<p>When it comes to admissions, colleges look at your grades. But what if a specific class was easier to pass compared to the same class in another school. Do you think this is fair?</p>
<p>Colleges look at your grades in context of your school.</p>
<p>But I do think it’s still unfair. One course may have two teachers teach it, one of them extremely lenient and the other extremely harsh with grading. If you’re lucky, you get the easy teacher - but if you’re not, you get the hard teacher, and your grade suffers. Even though colleges look at your grades in context of your school, you’re going to be compared to the students with the easier teacher, which is not fair.</p>
<p>Interesting, I have a similar case in which my World History class got a not-so-familiar new teacher. The other class has a class average of 85, while we all have above 90’s. It’s unequal, but perhaps in AP/IB classes the large contrast between scores such as mostly 3’s in one school and mostly 5’s in the other would stand out more on the app. The colleges see that and choose the 5 obviously. :)</p>
<p>Colleges consider your accomplishments in the context of your school and your individual circumstances. They receive a School Report that gives them a good idea of what your school is like and how challenging it is. If your school calculates class rank, they will also receive that. They also receive your AP scores, so if you got a B in the class but a 5 on the test they would know the class was more challenging than usual. </p>
<p>IMO, the benefits you get from being able to go to a challenging school (you learn more, you have better resources and advising, your parents probably care about your education) more than make up for the lower-looking grades. Whatever unfairness exists probably goes in your favor.</p>
<p>I actually have the current situation explained twice above. I took Precalculus with a teacher who didn’t believe in extra credit. Now, there is a new Precalculus teacher and students in her class have grades over 100. I still had a good grade but it wouldn’t be fair to students who had a bad grade with my teacher whereas students in the other teacher’s class, who is of same intelligence as the students who had bad grades, have higher grades.</p>
<p>If the above posts about you being compared to the rest of your school are true, then I’ll be able to get into any college I want. My county suffers from SEVERE grade deflation, and I’ve still managed to get mostly A’s. </p>
<p>So how does it look? Does it say “Student Grade: B+ Average Grade: C-”?</p>
<p>@afroninja - Not sure; I don’t think anyone really knows besides admissions officers themselves!</p>
<p>
- Grades are only one part of your app.
- You probably have a slight advantage over other applicants from your school, but if no one else applies to school x, then you’re out of luck. Your grades are compared to other applicants from your school, not your school in general.
- There are probably a lot of other students who suffer grade deflation and still manage high As, especially once you start looking into the Ivy pool. Once you get up there, grades can’t get you accepted, only keep you from being considered.</p>
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<p>It’s not that detailed, so it can’t capture grade disparities between different teachers within a single school. (I suspect it usually evens out, though…either everyone gets a difficult teacher at one point or there aren’t that many difficult teachers to begin with, so it’s unlikely to be a big deal in your overall unweighted GPA.)</p>
<p>The School Profile reports things like what kind of school it is, what the average test scores are, what grading system is used, how GPA is calculated, how many AP courses there are, and what percentage of its students go on to four-year colleges. This helps colleges get an idea of how challenging it is. Your guidance counselor will also write a recommendation for you, so if you want additional information to be included you could request that it be included there. </p>
<p>Here is an example of a School Profile, from the College Board:
[Sample</a> High School Profile](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/guidance/counseling/profile/sample]Sample”>Sample High School Profile – Counselors | College Board)</p>
<p>But colleges will know your class rank (if your school calculates one), and they will know your AP scores (if you choose to report them).</p>