feel like nowadays, 4.0 GPA (unweighted) isn't even all that great anymore. I feel like a lot of people have 4.0 and those A- grades are not gonna stand out in Ivy college apps. To stand out, I feel like (depending how competitive your school is) you need to be at least in the top 10 of your school. And to be in the top 10, you need to really have 97~100's in most of your classes.
Are my thoughts correct?</p>
<p>For schools that recalculate GPA without subgrade, you are still 4.0 in GPA. Otherwise, it would be a 3.7. The 0.3 difference in GPA probably covers the mid 50 range of top schools easily. Of course they will also look at your class rank if provided. Top schools mostly accept students within the top 10% of the class. What is more important would be the Naviance data of your school and the school profile. GPA 3.7 at certain school may worth more than 4.0 in other school.</p>
<p>High schools don’t all use the same grading system. Some are on a 4.0 scale, some on 5.0 Some use +/- grades, some use + only, some use straight letter grades only.</p>
<p>The colleges will get information from you GC indicating what the average grades are at your school and where your GPA falls, and what Honors/AP/IB courses were available and how many each student takes on average. </p>
<p>30/300 is top 10%; this is NOT low, this is good!</p>
<p>The colleges will also recalculate your GPA on a straight 4.0 (no +/-) scale, then adjust it for your HS averages and offerings, so they can directly compare applicants from different high schools.</p>
<p>Frankly, at the schools you mention, pretty much every applicant needs a 3.7+ unweighted GPA to be competitive, and there is no meaningful difference among them (the applicant GPAs, not the schools). </p>
<p>What makes your application stand out from the huge stack of 3.8, 2200, 2 sports + band + yearbook applications they receive?</p>
<p>So would a student who has 4.0 but mostly A- would have just as much chance in getting accepted to those top schools as compared to a student who has 4.0 with high A’s?</p>
<p>If that second student was from YOUR high school, and everything else between you was identical, then maybe that second student would win out. But the admissions officer has to compare you for YOUR school against other students for their schools. The question for me will be – when that admissions officer reads your application package - do you think the reader will have a good sense of who you are and what your key interests are? Outside of your A-s… who are you? Have you involved yourself in activities that you are passionate about? If you have an interview, are you excited about your activities when the interviewer talks to you? </p>