<p>What conclusions do you they would they draw from this: </p>
<p>I get back AP Scores and have a 5 on AP Chem, but a B in the class, and 4's on English and the Econs, but A's in the classes. 5 on Bio last year but a B in the class but a 4 on APUSH but an A in the class, and around 750 on SAT2s for US history and Bio. </p>
<p>Fluency in 3 languages, but B's in spanish. </p>
<p>B's in tough science classes but internships, awards, college classes in biomedical research-- even though I want to go into law and international affairs ( I guess good leadership positions and awards in Speech and Debate, Mock Trial, and Model UN can counterbalance this)</p>
<p>relatively bad year junior year wise (If I decide to withhold an explanation of bout of depression, grandfather dying, etc..) but high SAT scores, and great grades senior year in hardest courseload. After moving between 8th grade and freshman year, and 9th grade and sophomore year (each time changing states and school districts) I went from being ranked 1st in my class in 9th grade to probably out of the top 10% currently. Obviously, I went from a dang easy school to a ridiculously competitive one (#1 in state).</p>
<p>Most of the B's are in non - AP classes, but most of the AP classes are high A's. </p>
<p>Best grades in english, with writing awards and at least 3 publications, but rec letters are from AP Calc BC and Euro teachers, not english.</p>
<p>There's more to the story but those are just some things that I thought just don't "fit."</p>
<p>Don’t mention the depression, but you can have your guidance counselor acknowledge your grandfather. I’m sorry.
I can tell you that adcoms will definitely notice the dispproportion in AP score versus class grade. I’m sure they understand certain teachers will grade you harder and such.
Just make sure when you apply, you minimize your weaknesses by super-stressing your strengths.</p>
<p>These questions are always amusing to me. We’re not mind readers, and different admissions committee members will react to this information in different ways - how is anyone here supposed to what conclusions they would draw from this?</p>
<p>I can tell you what I would think. I would think that a B is a good grade and that you must have learned the material really well in chem to get a 5, and that 4s are also good scores and show that you are qualified to handle college-level work in that area. Same conclusions with U.S. history and biology.</p>
<p>If you are fluent in Spanish and getting Bs in the class I might assume that you weren’t doing your homework or something. If you have one bad semester, I would assume that something happened that semester that caused your grades to plunge – if your first and second years are stellar and your third year was mediocre, I would first assume that something happened, but then I would wonder whether it was something serious (like a death in the family) or something…not so serious (like loss of interest).</p>
<p>Most colleges are going to be giving your transcript a very quick lookover. They are not likely to be studying your grades and trends with the attention you are giving them. Clearly you are not a top notch student who is val or sal with close to a 4.0 unweighted in the most difficult courses. That is enough to eliminate you from the most selective schools unless you have something that they very much want as there are many top notch students that do have those qualifications that that they are going to have to filter.</p>
<p>I’m not fluent in spanish. I’m just fluent in other languages, which has nothing to do with the grade. As far as the top notch student thing goes, nothing is bad enough to get me eliminated-- still a good enough GPA (barely, but like a 3.8 UW, 4.3 W after midyears), definitely a good enough SAT score. But there are several things that jsut don’t make sense - I just didn’t know if I wanted to give explanations through the extra info thing or through my guidance counselor. We only send out year grades, not semester grades, and our grades are converted into a strange point system with weighted quarters and stuff where a 35-40 is A, 25-34 is B, 15-24 is C, and so forth. As you can see, getting an A is pretty tough comparatively. Sadly, we don’t send out +'s and -'s and the only regular B I’ve gotten is in honors physics. </p>
<p>The B’s this year were all caused by a two week period where I basically blew every test due to mental issues and just too much stress. </p>
<p>Juillet, it’s just an opinion question – thanks. I know that if I saw this, I’d be pretty confused so I wondered if others would be too. </p>
<p>And yeah the grade- ap score correlation is basically explained by the ridiculous amount of variation our school has between AP teachers. I’m missing an A in spanish because my teacher gave me a C in participation ( 50 points worth of how much she likes you) and a one in chemistry because I effed up a test that I missed the information learned because I was chairing a Model UN conference. Last year, the two B’s I got were in spanish and bio and those were the two classes that had prerequisites from my old school (oh, and my chance in spanish was blown because of participation again by the same ridiculous teacher… who I will not have next year)-- the only think I learned there was that North Carolina public schools suck.</p>
<p>As cptofthehouse says, they will not sit there and parse your app trying to make sense of it, especially at competitive schools where they are overwhelmed with qualified students they must reject because of lack of space. Either the stats they are looking for are there or they’re not. Excuses and explanations usually don’t go far because so many kids are impacted by all sorts of life events.</p>
<p>hmom, like I mentioned in the last thread, the stats and outside achievement are definitely there. This thread just points out the discrepancies. I’m sure they’re enough to save me from automatically getting rejected. It’s when they pick out from the leftovers that I’m concerned about, especially when the only thing that does not surpass the average top-school student is my GPA (which isn’t even that bad, except the B’s came in junior year for the most part).</p>
<p>But I think hmom5 has a good way of looking at it, ChasingStarlight. Not about your grades and ECs, but about the fact that the admissions committee is not all going to be sitting there with puzzled looks on their faces trying to make sense of your application. With 20,000 plus applicants, your transcript is likely going to get a quick lookover in the context of your other accomplishments.</p>
<p>(predicted) - in class predictions and such - english still may be a 5 since in class it was like 8 points away from the highest score possible, but I think I may have messed up an essay.</p>