Hello!
I have a 95% GPA which would be considered good in most high schools.
However, I go to one of the top high schools in which that GPA is considered below average.
How would this affect me in college admissions?
I am a freshman so I have time to improve.
No way to answer without knowing more about the high school itself, its relationship to colleges and its history of students being accepted to selective colleges. If the high school is known to top colleges as being rigorous, that’s helpful to you since they will know that a 95% at your HS may be a stronger achievement than a 98% at a less rigorous HS.
Many high schools - especially the very competitive ones - are no longer reporting class rank to colleges. If your HS doesn’t report class rank, that will also be helpful to you since your A average will stand on its own without showing you’re in the bottom half of the class.
Being at a competitive HS cuts both ways in that if it has a relationship and history of sending students to top selectives that can be an advantage for you. But… when colleges are making their decisions, they are comparing students with students using various metrics - one of the metrics being location and background. Obviously your location will be the same as those other students in your graduating class and to the extent you have similar experiences, ECs, LORs and outlooks, colleges are going to compare you to those other students from your school which might not help you. If your grades are not going to be at the top of the competitive pool from your school (which could be just fine if it’s one of the top rigorous HS), you can help yourself to be a more attractive candidate if you start to consciously seek out experiences, ECs and pathways that are different than the others at your HS.
Bottom line - you’re getting As at a competitive school. This is good. Don’t let your grades go below an A average. Instead of spending an extra 10-20 hours a week to bring a 95% to a 98%, spend that time doing interesting and unique (unique compared to your classmates) ECs and projects.
@LoonDude The last thing you wrote: “I am a freshman so I have time to improve.” was the most important. You do, indeed have plenty of time to improve.
@milee30 wrote something that might appear accurate in theory, but is not in practice at very competitive high schools: “Many high schools - especially the very competitive ones - are no longer reporting class rank to colleges. If your HS doesn’t report class rank, that will also be helpful to you since your A average will stand on its own without showing you’re in the bottom half of the class.”
The reasons this doesn’t work in practice are:
a) the school report provides statistical data that puts individual students transcripts in context of the range of performance at the school;
b) the most highly selective colleges will get a thick stack of applications from the same top high schools every year that will quickly show the relative strength of each student’s GPA in pretty clear context;
c) if a and b weren’t enough, regional admissions officers are intimately familiar with the top high schools in their assigned area and know very well what a GPA means at that school.
a, b, an c are all true. AOs will know that a 95% is not top of the class. However, depending on all the other factors mentioned in my post, it may not matter that you’re not top of the class. Your goal is to get into a great school that’s a great fit for you, not get a gold star for being #3 in your class or whatever, right?
My son’s experience in a rigorous HS has been exactly what I described. He has barely an A GPA and although the school doesn’t disclose class rank, it wouldn’t surprise me that this is the bottom half of his class. But he will be headed to his top choice school this Fall (UChicago) and received acceptances from multiple other fantastic colleges (including London School of Economics), so apparently being bottom half of the class in a highly rigorous HS isn’t fatal. One data point isn’t conclusive across this big country, but it’s an indication of how things can work if you are not in the top of the class at a rigorous HS but have solid grades, great ECs and other features.
At this point, even though you have two more years to improve your grades, you are not going to be in the top 10% of your class since those top achievers are also working hard to keep their spot and unless they all have a random horrible year, there’s just no way to claw your way up in relative terms. So stop sweating the class rank thing. Try to find your “in” in other ways. If this truly is a rigorous HS, you will be OK even if you are not at the top of your class as long as your grades are high enough to demonstrate that you are intelligent enough and have the base skills to benefit from a top college - and an A average even if it’s in the bottom of your class rank demonstrates that.
If you are at one of the top high schools then your guidance counselor will be able to provide the best possible advice on this – when the time comes, he/she will know the range of colleges where people with your academic background typically get into. Right now with just one year of a GPA and no standardized testing it is too early to think about it.
