<p>I am a student at a rigorous, nationally-recognized magnet school with great SAT scores but an unweighted GPA at around 3.3.</p>
<p>As for grades...
SAT at 2220
Five APs last year (one 3, two 4s, two 5s)
National Merit semifinalist
- and taking five AP classes this year</p>
<p>Extracurriculars...
President and historian of Latin Club (formerly VP and treasurer)
Founder and president of Astronomy Club
Secretary in Model United Nations
... and some work/internship experience</p>
<p>Basically, I have been an involved student making mostly As and some Bs, but a few classes that I took last year really dropped my GPA. I'm applying to a few reach schools like Georgetown, Rice, and Northwestern - do you think that my low GPA will have a large effect on admissions?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the trend seems to be that colleges care more about grades than SAT scores.</p>
<p>I don’t agree with this policy, because some high schools must have easy grading policies.</p>
<p>I say this because I often see on CC some kid who says he is valecdictorian, but he only got a 29 or 30 ACT.</p>
<p>I have been searching on CC for a thread that lists schools that care more about SATs than grades, but have never found it.</p>
<p>My son has very good SATs, but only about a 3.6 or 3.7 unweighted gpa.</p>
<p>But I am quite sure that at some high schools in this country, he would be in the top 1% from a gpa standpoint. He goes to a very competitive high school (at least by Florida standards).</p>
<p>So it seems to me that colleges prefer top students from bad schools to good students from good schools. Standardized test results expose some of these valecdictorians as not being as smart as would first appear----hence the constant attacks on SATs for being biased, unfair, etc.</p>
<ol>
<li>2220 is not a “great” SAT score for Georgetown, Rice and NW</li>
<li>I have never seen an unhooked applicant getting into those colleges with 3.3 UWGPA.</li>
</ol>
<p>Those colleges are extremely high reach schools for you.</p>
<p>Where are you from? What about applying to your state flagship as a safety? I agree that your prospects are slim at the schools you have listed.</p>
<p>Are you applying to other matches or safeties?</p>
<p>First, people here are only guesstimating. Nobody knows for certain. Every year, so called elite “reach schools” admit kids with lower SAT’s and GPA’s than people realize. The odds are poor…but it happens. Normally because something in their application caught their eyes. Its arbitrary sometimes. Honest schools will tell you that they can fill their classes with perfect 1600/2400 SATs and 4.0 gpa’s but they intentionally don’t…for various reasons. So go ahead and apply, but don’t count on it. Apply to 12 schools and see what happens. Use a healthy mix and don’t apply to ANY school where you cannot see yourself attending, doing well and being happy. That goes for reach, match and safety schools. Prestige is overrated. What really matters is whether you can attend and succeed and be happy there. </p>
<p>Congratulations on your SAT’s. They are fine. Your grades will be determinative to some degree (it varies from school to school) and the admissions committee will also look at the rigor of the coursework. So relax a bit. Enjoy the process and “let it be.”</p>
<p>All colleges recalculate the high school gpa for admissions. Florida high schools in general are known to REALLY inflate gpa’s, and FLdad, your son probably goes to one of the few that do not do this. His class rank should help him if it’s good. It shouldn’t matter because they will strip the weight from core courses and then re-add according to their own scale. </p>
<p>I believe many schools DO look more closely at test scores these days. My sister (this is her old account :D) is a sophomore at UF and she applied to 8 schools total. My mom asked on every campus visit and was told that because of the drastic differences in grading scales more weight has been given to test scores. I am a senior and I applied to 4 schools (including UF although not my top pick!) I just met with the rep last week of a highly competitive private school and she said that gpa has become secondary to scores and class rank for the same reason. I also know some colleges have stopped adding weight to recalculations all together. Georgia Tech is one of these. They will add a small something for AP courses, I think it is .5 to the quality point total, but they add nothing for honors. Too many schools are making honors courses no different than regular and it isn’t really fair anymore.</p>
<p>Not all colleges and universities recalculate GPA. Some do, and some do not. Dartmouth, for example, does not; they believe they can evaluate an applicant’s transcript just as well without recalculating. </p>