<p>Everyone has this question at one point or the other. Here's one opinion</p>
<p>From what I have gathered, both GPA and SAT are important, but in different ways...</p>
<p>GPA : this measures your ability to work hard, to spend the time to learn, assimilate, and regurgitate various topics over a long period of time, and to juggle various classes, activities, and life experiences while doing it. </p>
<p>SAT : this measures your ability to take standardized tests (specifically its correlation to your performance in high school/and later college), to comprehend and assimilate new material quickly, and to test your basic knowledge so it can be compared to others on a level playing field.</p>
<p>So basically that's like asking... What's more important cute face or hot body?</p>
<p>One can make up for the other, but neither of them can be awful.</p>
<p>but i think GPAs can be misleading based on what school you attend, how challenging classes are. I know a 3.9 at one school can be similar to 3.3 at a top school. although SATs are based on test-taking ability, which in life isn't all that important past college. Should IQ tests be used?</p>
<p>That is why HS send a school's profile with the application. Colleges can tell from that, and from the rigor of the courses students take what the GPA means. Then, to complicate matters, many HS do not calculate GPAs. Some HS don't give grades at all (a famous one in Brooklyn...). And, all colleges accept SAT or ACT in some combination (including or excluding SAT II). So, it's not really possible to generalize. I really and truly believe that it is the whole, complete, entire presentation that an applicant makes: essays, grades, scores, rec letters, ECs, interviews, supplements, financial needs.</p>
<p>High schools use different grading scales, too. An 85% at our high school is a C+, while at many other high schools an 85% would be a solid, mid-level B.</p>
<p>We also have a very diverse student body, taking a very wide difficulty-level range of classes. A student at our school could have a 3.5/4 unweighted GPA and their class rank would be around the top 25th percentile unweighted, but top 5th percentile weighted.</p>
<p>How can kids whose schools have tough grading scales look competetive?</p>
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How can kids whose schools have tough grading scales look competetive?
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Because the school sends a profile with the transcript. Ad comms are pretty clever. First of all, they have seen transcripts from these HS before, so they know them and how to interpret them. Secondly, they can read from the names of the courses and the levels, and so on, the rigor of the program.</p>
<p>i like the analogy of cute face and hot body. But isn't the cute face natural and can't be worked towards? </p>
<p>I think GPA are more important because it shows how hard you work for 3-4 years whereas the SATs only measure how well you can perform on a certain test.</p>
<p>SAT measures how much you really learned and if you really grasped the information given to you throughout your 4 years in high school. A low SAT score with a very high GPA might send a signal to the admission officer that it was either grade inflation or teachers just liked you; something of that nature.</p>
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SAT measures how much you really learned and if you really grasped the information given to you throughout your 4 years in high school.
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You confused the SAT with the ACT or SAT Subject Tests. </p>
<p>Anyways, I think that what needs to be understood is that once you reach a certain threshold your GPA and standardized test scores cannot hurt or help you. Once you establish yourself as qualified you need to "sell" yourself to the colleges and say what you will be able to offer the school and your potential peers. (Just another way of say WORK ON YOUR ESSAYS AND MAKE SURE THEY TALK ABOUT WHO YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU'VE ACCOMPLISHED AND WHAT MAKES YOU UNIQUE.)</p>
<p>'You confused the SAT with the ACT or SAT Subject Tests."</p>
<p>I really didn't because the main focus of the SATs is Math & English. Those two subjects should've been learned in high school. Even if you have the greatest reasoning skills, common sense, and time management skills ever, you still can't score high without base knowledge.</p>
<p>I'd say SATs...I'm an IB diploma candidate, predicted grades 40~41/42. GPA is basically the same but my sat scores were bad, result: rejections from dream universities.</p>
<p>the gpa fails when you get a very good gpa. if one person has a 4.0 from one school, and another has a 4.0 from a better school, who is to say the first 4.0 wouldn't also get a 4.0 at the harder school?</p>
<p>Yeah, but the SAT ceiling is quite a bit higher. </p>
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although SATs are based on test-taking ability, which in life isn't all that important past college.
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</p>
<p>But college admissions isn't judging ability to succeed in LIFE. It's judging ability to succeed in COLLEGE, which makes test taking ability quite crucial. And besides, SAT does measure analytical thinking and information processing as well. </p>
<p>I think this holistic admissions thing is getting people to take it all much too personally. Life indeed...</p>