<p>In any discussion of GPA and SAT, there are other intangible non-quantifiable factors – most notably a high school’s reputation.</p>
<p>Year in and year out, colleges get a “feel” for which high schools graduate students who have 4.3 GPAs and 1800 SATs (grade inflation). Likewise, colleges get a “feel” for which high schools graduate students with 3.8 GPAs and 2200 SATs (grade deflation). Individually in any given year there will always be exceptions. But statistically over the years the curve will smooth out.</p>
<p>Admissions people can see how well alumni from any given high school have succeeded at their college, a fairly good indicator of the high school’s curriculum rigor in preparing students for college. </p>
<p>Another factor that might have some credence is whether or not the high school counselor has established an honest relationship with the admissions people. </p>
<p>Odd thing happened to my son. he told his high school counselor he wanted to apply to a certain prestigious college. After some discussion, the counselor shared her experience of how, in the past, the admissions people at that college were not as “ethical” as she had hoped they would be. That said, I’m sure there are cases where the counselor has not been as ethical as the college admissions people had hoped she would be. </p>
<p>Relationships matter. Reputation matters.</p>
<p>I think that it’s the GPA in context of course rigor (not just weighted GPA but if you took the harder AP classes rather than the easier ones) and the quality of the High school. I go to a high school on the gold medal list on usnews.com, somewhere around 50 (not saying what rank exactly for privacy reasons) and around 10 for public schools. At my school, according to college board the average GPA is 3.58, but it’s not because the classes are easy by any standard. It’s because I go to a school where kids are as competitive about their grades and how they do that mostly everybody is busting it to get the highest grade possible. That’s why I think that class rank (at least in my situation) is unreasonable because if you go to a place where everyone tries crazy hard or if you go somewhere where people don’t really try, your class rank will be skewed. SAT are not accurate in my opinion. You hear stories of kids who got an 1800 the first time, and by their third try they get a 2250. Their IQ didn’t change. If it were an accurate test of intelligence like IQ, it wouldn’t vary by 450 points. I know you can game the school system by memorizing everything, but you can game the SAT too. My SAT tutor taught me a trick that “which is a bi*** and it is vomit” for the writing section. Any answer choices with those two words in the answer choice were probably wrong. I only got 2 wrong in the writing section out of 49. I started out with about a 570 on a practice exam, and now I have a 740 (got an 8 on the essay).If I was actually intelligent at english (in no way do I think I am, I’m more of a math science guy) I should’ve been able to get more than an 8. Both can be gamed, so then school must be gamed for 4 years, SATs for maybe 3 days. I say 4 years>3 days. </p>
<p>Verdict: GPA + course rigor + high school quality > SAT</p>
<p>I think it really depends on the school you are applying to. </p>
<p>For example, if you look at UCLA and look at the Naviance graph, it is very flat, indicating to me that GPA is much more important than SAT/ACT. Test scores matter, but you need a very high GPA to be realistically considered, and with a very high GPA, test scored are of secondary importance. </p>
<p>While at a school like Boston College, good grades appear to be table stakes, and then there is a sharp cutoff where you need a certain SAT/ACT score to have a strong chance. </p>
<p>Depends both on what schools value in their students, and to what extent they are trying to game rankings such as USN&WR.</p>
<p>I think that SAT is more important and objective than GPA. GPA is different in each area (schools, states, countries, etc). A man with 4.0 GPA is not always better than one with just 3.5 GPA. Students are from all over the world, so Admissions need objective and impartial criteria. It’s just my opinion</p>
<p>Anyone know Amissions’ criteria?</p>