<p>I'm kinda new to this site, but looking through results threads, etc, I've seen a lot of people with 4.0's. How do they have this? In my school, a lot of teachers have a policy of not giving A's, they give A-'s to the top 3-4 kids in the class. I've had my average lowered by a teacher many times.</p>
<p>And in my regular, non honors precalc class, there are only 3 kids out of over 60 with averages over a 90! In most AP classes, the highest grade is a B. I have around a 94/95 average in all, but so many people on CC have much higher. Do all these people really get such amazing grades?</p>
<p>I don’t like the term “grade deflation,” as it implies that the grades are artificially lowered. Rather than label schools that grade hard as “grade deflating,” maybe they just grade accurately.</p>
<p>I mean, I had more than a few classes in high school where no effort was needed to get an A. I have a friend who outright and deliberately failed our Latin final and still got a B overall in the class because our teacher “didn’t want to fail anybody.” (He said this; I’m not kidding.)</p>
<p>I’m not saying that the 4.0ers here haven’t earned their grades; I’m sure many of them did. But I can say at my school, which was actually fairly well-regarded in the area, I didn’t have to work very hard for the 3.9 or whatever it was I graduated with. Sounds like your school gives As where they’re due, not as some kind of ego booster like some teachers did at mine.</p>
<p>Its just confusing, bc I go to a regular upper middle class public school. Its not very “prestigious”, and the people I know who go to those type of schools, they take tons of AP’s and get all A’s. I would think more prestigious would be harder.</p>
<p>Do colleges see the difference, or is it just a lose-lose for me?</p>
<p>But to answer your question…if your school is really difficult in terms of grading, then you should still be able to maintain a good rank. When they see a low GPA at the top 5% of a class, they’ll know you worked hard to get that grade.</p>
<p>My school doesnt rank, only grade distribution. less than 10% have weighted gpa’s of over 94 (with 3 point for hon/5 for AP), so with my 95 uw, I’d probably be at the very top.</p>
<p>Different universities use GPA and rank differently. Both can be distorted when comparing students at different schools.</p>
<p>GPA can be affected by grade inflation or lack thereof at different schools.</p>
<p>Rank can be affected by the student competitiveness at different schools.</p>
<p>Standardized testing is supposed to give something to compare students at different schools. But some of the existing standardized tests are not optimal in predicting how well a student will do in university; for example, the SAT I correlates more strongly to a student’s socioeconomic background than it does to GPA in university.</p>
<p>I go to a school of 650. I know of one student that has a 4.0, but there could be another 1-2. And those other 1-2 aren’t too highly ranked, even if they do have a 4.0 unweighted, because our rankings are based on weighted GPA.</p>
<p>This makes me feel better. I guess there is just a lot of grade deflation at my school. </p>
<p>But it gets annoying, in one class, my average was 50 points higher than the class average (a 40%), the teacher curved everyone else’s grade 49 points, and lowered mine one point!</p>
<p>In another class, my teacher told me that he just doesn’t give A’s to anyone, even people who deserve them.</p>
<p>In my kids’ high school, a 4.0 average would mean a student never got less than an A (a 95 or above) in every single subject, including art and gym. I doubt it’s ever happened. I think one recent CC poster noted that any grade of 90 or above at his school was deemed a 4.0, so that kind of odd grading system may explain some of the these 4.0’s. I also think some of the 4.0’s reported here are fictional. (To expand on the famous New Yorker cartoon: on the internet, no one knows you’re a dog–or a B student.)</p>
<p>In my school, a 90 is an A. The difference is that a 91 in gym is different than let’s say a 91 in calculus. Athletics is not weighted and calculus is (it’s considered a 5.0 weighted class), That’s what helps your GPA…taking weighted classes. If your GPA is above 4.0 and you get a certain grade in a weighted class, it boosts your GPA. I actually got a 90 this year in my weighted math class, and it hurt my GPA.That’s because my GPA was above a 4.0. Athletics also hurt my GPA, and I got a 100. One class I took was weighted as a 4.5 also so I needed a 99 in that class so my GPA wasn’t brought down. Does this all make sense If your GPA is above a 4.0,then a 100 in an unweighted class hurts you! Athletics actually hurt me this year, but I still chose to stay in it.</p>
<p>It would be helpful if you and your GC met to discuss what in the way of a SCHOOL PROFILE can be sent in with all your apps.
It is possible that the schools you are applying to are not familiar with your high school.
AdComms rely on SP’s to understand individual students’ records at non-comarable schools- they show grade distributions by class, by course, SAT ranges, even list college acceptance records from past years. The SP will also show what courses are offered and how rigorous so that your courses can be placed in the right context of what is available.</p>
<p>I recommend that your and your GC make a School Profile if there is none right now.</p>
<p>does anyone Else’s teachers grade outrageously? Like my math does Hw for only 4 pt each day and its total completion. She glances at it so quickly people just write random #s. Maybe I’m geeky but I find it annoying I actually do it and sometimes I still just get a 75 because I didn’t understand 1 ? out of 45 so I marked it and moved on- While the kid in front of me writes random numbers just messy or whatever and gets a 4. I guess they get what they get on quizzes but I find that annoying. Then i have a few teachers who change requirements the day of. Like on projects, what was single spaced is suddenly double. Then not only did I do a lot more but then I get marked off for format, when the grade sheet they handed out says SINGLE spaced. Its constant ■■■-days at my school haha.</p>
If your GPA is above a 4.0,then a 100 in an unweighted class hurts you! Athletics actually hurt me this year, but I still chose to stay in it.</p>