<p>Why do I see so many people with low(ish) GPAs (at least for top 10s) and high test scores? Like, 2300s and 3.6s.</p>
<p>If you have really good scores, you're either:</p>
<p>a) Smart enough to study hard because you care about going to a good university or
b) Innately extremely smart so you're able to ace a standardized test.</p>
<p>In either case, this "smartness" should make it so that you can easily handle a rigorous courseload, right? I know there are other legitimate reasons -- going to a top prep school, medical, etc. </p>
<p>But, I go to a pretty good school in my state, and I have no had no trouble getting a 4.0 (with a total of 14 APs) -- although with my activities and job, I do have to stay up to 3 every night. :D </p>
<p>Any plausible reason for this phenomenon? Or are there just a bunch of super smart people who don't do that well their freshmen year or started caring about college a bit later than they should have?</p>
<p>Perhaps they go to a school with grade deflation? Gpa is not standardized, your 4.0 might only make a 3.7 in a difficult high school. Class rank is what really matters.</p>
<p>Other than that, I’d say laziness or extenuating circumstances (sickness, death in family, etc).</p>
<p>I would go with the freshman year thing for some people. However a lot of people who are extremely smart just don’t do well in school grade wise even if they have the ability to. There are a lot of reasons for this and everyone is different.</p>
<p>Actually even class rank doesn’t really tell the story! My S rank is below the top 25% because of rigor and despite placing a weight in really tough courses! Had he taken only standard courses, his GPA without wt ( and class rank) would have exceeded his weighted GPA! Hopefully course rigor and standardize test scores prevail for him.</p>
<p>I feel like you can make the same argument for class rank not being standardized. You could be at a school full of really smart people or really dumb people… that is why I feel like SAT should have more weight than GPA in admissions.</p>
<p>Devrybound, I do not agree. If that were the case people could just slack off for four years, study hard a couple months, and do well on the sat. In fact this is the case with many kids in my school.</p>
<p>Innate smartness can’t give you the motivation to do busywork. In fact, it usually does the opposite, and people thinks the work is “below” them. That’s the reason behind the low GPA/high SAT with kids I know.</p>
<p>I didn’t say that GPA should completely be obliterated as a criteria in college admissions. Also, you cannot study for a couple months and ace the SAT. You had to have been academically geared for your whole life, because can’t develop problem solving and critical thinking skills in a matter of months. If that were the case, we would all have 2300s+. This is merely my opinion, but I think reading/writing/math skills are much more important in the long run than being an A student in history or chemistry.</p>
<p>My GPA is a measly 3.1 UW. Also my grading scale is harder than other schools. With other schools grading scale my GPA would be around 3.5/3.6. I have to get all A’s this year in order to boost it up to 3.5. Also my school doesn’t rank. The point i’m trying to make is that GPA is definitely not standardized. My SAT is projected to be 2100+ while others with 4.0s get 1800s. That’s why the school report is so important in my opinion. Every situation is different. People with lower GPA’s might go to a more academically challenging school taking rigorous courses, like myself. While others with higher GPA’s take standard classes. Rigor can affect GPA.</p>
<p>Because people can be good at testing, but be lazy, or go to a hard school, have too many activities and like sleep, etc. Grades and SAT don’t correlate that much. Grades involves hard work (At a good school), studying, paying attention in school, etc. SAT involves being good at testing, knowing the tricks, etc.</p>
<p>Low test scores can be “fixed” more easily than low GPA can. A student with low test scores can do test-specific studying and try again. Or take the “other” test (ACT vs. SAT). But a student with low grades by the end of junior year cannot improve them for college application purposes if s/he applies to colleges during senior year.</p>
<p>its just like the second post said
in my case i have a 3.5 uw (4.4w) and a 34
i chose to take very tough classes and my school is one of the hardest in california
that combination, coupled with adhd and an awful sophomore year, led to my bad gpa</p>
<p>Which gives you a better idea of how beautiful a model is: a single snapshot taken in a controlled studio under ideal lighting after dozens of poses; or a full-length movie filmed at a variety of locations under differing conditions.</p>
<p>It is far easier to compare one model’s snapshot to another’s, but the full-length movie is probably a better tool for evaluation. However, the movie might include a bunch of ugly, poorly dressed people who make the model appear more beautiful than s/he actually is.</p>
<p>Haha, that was an extremely interesting comparison, rmldad. I like it! Another factor to consider is that kids can do terribly freshman year, and then become a dedicated student and get a 3.5, but be smart and dedicated enough later, to get a 2300.</p>
<p>Basically, the main difference is that GPA is calculated from 4 years of work, while SAT is the equivalent of around one day of school per test.</p>
<p>On another note, I’m reading a book called Why Flip a Coin? for an economics book report, and they pointed out that averaging GPA’s doesn’t really make sense. Since GPA numbers are actually just arbitrary values assigned to qualitative data, it doesn’t make sense to average numbers that don’t really exist. Think about it this way; Does a person with half A’s and half C’s deserve to look the same as someone who got all B’s? One is more consistently good at subjects, while one sucks at one, and is great at the others. It’s like trying to average Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, and Failing.</p>
<p>I have a 2330 and a 3.26 so I think I fit in here. I don’t think my SAT scores or my GPA say much of anything about me. </p>
<p>The SATs are an assessment of a person’s ability to perform really basic tasks. I scored a 2200 naturally but I know that plenty of people can study their way up to that score no problem, so scores aren’t really much of an indication of much of anything, especially with how popular expensive tutoring is. I don’t care about my scores, but I knew they were important for me to get scholarships, and so I studied.</p>
<p>Freshman year I did very close to absolutely nothing and failed several marking periods. I started doing homework sophomore year but it felt like mindless busywork and I still have no reason to believe that it’s all anything but. I kept high grades junior year but I remember next to nothing I learned. </p>
<p>This year I guess I am the worst in terms of not doing anything in class. I just do the homework and that’s good enough to maintain high grades. I tried to force myself to work hard by taking AP Chem, AP Physics, AP Econ, and honors math but those classes are nothing to me. It makes me feel weird watching everybody else freak out about those classes because I just don’t understand why they matter so much. </p>
<p>I do feel I have learned to manage my time a little bit better but outside of that I really don’t think I’ve learned much of anything in high school. Everything just seems like a waste of time to me. It’s like I’m drifting around like a ghost, waiting for college, but I’m not exactly sure what’s going to change when I graduate.</p>
<p>Overall, I guess the reason my GPA is so low is because I never really understood why it mattered so much. So many people act like it’s this mirror that reflects their inner self-worth, but I think that’s pathetic. If I fail a class, I am the same person before and afterward. Same as if I ace a class. Grades don’t say anything about who or what you are so I don’t understand the point of getting caught up and stressed out by them as if they are. They’re just measurements of class participation, completion of busywork, how much you can suck up to a teacher, and game the system, and say nothing about your willingness to work when there is something truly interesting in front of you instead of the same mindless drivel we’ve been pushing through for 13 years.</p>
<p>Thermals it matters for college. The higher your grades the better the college you’ll get. Maybe you’re not satisfied with that system? Well maybe you should get out of it. Take the entrepreneurship route. If you have no interests at all though then I think you’re just nonsensical.</p>