<p>I'm a rising senior, looking to expand my college horizon to the northeast. I've always known that dartmouth is one of the best up there, I think like 13th in US News. But when I checked their stats on collegeboard to see if I had a chance, I came across quite a canundrum. The GPA stats seem way too low to believe. There are people at dartmouth with below 3.5's? There must be a catch. Below are what collegeboard posts as dartmouth's h.s. gpa stats. They do not seem to correspond with their "91% in top tenth" statement. Can anyone shed some light?</p>
<p>62% had h.s. GPA of 3.75 and higher
18% had h.s. GPA between 3.5 and 3.74
10% had h.s. GPA between 3.25 and 3.49
6% had h.s. GPA between 3.0 and 3.24
2% had h.s. GPA between 2.5 and 2.99
1% had h.s. GPA between 2.0 and 2.49
1% had h.s. GPA between 1.0 and 1.99</p>
<p>There is no standardized way to evaluate grades between students who attend different schools. A school which has very little grade inflation or is not very competitive may have students with a 3.4 GPA in the top 10% of the class whereas a highly competitive, grade inflated school may have students with a 3.8 who only make the top quartile.</p>
<p>Although most Ivies don't reveal their students' high school GPA stats on Collegeboard, I found that UPenn also shares their numbers, which seem pretty close to those of Dartmouth, and might seem a little more unbelievable, given that Penn claims "96% in top tenth":</p>
<pre><code>* 65% had h.s. GPA of 3.75 and higher
* 16% had h.s. GPA between 3.5 and 3.74
* 11% had h.s. GPA between 3.25 and 3.49
* 5% had h.s. GPA between 3.0 and 3.24
* 3% had h.s. GPA between 2.5 and 2.99
</code></pre>
<p>Overall, if there's anything unique about Dartmouth that might explain this fact, I would say that it's that they would rather accept a student with a good GPA and great SAT scores than a student with a great GPA and good SAT scores.</p>
<p>Hmmm. I question where Collegeboard got those numbers. In its 2007-2008 Common Data Set, Dartmouth left the section that you're talking about blank. (It's section C11). </p>
<p>I always assumed that College Board got most of its profile information from schools' Common Data Sets. I'd be skeptical that Dartmouth (or any college) would submit additional information to CB that they didn't publish in their CDS.</p>
<p>Another reason to be skeptical: Dartmouth says that 100% of its 2007 entering freshman class was in the top half of their class, yet CB says 4% of freshmen had a GPA of 2.49 or lower. To me, those two statistics don't seem to be reasonably consistent with each other.</p>
<p>My initial reaction is that College Board has it wrong. But maybe someone else has another explanation. Anyone??</p>
<p>CollegeBoard is notorious for being incredibly innacurate and slow to update their numbers. What happens is, they don't delete old info when it becomes outdated. They only change it when there is new information to replace it. So, if ten years ago those were the stats for Dartmouth, and then the next year they declined to release GPA info, CollegeBoard just left it there and it is now ten years old. (for example).</p>
<p>Another thing skewing the data is the fact that these are unweighted GPAs. Class rank is determined by weighted GPAs (in order to reward you for a harder courseload). So, someone theoretically getting an A- in all their APs could have a lower unweighted GPA, but will rank higher in their class than someone who got As in all regular classes. This data could indicate that Dartmouth does place a lot of importance on challenging yourself despite getting lower grades.</p>
<p>You must also keep in mind that only 44 % of the students attending submitted a high school rank. Of the 44% that submitted ranking, 91% of those students were in the top 10% of the class.</p>
<p>There is absolutely no reason you should think that you have no shot with a 3.6. Dartmouth admissions is, in my opinion, absolutely amazing at getting an amazing idea for who would fit in at Dartmouth regardless of your stats. As a result, I know near 4.0s/2400s who get into Harvard and not Dartmouth, but people like AtrophicWhisper on here who don't even get into Tufts/Cornell but get into Dartmouth. He clearly has something special/interesting about him that no other school could recognize. Unfortunately though, their application numbers have been so high that there are still incredibly cool/talented people who find themselves on the waitlists/reject piles. Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>Don't forget that there are schools that do not weight grades at all and do not rank. Not to mention schools that don't use a 4-point scale!</p>
<p>If one kid has a GPA of 92 (a B+ at their school) and another has a GPA of 93 (an A-, at the same school) what are their GPAs on a 4 point scale?</p>
<p>"I have to wonder who gets in with a 1.00-1.99 GPA. Internationals? "</p>
<p>I'm sorry, but I find this untrue and rather offensive. International students strike me as much more intelligent, driven, and even grade-hungrier compared to their American peers. At one recent Academic prize-giving ceremony at Dartmouth, 15-20% of the recipients were internationals, which only make up 10% of the class.</p>
<p>I think that he was trying to infer that the grading standards may be harsher overseas than in America, not that internationals are all stupid. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I think that he was trying to infer that the grading standards may be harsher overseas than in America, not that internationals are all stupid.
<p>The GPA distribution has a lot more to do with the type of high schools from which Dartmouth (or Penn) applicants attend. At the best boarding schools and private day schools, it is not unusual for a very talented student to have a healthy mix of Bs (and an occasional C) in their GPAs - a place like Phillips Exeter, or Sidwell Friends has lots of kids with GPAs below 3.5 who also have well above 2200 on their SATs and end up at the Ivies. Kids at these schools who are in the middle, or even bottom third of their classes will usually end up at very good colleges. They may not be in the top of their own very competitive classes, but compared to other applicants out there, they are still first-rate students.
On the other hand, the California state universities have much higher GPA requirements because they draw primarily from California public schools, which are notorious for extreme grade inflation. So I wouldn't put too much stock in GPA numbers. They can lead to apples/oranges comparisons, which is why admissions committees cannot rely on that measurement alone.</p>
<p>
[quote]
California state universities have much higher GPA requirements because they draw primarily from California public schools, which are notorious for extreme grade inflation.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Would you care to cite a source, any source?</p>