<p>Does it look weird (or even suspiscious maybe) if my grades are pretty good although i'm not a straight a student and my standardized tests scores are excellent? In the eyes of an adcom, what would you think?</p>
<p>Haha - for me it's the opposite. 4.79 weighted GPA, but sub-2200 SAT.</p>
<p>I don't think it's very weird at all. One of my friends recently got into Cal Tech and Columbia (among other schools) with a 3.7 ish GPA since he was definitely not the hardest worker in high school. However, he was extremely smart and managed to get a 2400 SAT score and score highly on competitions such as the AIME.</p>
<p>Overall, a lower GPA but very high test scores may just indicate that you are a bright student with a lot of potential (but who may not necessarily have been the hardest worker during HS).</p>
<p>Anybody else?</p>
<p>What's weird about it?</p>
<p>IMO: in general, excessively</p>
<p>High grades, low test scores: works hard, not very talented
Low grades, high test scores: lazy, but has talent</p>
<p>high test scores DO NOT mean that you are very talented.
Sometimes.....circling boxes when you don't know the answer does not require talent.</p>
<p>doing well on the SAT does not mean you have talent... It just means you are good at taking the SAT (such as knowing all the strategies, etc)</p>
<p>i seriously doubt a kid who wasn't at least somewhat bright could walk into the sat and "accidently" pull a great score.</p>
<p>^just because you do well in school doesn't mean you will do well on the SAT... They are two entirely different entities... for example, in school, the kids who often score the best on literature essays are the ones that take a lot of time and analyze the novel... On the SAT, overanalyzation, especially on inference question, often leads to the right answer.</p>
<p>You can't really say if good grades or SAT's matter more without counting the rigor of the high school and curriculum. If someone got a 4.0 GPA but only a 1700 SAT, that proves either: Their high school is a lame pathetic school, or they suck at tests, both of which are extremely unattractive to elite colleges. If they have only a 3.6 GPA w/ 2400's on the SAT, that proves either 1. They have strong talent with a lsightly weaker long term performance ability, or 2. Their high school is truly rigorous.</p>
<p>The obvious best is to have a 4.0 and 2400 w/ all AP's Of course, that has likely never happened.</p>
<p>I don't know why this would be a special case. I know a lot of kids whose test scores are "better" than their GPAs. It just means that either your school is competitive or that you're a slacker with potential (you want the former!) By the way to the people who say that pulling a 2400 SAT isn't really a measure of talent -- no, it's not for a kid who regularly does well in school, because that kid is more likely to learn a lot of testing strategies and practice like crazy. But for someone who's unprepared to get a high score on the SAT is probably a fair indicator of well-rounded intelligence.</p>
<p>What if you have mediocre SATs (like 1900), but really good AP/SAT II scores? What does that show?</p>
<p>I think that generally, if people don't have to work that hard for a 4.5, then their school is a piece of crap.
That is why there are lots of people that have 4.5+ but then get crappy SATs. Cause there schools suck.</p>
<p>I always get annoyed when people have high gpas and low sats. I worked my butt off for a damn 3.7 UW and got over 2200 on the sats, but people here have 4.0s and 1900s ><. How does that work? How do you ace precalculus and get a 650 on the math section? </p>
<p>Bah. I'm old.</p>
<p>^ its called nice teachers who give craploads of extra credit.....I hate students who have those teachers and then get artificial grade boosts. One time a accelerated math teacher at my school saw some ppl were doing badly, so gave them TEN POINTS ADDED ON TO THEIR FINAL AVERAGE (or more - some guy went from a 84 to a 97). While my teacher refuse to give any EC.........you can understand that I was prettyyyyy ****ed.</p>
<p>Hmm yeah, its a shame since it doesn't seem colleges take into account the differences between teachers... one student may take precalculus just like I do.. but have a different teacher that is way easier, or gives lots of extra credit... not fair, unfortunately. </p>
<p>Anyone have any idea on my question?</p>
<p>The grades vs. test scores thing really has to be assessed within the context of the high school you attend - and admissions people know that. </p>
<p>For instance, it is not atypical for a kid who attends a rigorous high school with low grade inflation to have a relatively low GPA but high mastery of subjects (and high test scores). </p>
<p>The opposite can be true at less competitive high schools. It is not unusual in my city to see kids from our low-performing city high schools with very high GPAs with dismal SAT scores. It's because relative to their classmates they are the top students, but relative to the rest of the country they can barely do 6th grade math. Sad but true.</p>
<p>"How do you ace precalculus and get a 650 on the math section?"</p>
<p>This is what I mean. If a kid has an A+ in math all four years and then gets like a 500 on the math section, it doesn't mean he's a bad test taker because obviously he needed to take tests to pull that high of a grade all throughout HS. It probably indicates that his school is just crappy.</p>
<p>Likewise, if a kid has say, a B average and a 1400 on the sat, it's very doubtful he got it through "lucky guesses", no, it probably means that either his school is tough or he's smarter than his gpa indicates.</p>
<p>Yea, your can only lol @ the SAt and say its not a "true measure of ability" so much. No Math Whiz gets below a 650 math SAT unless he had a heart attack and couldnt finish beyond the 2nd question.</p>