<p>Does Harvard look at a students transcript and decide a GPA on just the core classes ex. eng. history. math. and science? Also, how is GPA given at your highschool. My HS has a weird formula (%grade-70) X .o67 +2. EX. 95% average 95-70= 25 25 x .067=1.675</p>
<p>1.675+2= 3.675 GPA. At my friends highschool, a 95% is considered a 3.8~ At their school, to get a 4.0 all you need is all A's. At my school you need 100% on all classes to get a 4.0</p>
<p>So my question is does GPA really matter? or does the number out of 100 count like 96%?</p>
<p>No GPA doesn’t matter. GPA is literally a few numbers with a period. The only thing that really matter is the classes you take and the individual grade. They really don’t care about your GPA because it really shows nothing (you can get a C and still get a 3.9 GPA). Transcript is what they look at and care about.</p>
<p>Umm yes and no. Yes transcript is a detail of how you got the GPA but a GPA means little and colleges focus more on the transcript and care little about the GPA (how do I know this? my college counselor was a admissions officer at UMich, he evaluated the applicants). Let me ask you this. I have a 3.9 UW GPA, do you know which classes I took? What grade I got in each class? No. If college admissions were reliant solely on GPA, I bet a whole bunch of people would be screwed over just because another person who took less honors and AP classes beat them. Also if we were to take weighted GPA, two people can have the same GPA but one person might have taken 3 AP while the other took 2 and the one who took three got a B in one of his AP. Does that mean that both of the kids are the same? no.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is a simple answer to how Harvard calculates GPA. They look at your schedule in the context of the school. It’s not as simple as “they convert everything to a 4.0 and add 1 for AP and .5 for honors.” Our transcript reports unweighted grades with a weighted GPA. Frankly, I think they are looking for a lot of A’s, but they’ll forgive a few B’s especially in a well-lopsided candidate. They are looking for kids who made the most of their opportunities which may mean having taken the initiative to learn material outside the high school classroom, but not always. If your school ranks, especially if it’s a non-gifted magnet or selective private school it’s important to be near the top. I can’t think of anyone who was accepted to Harvard from our large suburban high school who wasn’t in the top 2%.</p>
<p>Ok thank you. Does harvard look at Freshman grades. I know that Princeton does not look at those be ause they feel freshman year is a time of transfer between schools.</p>
<p>Harvard looks at freshman grades, but like many colleges does understand that some kids need to get used to high school. Some kids (like mine) are taking AP courses as freshmen and it bugged me no end that Stanford, for example, claims they don’t look at the freshman grades at all. (I hope they were lying, but the fact remains my kid got into Harvard and not Stanford.)</p>
<p>GPA recalculations for HArvard Admissions? I am guessing that it would be something like what UPenn told us about their admissions 5 years ago. Basically they recalculate it themselves, they did not disclose the math, but they did state that their recalculations only used what you are calling the “core curriculum” classes.</p>
<p>At my daughter’s high school, >93 = 4.0, 90 - 92 = 3.67, 87 - 89 = 3.33, 83 - 86 = 3.0 etc but we also have a very complicated weighted GPA calculation that is based on an 8.0 scale that weights differently for 4 different levels of classes. Identical weighted GPAs are rare at out school. Though this year we had two Vals who took that same number of the various weighted classes and had a 4.0 in every one of those classes so the weighted GPAs were identical.</p>
<p>The following is <em>a bit</em> of point (and mostly for internationals, but perhaps some similarities can be drawn to the current discussion), but I thought why not include the rest (and for the sake of context), apart from the GPA paragraph. </p>
<p>When I visited the college last summer, together with a friend, we had a small talk (like 30 minutes or so) with some person of the admissions office (We asked for somebody, because we had some specific questions concerning gap years; no idea if he was a director or a simple committee member, if at all). He briefly explained us how the “academic evaluation” of <em>international</em> applicants works. He spoke of three “comparative factors”… (For quotations - I cannot remember all of his exact words but the gist and some distinctive ones)</p>
<ol>
<li>First, how you compare to the application pool - that being through your SAT scores. </li>
<li>How you compare to your graduating class; 2 Factors:
<ul>
<li>What courseload you have had. He said in this aspect they look at your transcript, not soo much at the scores but at the workload "in relation to your school profile, your school’s university placement, reputation etc. ). </li>
<li>Class rank</li>
</ul></li>
<li>And lastly, how “acdemically able” you are. For our cases he said the the most important factor is by far our IB score (or Abitur score in case of my friend). This gives them an indication how we compare to the world average. “The IB score reveals your potential in respect to a norm”. </li>
</ol>
<p>My friend asked him whether “periodic grades” (its what we call them; 3 exams during every week) were not important. He said “not in weight”. Some schools (my school is guilty of this itself) award a grade of A+ (Subsequently GPA 4.0) at score of 16/20, which represents 80%, others at 95% or even 100%. He claimed this is <em>comparatively</em> not important for students applying from schools outside the U.S., because they do not know the schools’ standards very well. These relative indicators provide an objevtive picture which is not dependent on the school’s grading system. </p>
<p>But he stressed this is only valid for schools outside the U.S., maybe it is similar to domestic schools? Perhaps they know the standards of Groton or some other famous schools pretty well…</p>
<p>P.S. He also said that after this evluation part they separate the piles into “Can handle the workload at Harvard” and “Cannot handle it”</p>
<p>Ok thanks . So do you think your highschools reputation really matters a lot and also your class rank. I go to a pub school with 364 in my class. I’m top ten ppl so it makes me top 3%. Also do AP test scores count at all for admissions? I mean isn’t there the possibility of not showing your AP grades. And is what Felix said true about domestic schools?</p>
<p>well…I think since Harvard wishes to attract the brightest of students, I doubt they would admit someone ranking 210/364. However, on its own I am sure it has no meaning without a context…</p>
<p>I believe rank is can be important with the caveat that some schools don’t weight grades. So a val with no AP classes might be passed over for some one much lower on the scale who took a demanding schedule. This is where regional reps who actually know the ins and outs of the various schools come in. The year my son applied Harvard accepted #1, #8 and waitlisted #3 - class size was about 650. It’s a middling suburban school - nearly everyone goes to college, but about a quarter are going to two year colleges.</p>
i don get it :(</p>