<p>I have good extracurriculars, hundreds of service hours, and multiple positions of leadership. My grades, while not always stellar, are passable, and it's very rare for me to score anything below a 90. I'm taking the most rigorous courseload available to me, and my SAT scores are (apologies if this seems like I'm bragging) the second highest in my school's history.</p>
<p>.. and I have a 3.1 GPA.</p>
<p>True, my 4.1 W GPA is slightly better, but by the standards of the schools I'm applying to, it's awful. </p>
<p>My high school runs on a seven-point scale, meaning that every ninety or ninety-two I get counts as a B on my GPA. As you can probably tell, I've gotten a lot of scores like these. Calculated on a ten-point scale, I would have a 3.75. All the rationalizing in the world, however, won't bring that number up.</p>
<p>Schools I'm hoping for include Davidson, Emory, Tulane, and UVA. </p>
<p>Do colleges tend to recalculate GPA? And if not, will this 3.1 kill me?</p>
<p>Colleges will look at your grades in the context of the rigor of your courses and how well you are doing compared with others at your school. It looks like you’ve taken a lot of advanced courses. That’s good. But, having mostly Bs puts you at a disadvantage to many other applicants at the schools you listed. Good test scores are nice, but when paired with a modest GPA they don’t necessarily get you in the door. Grades are more important in admissions than ecs. No harm in aiming high, but be sure to round out your list of schools with some matches and a true safety.</p>
<p>Here’s the thing about that: I’ll wager that if you’d been in a school with a 10-point grading scale, a lot of those 91’s and 92’s would have been 89’s.</p>
<p>I have taught in schools with a 10-point school, which I prefer, and in schools with a 7-point scale. If the grading scale goes 93/86/76/70 (or whatever), I simply adjust the way I assess students. I adjust the point values on test questions. I allot partial credit differently. But at the end of a semester or a school year, I get a grade distribution that’s not significantly different from what I get in schools with a 10-point grading scale.</p>
<p>I’m applying to USC as a safety school, but I truly don’t know how happy I would be there. I wanted to attend college in a different environment, and some people go as far as to joke that the USC dorms are like a class reunion for my high school. :(</p>
<p>As for all of the colleges I listed, everything else is a perfect match, and my scores are well above the average. It’s only the GPA that makes me skeptical.</p>
<p>USC as in LA or in South Carolina? I was just going to warn that USC in LA is not a safety.</p>
<p>Try not to stress it. It is what it is. Colleges all have their own way of looking at GPA. Your counselor should explain the system your school is using in her recommendation. If you’ve taken rigorous courses and done well (and B’s are well) then you should be OK. I don’t really know the colleges you are looking at in regards to difficulty in getting in. I’d just suggest looking up some additional safeties if you really don’t want to stay local. Good luck to you! You’ll get in to someplace that will make you happy I’m sure.</p>
<p>When you have a low GPA but a good score, then they will have a closer look at your class rank (or school profile) and course rigorous. A low GPA may be just due to the tough grading system of your school, or the super challenging courses and schedule you have, or it could be just you being lazy and do not turn in homework. I also know some students that spend more time on test prep than school work particularly within the past month.</p>
<p>A 7 point scale is rare for US kids. Ime, we look at it in terms of what you accomplished against what was possible. The GC sends in a School report that includes grading and scale info, plus other detail. If your cutoff for an A is 93, that’s taken into account, when looking at letter grades.</p>
Many do but only to get to an UW GPA. You already have that. They certainly won’t change the scale. And I’m not sure how rare the 7 point scale is in the US (both school systems my children attended use it). The best thing you can do now is find a safety college you are assured of gaining admission to which you can afford and will be happy to attend.</p>
<p>I have seen 7, 6, 5, and even 4 point weighed scale. My D’s school uses the 4.0 max weighed scale. Basically, it does not give much advantage for really outstanding student as getting all A+ in AP classes will give the same wGPA as getting all A in regular courses. It only help if one get A- or lower in AP or honor classes. It just make the GPA4.0 tier very crowded.</p>
<p>I don’t see it that often. So be it. Bottom line is, adcoms know what to do. And, when a 93 is the lowest A, they are well aware, ime, that 90-92 are still in the traditional A range. The rest depends, then, on the actual competitiveness of the hs. And of the college’s admissions and the strength of the whole app.</p>
<p>@ turtletime - USC as in South Carolina! Apologies, I live in SC myself, so I’m used to using the acronym alone.</p>
<p>Thank you for all the responses! I’m sorry if I came off as a little bit whiny, I was just feeling a bit down. All of these threads seemed to be like “oh, I only have a 3.9, do I have a chance at community college?” I suppose I’ll just have to be happy with my safety, as much as I hate that.</p>
<p>EDIT: I’m applying to the University of Alabama as a safety school as well, and I’m a bit more pleased with that.</p>
<p>I would make my own thread, but this seemed semi-relevant…what if the high school doesn’t report percentages on the transcript, and just reports letter grades? (My high school has a 6-point scale and doesn’t weight anything. :))</p>
<p>The school sends a school profile, separate from the transcript. (You can ask your GC.) On the GC
form, where they show GPA, it asks what scale. There are also usually public ways to access some of this school detail. Plus many adcoms know the hs in their regions. Not foolproof, but not as blind as one could fear.</p>
<p>I’m in the same boat- 3.6 UW on a 7-point scale. I’m going to re-calculate based on the ten point scale to see what I would have- I’ve made As and Bs, but the thing that drags my GPA down are two C’s junior year- but an 82 and 83 aren’t Cs on the ten point scale.
I think when examining my transcript it’s easy to see that I took a lot of really challenging classes, even in my weak subject, math.</p>
<p>I don’t know why you’d recalc your grades. Your school doesn’t use a 10 point scale. If you did take challenging classes and that’s why your grades are not their best then colleges will see that.</p>
<p>My kids attend a HS that doesn’t rank or calculate GPA’s. When she was applying to college, some LAC’s told D1 that they recalculate all GPA’s on their own scale. Another school told her that if grades on the transcript and the GPA don’t seem to sync they recalculate it. This wasn’t an issue for her as her GPA was sky high, but another D (current junior) not so much – in fact her profile is remarkably like yours, near perfect testing (one seating and done, whew!) but checkered transcript. Partly she takes too many classes, 3 foreign languages and too many AP’s and partly she is just sloppy and disorganized by nature. </p>
<p>Anyway, two strategies I wanted to share with you that we are employing as she creates “The List” and starts visits etc. 1) look at women’s colleges which are often academically rigorous, intellectual student body etc., and are less selective by virtue of not having men or women who don’t want a single sex campus apply. This significantly increases chances of admission to an excellent college. No idea whether this would appeal to you or not. D has already visited and loved Bryn Mawr, Smith and Wellesley (the last being much more selective of course) 2) she’s also looking at ‘second tier’ LAC’s strong in her field of interest (in this case that means Grinnell, Kenyon, Mac and that ilk, even Vassar) - schools whose rankings will benefit from her strong scores, and which really do ‘holistic admissions’ and will consider grades as one aspect of a total student/person.
Just some thoughts for you if it isn’t too late. If you’ve selected all your schools already and are knee deep in supplements, good luck to you! Emphasize your strengths and your unique goodness will shine through :)</p>