It is good to take school seriously and know that college will be on your horizon, but I would highly recommend that you get off of CC until your junior year.
Over the next year you should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as you can in the most challenging curriculum you can manage.
–When the time comes study for standardized tests.
–Continue your involvement in activities you care about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities.
–Enjoying spending time with your family and friends.
My general feeling is that kids end up at the right fit of a college regardless of the HS. For example, I went to a pretty pedestrian HS and maybe 5 - 8 kids (2% or so) got into the top colleges each year. My kids went to a much higher level/higher pressure HS and I’d guess about 30% or so go to Ivy and equivalent colleges. My kids and I all ended up at very appropriate schools. I think if my kids had attended my old HS they would have been more of a top student compared to others in their HS class but they likely would have ended up at a similar place once not only GPA but the HS itself, standardized test scores etc. were taken into account.
My advice is to do your best and things will likely fall out as they should.
@milee30 Interesting, and very different from my son’s HS (ranked #1 public HS by WSJ) where there were (as evidenced by naviance data) very clear GPA/SAT break points on admissions success at elite colleges. HS didn’t rank, but naviance data would seem to indicate that college AO’s were very aware of the difference between a 95.3 and a 95.7 GPA. My feeling is that kids who were below the top third who would have been top 1% at a more conventional HS probably would have had greater success in college admissions had they gone elsewhere.
Good example of how different schools have differing relationships with colleges. Our Naviance data only showed hard and fast cutoffs for very metric based schools like our state flagship. For top selectives, there were no clear cutoff lines.
@LoonDude - can you get access to Naviance data for your HS? If so, look up the acceptance scattergrams for 8-10 of the schools you’re interested in. If the charts show sharp cutoffs at certain GPA levels, that will help guide you on how your school’s GPA system is viewed by colleges. Remember that this is just raw data on two app points only, so it’s not a full story and things like hooks (legacy, recruited athletes, urm, etc) can create data anomalies. For the record, my son had zero hooks so some of the Naviance data for our school wasn’t relevant.
@milee30 @tdy123 Thank you so much!
A little more about the school:
It is ranked #1 STEM high school in the country by U.S. news.
They do not offer many AP classes. GPA is simply a percentage.
There are no letter grades here.
I have been trying to stick out in ways other than academics at a highly academic school.
@milee30 Congrats to your son! That is reassuring, but for me, Naviance suggests that one should shoot for around a 97% GPA.
(Teachers have said that my grade is one of the smartest to come through in years, so that makes it harder.)
Your school with send a school profile to colleges (This may even be from your school…if not, it is one just like it)
. It will include info like:
Class Rank
The majority of our students earn grades that are exemplary. Each year a large percentage of the senior
class receives Semi-Finalist or Commended Status on the NMSQT. We believe that our students’ levels of
achievement are not fully communicated by using class rank as a singular transcript statistic. <top 10="" usa="" public="" magnet="" school=""> policy, therefore, precludes reporting of class rank.
This will let schools know that the kids at your school do very well academically.
I am confused. My kids high school is what I would describe as a very rigorous and challenging school with a lot of high achieving students. Always a lot of nmsf and so on. The average GPA of the top students at our school is much lower than the ones being quoted here. I wouldn’t call a high school where many students achieve greater than a 97 rigorous.
@vickisocal It depends on the school. Our state has academic magnets/programs in many districts and also a statewide public boarding school that cater to the top 1-2% of the high achieving students through an application process enabling those high flyers to soar. Though the classes are rigorous, most of these kids are earning "A"s in AP, IB and Dual Credit and many are headed to Top 50 colleges and universities. The rest to public Honors colleges. Even the ones with comparatively lower GPAs.
These schools do not rank the class. The college AOs know the programs.
We have about 150 kids per class in a very rigorous, by application, magnet program. It is common for kids in the program to get a B in a class and a 5 on the AP test. Yes, some kids get a 97 or 98 in the classes that they are best at, but no one is getting grades that high in all their classes. Certainly there is no way a 95 would be below average.