<p>No, there isn't. Someone in my old high school got into Columbia, regular decision with a GPA of 3.5. He had no special circumstances. His essay, interview and recommendations probably helped a lot.</p>
<p>What do you do when you attend a school that has no AP classes and you must go to another school at the end of the day by bus so that you can take two AP classes only? And, what if they are only offered to juniors and seniors and your junior year your schedule wouldn't allow it? And what do you do when your school is really stupid and has "honors" classes but is too dumb to acknowledge them? And how about when your GPA is based a 4.25 scale where only a few teachers give out A+ = 4.25 grades? And how about not weighting AP classes with a 5.0, or in my school's case, a 5.25? What do you do when you are fourth in your class and yet the three people ahead of you aren't taking as difficult of courses as you are? What do you do when trying to talk to your counselor or teachers involved about such discrepencies results in blank looks and shrugs and "It's not a big deal"? What if they weighted my grades at my school for honors or whatever and it made a deal that got me Salutatorian? That's a big deal to me!</p>
<p>Well it shouldn't be, and the schools will take it into account. In about ten years, will it matter that you were not valedictorian? I'm sorry your circumstances have done this to you, but it could be much worse. Be happy with what happened, and see beyond this.</p>
<p>Chill out. My school was like that too. I had a 95 average but ranked 100 out of 287 and each person was only allowed to take a maximum of 4 APs in 4 years, which was pathetic when compared to a rival high school who offered 30 and everyone took 8 AP courses each year. Our grades were also unweighted and many teachers give 85's as their highest grades. All colleges ask if your school's class rank is weighted or unweighted as well as your grades. Also, they ask your school what programs are available so that if your school has very few APs, they know you tried to take it but it wasn't available. Of course, they wouldn't pit you against another candidate saying "Oh he just took 4 APs and she took 16." They're going to look at how well you did. Just show your college you challenged yourself during your high school career and made do with what resources you were provided. Not all admissions people are callous and ignorant.</p>
<p>Btw, my school's valedictorian went to NYU rejected by Yale and all the other Ivy leagues, while the Salutatorian got into Stanford, Columbia, Wash U in St. Louis. People lower ranked also got into UPenn, Duke, Cornell. It's all about how you present yourself without the numbers.</p>
<p>i go to a small prep school and i rank 3/50 with a 3.9 GPA is that really bad? It's not my fault that my school is small. Last year the graduating class was 30 students.</p>
<p>It is all so subjective, class rank, GPA, everything. Remember that there are many, many factors schools take into account. For example, I go to a really competitive IB school, ie I have a 3.8 and I'm only in the top 25%, and even so our valedictorian got wait listed at Stanford. I feel what is most important is separating yourself from every other 4.0 or 3.9 with a 2200+ SAT score. Bottom line, be different.</p>
<p>Isn't class rank and GPA the least subjective part of your application? Don't competitive colleges look to see that you meet baseline requirements before they move on to the quirks?</p>
<p>usually there is no "baseline requirement"/cutoff. they look at everything. i mean sure, they weigh the numbers more heavily than essays, recs, and activities, but they won't be like "oh this person has a 3.4.. reject!" Like someone previously said, a guy got into Princeton (or Caltech?) with a 3.5.</p>
<p>Yes, GPA is often the least subjective aspect of your application but it is also subjective becasue it depends on the courses you took, what your schools is rated ect. I would contend that class rank is subjective because many schools don't rank, it depends on whether the rank is weighted or not ect. I hold that being diffrent than everyone else is what will get you the furthest in a competitive applicant pool.</p>
<p>yes, what he/she said ^. you can never find out what the adcoms are thinking when they're looking at your numbers, but everything else about you and how you present yourself through your essays, dedication to ec's, and such is essentially what will get you in.</p>
<p>3.9 is a great GPA. A 4.0 does look amazing, but 3.9 isnt any different. its like saying a 1580 is basically the same thing as a 1600, which it practically is</p>
<p>If I were selecting students I would pick the student who is really involved in ec's with a 3.7-3.9 than a person with a 4.0 that doesn't do much. . . .obviously between two equally qualified people, one a 3.9, the other a 4.0, I would pick the 4.0. But I think if you have an A, what you do outside of class matters more than that extra .1 on the GPA.</p>
<p>On a tangent, the same thing goes for employment and college GPA. Someone with valid work experience and a great GPA is usually prefered over someone with a perfect GPA with no experience.</p>
<p>So basically, it's great to have a 4.0, but if all you do is study, it's not going to get you very far.</p>
<p>I disagree about the value of work experience.</p>
<p>I don't know, eulegspiegel, employers tend to highly value work experience, as do law schools and MBA programs, among others, such as many graduate programs (all to different degrees, of course). If you're talking post college, it matters a lot. For college, as in, to get into college, I'm not sure.</p>
<p>Work experience before graduate business school and perhaps law school is a good thing, if not crucial. Not so much before many other graduate programs. Summer jobs in college and maybe before are a broadening expenience and a good source of personal growth and maybe essay topics. Work during the school year in college is sometimes unavoidable but hardly a plus, especially high school jobs to pay for designer clothes, cell phone features, video games and gasoline. Work during the school year in high school is a mistake, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Well, it seems that people are less often attending graduate school straight out of undergrad, although maybe that has always been the case. As to working in the same time when you go to college, I've heard time and time again that internships make one's application for an actual job stand out greatly. Working during the school year, although generally undesireable, probably forces one to gain helpful skills, such as time management.</p>
<p>I agree about the internships and college year jobs in the sense of a small number of hours a week in the library or the computer help desk or even in the cafeteria don't kill anybody. But work during the school year is not an affirmatively good thing either and can be pursued to excess to pay for unessentials or to avoid borrowing reasonable amounts at subsidized rates. I don't think high school students should work during the school year for any reason short of helping the family buy groceries.</p>
<p>My son's private school uses the 0-100 scale with 85 about the median average. How do the grades between 90 and 100 correlate with grades in the 3.0 to 4.0 range, if anyone knows?</p>
<p>3.0 is equivilant to a B. . . .4.0 to an A</p>
<p>So 4.0 = A = 100</p>
<p>3.0 = B = about 86-89 (pretty sure, not really sure exactly what a B is numerically)</p>
<p>Some schools use a 4.3 for an A+ which changes things too. . . .</p>