<p>I read/heard somewhere that colleges don't care too much about the applicant's GPA because they're not accurate descriptions of peoples' intelligence since teachers' standards differ school to school. Is this true? Or should I actually try harder to get my grades up? Hahahaha</p>
<p>I would say that GPA is equally weighted with standardized scores.</p>
<p>GPA (along with course rigor) is arguably the most important factor for most schools, or at least one of the most important factors.</p>
<p>CollegiateDreams is right. imo, GPA is the most important factor to colleges (despite what you might hear), next to test scores and rigor.</p>
<p>I believe colleges tend to relate low GPAs with laziness, and no college wants to accept lazy students.</p>
<p>GPA is the most important factor.</p>
<p>From what I’ve gathered, the answer is that GPA is the same time as worthless and the most valuable piece in an application. The thing is that the GPA needs to be contextualized by the classes taken(Where a kid who took 20 APs and an organic chemistry course along with a multivariable calculus course with a 3.7 may get in where a kid who has a 3.9 but took the bare minimum to graduate did not) and the school from where it is obtained (A 3.4 from a school with an average SAT of 2100 and an average GPA of 2.1 is likely more impressive than a 3.6 from a school with an average SAT of 1200 and an average GPA of 3.5).</p>
<p>Transcipt is way more important. The more rigorous, the better. But if you’re failing all obviously it’s gonna look horrible.</p>
<p>They don’t care about your actual numerical GPA calculated by your high school because all schools weight differently or not at all (this is what people mean when they say colleges don’t care about GPA), but most colleges care about your transcript and grades more than anything else other than standardized test scores (which are probably considered about equally). And many schools recalculate your GPA based on their own standards.</p>
<p>Aren’t transcripts and grades pretty much the same as the GPA? Also, which of the following do you think is better: consistently having straight A’s throughout your whole high school career or starting off with A’s and B’s then improving to all straight A’s towards the middle and end of high school? I heard college’s really like to see improvement from students.</p>
<p>Well, colleges like to see improvement of you don’t start well (upward trend), but it’s definitely better to consistently get "A"s.</p>
<p>“Aren’t transcripts and grades pretty much the same as the GPA?”</p>
<p>No. The GPA is a number the school calculates based on their own formula. The GPA is based on your grades, but many high schools weight differently than others (or not at all, as in my case). The transcript tells what percentage grades you got (or what letter grades) and it tells about the rigor of your courses. The college also gets a school profile that tells about your school so they can see whether or not you took the most challenging courses available to you.
Basically, the transcript provides more information and context. The GPA as a number-in-itself means nothing when no other information is provided. It’s like me telling you it’s 22 degrees outside (could mean lots of things) vs. me telling you it’s 22 degrees Fahrenheit outside and snowing. </p>
<p>Obviously it’s better to have straight As throughout. Improvement is better than no improvement if you started out “bad,” but starting out perfect is a lot better than starting out below average (for that school) and then improving.</p>