My DD is no sloucher having taken a pretty hard course load at her BS including AP Chem as a sophomore, one of the hardest classes at her school. As was said earlier in this thread, there are many, many repeats and students taking a straight load so your unweighted GPA (because that’s all they have) will take a hit in most instances. Grade compression is really crazy and makes it super difficult to assess applicants. If the covers are not pulled far enough back to understand the individual student’s rigor, they may be screened out of many competitive schools.
Thanks @MAandMEmom for your insights. I do worry about grade compression and the tough grading at our school. Having a kid in Honors and Accelerated courses at our BS, has not provided any “bump” for GPA or any indication on the transcript. Taking Honors & AP courses that are very challenging as a Freshman and/or Sophomore has both pro’s and con’s. Please discuss with your advisor and upperclassmen parents at your school. Manage your expectation and your student’s expectations! It is very difficult to make Honor Roll as a Freshman or Sophomore taking advanced courses - (if that is one of your kiddo’s hopes)… plus there is the stress of adjusting to entering BS.
Our worry? Will colleges just look at the GPA and toss it in the circular file if it is below 4.0? All these applications from public schools and other private schools have weighted GPA’s! Is a 3.6 GPA from a well known BS considered low?
Signed,
Anxious parent who reads CC posts
Colleges know the boarding schools and know that a B+ average at a strong BS is not at all the same as B+ average at a weak public school. That’s why there are school profiles for high schools, to help tease out differences between schools. But nationally known boarding schools are known by the colleges.
This is why I started the thread because we were told by several senior parents that this was not as true as they had expected it to be and their kids less than 4.0 (from a very name recognized BS) had not been looked at with the appropriate perspective during the college admissions process.
So a couple of things I find problematic in the above quote:
No senior parent can state with certainty that a college did not look at their kid’s application with “appropriate perspective.” Likewise no kid (or parent) can ever state with certainty why they were admitted/rejected.
The boarding schools with which I am most familiar do not give out A’s like candy as they do in the local public school. In fact,at most of the schools discussed on this site, 95% of the seniors (and I was part of that 95%) will graduate with < a 4.0 GPA, yet the School Profile will show more than 5% of graduates going to top universities.
For the amount of money people shell out for these schools, they really should be talking to the college counseling office. The speculations about “I heard…” “someone told me…” etc brings to mind a quote from SpongeBob, “Why, once I met this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy’s cousin…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEVaXyu0lWc
Or, from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off;: “My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLWGDxGh2G4
Or, from REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On The Run:” “Heard it from a friend who / Heard it from a friend who / Heard it from another you been messin’ around”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G8jAPPjpGs
Well, that pretty much sums it up. 
It depends upon the high school and the colleges your student is targeting. If you have a kid who is eyeing the most selective schools, to have an optimal chance of getting into those schools, that kid needs to take the most rigorous courses the high school offers. There are exceptions to this rule, but in general, that’s the case.
That fulfills ONE area that is given points by the colleges. Rigor.
Another area is class rank/unweighted GPA.
So there is a balance that needs to be achieved between the two of your student cannot get top grades taking the most rigorous courses.
First of all, even getting top grades in most rigorous courses does not guarantee admissions to the most selective schools schools. It does increase your chances, however. If you don’t get the grades, unless there is some special circumstance, a student is highly unlikely to get accepted at such schools.
For most students, the goal is to take the most difficult courses to which the student can get the best grades.
My one child who was looking at Dickinson College, Gettysburg, UDel, Pitt, Pennsylvania State, UMD, Fordham type schools, the difficulty level was not the top and grades were a 3.4 unweighted, showing upward trend in both grades and difficulty. Was accepted to all of those schools with below average (for the schools) test scores but top refs, strong ECs, good essays. Rejected from Villanova.
I think he just barely made it over the acceptance cusp since I know of kids with slightly lower transcript and rigor, without strong upward trend but higher test scores rejected consistently at those very colleges and similar ones.
If you look at the UC formulas, you can see how California specifically addresses weighting courses and you can see how certain combos of “honors”, AP, and grades can give certain results.
IMO, a student making the effort should be getting a 3.3-3.7 average in the rigor category of courses taken or move up or down. With great judgement used, not hard lines here. You do not want to sacrifice excellent performance for more rigor. Yet, you don’t want to take courses so rigorous, the student cannot excell in some of them. So you do a mix to get the optimal combo for the kid. It’s not easy.
“Our worry? Will colleges just look at the GPA and toss it in the circular file if it is below 4.0? All these applications from public schools and other private schools have weighted GPA’s! Is a 3.6 GPA from a well known BS considered low?”
No and no. As far as if a 3.6 GPA is “low”, I’d ask “for what college?”
Don’t worry about what other schools do especially public. It has zero bearing on what goes on at the top BS.
I’m sure it differs from school to school but when my kids attended their BS, there were no ABC grades, no GPA, no AP classes, no ranking, etc. Graduates still placed extremely well but obviously not all to Ivies. I think the grumbling people hear among parents is when parents are being unrealistic and assuming their child has a chance at the very top schools.
