“Do or not do. There is no try.” ~ Yoda
Seriously, I think a lot of people have answered your questions, as far as they can be answered.
I have kids who graduated from uber competitive colleges and they did not have the Freshman GPA your kid has.
Happy now?
None of my kids were 4.0 type perfect students. One refused to move down from Honors to regular in a subject that was clearly difficult- said he’d learn more being with the more motivated kids even if it meant he got C’s and not A’s. We never wanted them to be perfect students- just to learn as much as they could and take advantage of opportunities as they came up.
They continued that path in college.
The kids in their HS’s with the perfect GPA’s were typically not the kids who ended up at HYP. They went to fine colleges- but not the uber competitive ones. Having perfect grades won’t get you into an ivy league college. Having non-perfect grades won’t keep you out.
If your son is this competitive (“winning streak”? Really?) you can hep him refocus on what he’s learning and pay less attention to the grades. There are a lot of colleges that are thrilled to get the high stats kids (Vanderbilt, Emory, Davidson) and aren’t going to care about “the rest of the package”. But Harvard and Yale don’t have to sweat one more or one less AP on a kid’s transcript, or worry about the poet who got a C in physics- they get to pick and choose exactly what they are looking for. If your son mistakenly believes that being “on top” will let him waltz into the college of his choice- he’d better be aiming for the colleges that really do sort by stats.
"It’s because people never answer the question asked. Everyone wants to play Buddha. " Sorry, but I did answer your question.
Now, I want you to tell us how the information you are requesting all of us to donate our free time providing you with will help you in any way whatsoever.
As has already been stated many times on this thread by several posters, GPA varies so much from school to school that it is impossible to make comparisons or draw conclusions. If you want to know the GPA range for admitted students to a particular a college, most of them will provide that info on their website. How does getting a handful of cases from this site help you? People on this site are trying to be helpful but you are asking the wrong question, and refusing to listen, preferring to insult us. We are not “playing Buddha”. We are trying to help you. Well, they are. I think I am done trying to help you. Perhaps you should listen to the many experienced parents who are trying to tell you this isn’t productive.
I got it. YOU KNOW what I NEED so it doesn’t matter what I wanted to find out. I DO appreciate your time and advice.
To your specific question, my kid had an unweighted 4.0 freshman year. His school did not report numerical percentages, and freshmen could not take AP classes. The valedictorian (Brown) and salutatorian (MIT) also had straight As freshman year assumedly since they both finished with the maximum achievable GPA, or so they announced at graduation (I have no idea how they picked which was valedictorian). I would be willing to bet that most kids who get into highly selective schools have perfect or really close to perfect gpas as freshmen under whichever standard the particular school uses.
As far as pure academic stats, my uneducated guess is that standardized test scores and taking the most difficult curriculum available matter more than minute differences in gpa. At least in my kid’s school, all of the kids in the last couple years who got into highly selective schools were IB kids, while at least some kids with higher or equivalent gpas taking AP classes have been less successful in chasing “those” schools.
OP,you need to A) consider the advice being given here by some savvy posters (and it’s given politely. When 9th graders come on CC with this drive, they usually get eaten alive.) And B) realize how you are coming across, so driven. C) Get a good college admissions guide, so you understand things like one hs having a different grading scheme or different offerings than others. (Adcoms can figure out a 4.0/4.0 is as good as a 5.0/5.0) And what holistic means and how it shuts out many top performers.
You and Ithinkpink need to wake up and look at this: https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/explore/admission-facts
I need a rubber stamp since I post that so much. And this: it’s not all about stats. Period. They look for kids who understand their values and show the potential to contribute to their sense of campus community and good will. If you focus on high school grades, scores, a few showpiece activities, high school top dog status, etc, you miss the real chance to guide your child.
And: intellectually stimulating peers can be found at a surprising range of schools. Where do you think the Ivy quality kids go, when they don’t get into a tippy top???
Watch out for attitude. With tens of thousands of top performing applicants, most of them pretty same, some funky attitude about needing peers to be intellectually stimulating can seriously backfire. He’sonly in 9th grade and needs a chance to mature.
The OP registered with a second account and posted with it in this thread. For that reason, I am closing the thread.