Grade Inflation, Are admission officers doing anything about it?

Applying to College
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<p>Do admission officers do anything to combat the rampant grade inflation that occurs in many high schools in the US? I would think SAT scores would be the answer, but many top universities prefer a high GPA over a high SAT score. They claim that not everyone is a "good test taker" so they excuse a low SAT score if the applicant has a good GPA combined with many AP courses. Many of these "rigorous" AP courses are not even hard at all since there are a lot of high schools who inflate the grades a lot even on the AP level. I find it ridiculous that students in many high schools can maintain a 4.0 GPA in all AP courses and can end up with a 3 or lower on the exam. You have to like get about 40% of the questions wrong to get a 3 or lower....
Talking about the SAT, it is true that there are people who truly aren't good test takers. However, this applies to only a handful of people and the rest who cry that they aren't good test takers are just products of grade inflation. I can understand people who don't do well in the critical reading section and maybe even the writing section, but the in math section, I think that 4.0 GPA students should be able to at least score above a 700. The math section in the SAT is a joke, it tests BASIC geometry and Algebra 1. I am astonished that these students can even get a B- or higher in their high school AP Calculus AB/BC, Pre-Calculus, Algebra 2 classes when they can't even do basic math. Grades in high school math are dependent on tests and quizzes, which are taken under time constraints. Basically, MATH REVOLVES AROUND TEST TAKING SKILLS, so bad test taking skills shouldn't be an excuse for people who do bad in SAT math.
Anyways, after letting all this steam out, I truly want to know if admissions officers do anything about grade inflation, especially the more highly ranked schools. So do they look at your schools trends in AP scores or SAT scores? Maybe the ratio of A to B to C students? But this would be so time consuming for the admission officers to do this for every high school in the U.S. so I feel like they can't do anything.</p>

<p>Your thoughts???</p>

<p>*Honestly, I'm not trying to offend anyone out there, but its really unfair that the people who receive grade-inflation will have an advantage in the admissions process over people who don't.</p>

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<p>But they don’t. Schools don’t use the high school’s GPA to compare applicants. They use class rank and your actual transcript. So unless a school is inflating some students’ grades, but not others, then grade inflation within a school doesn’t matter</p>

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<p>Somebody is feeling insecure this evening…</p>

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<p>This. They also use standardized test scores, like SAT Subject tests and AP/IB scores, to see how rigorous your class is (ie, if you got an A in the class but a 2 on the AP test, something’s up).</p>

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<p>You’re an idiot. A 700 on the math section is about 94% percentile. Thats higher than you might think (although it is a lot of kids)</p>

<p>I have an A average in a VERY difficult (everyone gets 4s and 5s, very few have A averages) AP Calc BC course and “only” got a 700 on the math section of the SAT. </p>

<p>AP classes in my school are, on average, of high quality (US History, Calc BC, Chem are the most notorious). The only grade inflation comes from kids in the “average” classes, where all you have to do is have a brain to get an A.</p>

<p>Grade inflation on a national scale isn’t relevant to you, because schools will see how you compare to the rest of your class. If you have a 3.3 and are in the top 10% you’d probably be better off with someone with a 3.9 and in the top 10%.</p>

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<p>Nope, they do not prefer a high one over the other. “Top universities” prefer both high gpa/rank AND high test scores. It’s only a rare top college like Berkeley, which downplays test scores.</p>

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<p>Agreed, but top colleges don’t much care, unless you have a hook. There are just too many applicants who are good test takers.</p>