A few takeaways off the top of my head after going through the process twice:
Don’t worry about what goes on at other schools. You child will be looked at within the context of their own school. And the admissions people will know your child’s school.
Your guidance counselor will likely have a good read on what is realistic - listen to him or her when it comes to reach/match/likelies. At my kids’ school, these categorizations were done by the admissions team together so you benefit from all that shared knowledge and experience.
If your school has naviance, I found it very useful to see themes and patterns (ignore the outliers). It will give you a better understanding of why you should ignore what you see on CC in terms of comparing GPAs and other stats.
Boarding school counselors and teachers know how to write good recs. Have your student focus on developing good relationships with teachers - not just for college apps but because there are so many benefits to doing so.
I found very few surprises each year in terms of admission. Even if a student had grades/scores that might seem a little low for a particular school, it was usually easy to pinpoint attributes that student had that made him/her an interesting and compelling applicant.
At least at my kids’ school, very few students were graduating with a 4.0 but many had areas where they stood out academically, even more than a little lopsided, plus areas where they shined in sports, ECs, the arts, debate, etc.
Related to that, applicants are chosen for their academic records solely. Encourage your child to get involved, develop any passions or unique interests, leadership - and despite what you might hear, some schools still really like and want the well rounded, community oriented students.
Most importantly, there are so many fantastic colleges and universities when you look beyond the 20 or so most popular ones among students at your child’s school. Pick a few that are off the beaten path a little - a great midwestern LAC or women’s college for example. Make sure the list has a few well thought out picks that are away from the hordes of applicants from your child’s school.
The thing is, there are thousands of kids who have the 4.0 and the top school in their sites. That’s why parent’s of kids at top BS schools are worried.
But the kid has to make a decision. I think the student has to show some excellence in multiple areas ( not all) but many to be considered down the road.
Not every kid is meant for every top school and that becomes apparent in BS ( for some early on). I want my kids to have a great fit in their educational choices. Sometimes that means one thing and sometimes it means taking another path.
It’s strange, I don’t think anyone in my high school class even thought about colleges until Junior year. Today, kids need a game plan when they sign up for Freshman classes. It’s nuts.
I think @doschicos meant to say, “…AREN’T chosen…”
Also note that your child’s transcript will indicate to each college whether or not the most rigorous courses were chosen, so there is no way of gaming this system. BS kids are competing against their peers who did take the most rigorous courses and got A’s in them. This means that only the top performers in the class and those with recognizable last names or other serious hooks really have a good shot at the usual suspects.
But, do you or your kid really care?
Take a look at your school’s matriculation list for the past several years. Is there a clinker in the bunch? Probably not. Your child will be accepted to great schools that will be a perfect match for their abilities and aspirations. Your child’s CC will help your child craft a list of these perfect schools, and the results will be exceptional. Where dissatisfaction occurs is when there is a mismatch between expectations and reality. Your child’s CC will help dispense with those discrepancies.
The CC will also advocate for your student at those wonderful colleges in ways that wouldn’t happen anywhere else. For example, our son was not a 4.0 student and was looking at top engineering programs. Yes (for unfathomable reasons), the service academies were at the top of his list and his BS couldn’t help him there, but his CC DID say that while everyone else was gunning for MIT and Cal Tech, he had a great shot at Georgia Tech which is one of the best engineering schools in the country but is grossly underrated in the BS pools and where he would be a top if not sole applicant from Choate that year. He thought GT would be a reach, but he was accepted to their honors program with merit aid. He had one other rather surprising acceptance due to this type of advising and advocating, again, because his CC knew him, knew his competition, knew the schools, knew where he’d be attractive, and knew how to communicate that match.
Really, you can all relax. Every student represented on this board will end up in a fine college. In the eight years I’ve been here, I’ve seen no threads that indicate otherwise. Let any preconceived college lists go and let your student and their advisors do what they do best. We’ll hoist a virtual glass of bubbly with you when you are happily posting your student’s results.
“Related to that, applicants are chosen for their academic records solely.”
Yes, I did mean to say AREN’T. Thanks, @ChoatieMom.
“The thing is, there are thousands of kids who have the 4.0 and the top school in their sites. That’s why parent’s of kids at top BS schools are worried.”
My advice to these parents would be to stop and reanalyze their narrow definition of success, worry less about prestige, and educate themselves on the college options out there. Parents like that are often ones who have chosen BS because they see it as an advantage for college. It can be but in more subtle ways than they think (preparation and independence) but is not the reason to choose BS, IMO.
“It’s strange, I don’t think anyone in my high school class even thought about colleges until Junior year. Today, kids need a game plan when they sign up for Freshman classes. It’s nuts.”
It’s easy to get sucked into that but you don’t have to do so. We intentionally chose a school with no APs, I had a kid who refused to study for standardized tests, my kids who were outstanding public school kids were more middle of the pack at BS. Things turned out just fine and although they still worked hard and were engaged, I know they had less stress than many of their peers. I think a lot of that mentality needs to be set by the parents. The heavy pressure, IMO, comes from parental expectations not school administration. My kids went to very good colleges that were excellent fits for them but only applied to one Ivy between the two.
As Choatiemom counsels, it will work out - just relax a little and have realistic expectations.