How do US Universities consider international applicants' GPA?

Student Lounge International Students
1

Lately, I have been researching quite a lot on CollegeConfidential about the importance of GPA in university applications and realized that, at least surely for American students, GPA is considered to be very important. For top universities, you need something like 3.6+.

To what extent is this applicable to international students?
I’m very curious about this because, for example, in 9th grade I had 89/100 average and got 4.95/5.00 GPA.
However, in 10th grade, the policy of international applications changed at my school and they decided to send the grades out of 100 for future years.
I started taking IB in 10th grade. I picked the most rigorous, hardest possible subjects offered (HLs were Maths Physics Chemistry) which was hard even for the IB standards. As the ministry didn’t allow us to study IB SOLELY and disregard the national diploma, we also took our national curriculum. In 10th grade, we studied SL topics; In 11th grade, we studied HL topics. Therefore, the difficulty increased significantly from 9th to 11th grade, national curriculum and IB combined.

My average out of 100 was 86.15 in 10th grade and is around ~86 also in 11th grade. Our Overseas Counseling Office said that, due to us taking two diplomas at once, 3 points out of 100 would be added to the 10th and 11th grade averages, which would be mentioned in the application sent to the college. Therefore it will be like, 89/89/89 all three years, although course difficulty shows a steep upwards trend.

Now I’m wondering if this is a major setback for me, because 89, although in 9th, for example, was 4.95/5.00 for me, is around 3.4/4.0 GPA US grading from what I’ve heard. In 9th grade it seems OK since 4.95 is also reported, but in 10th and 11th grades only the average out of 100 will be reported.

Will US Universities consider it with the same regard to national applicants’ GPAs? If so, my dreams of a top university might be gone.

I’m pretty sure my IB score will end up being 38+/45, which pretty decent. My May SAT was 2140 and I’m really optimistic that I can improve it up to 2300 over the summer for the one in October. But my GPA scares me a lot. Any opinions?

2

You don’t say what country you’re from – but most of the big, competitive U.S. universities are aware of the different educational standards around the world, and will be able to put your grades in the context of your country’s norm. FYI: for elite schools, you must be among the top students in your country.

3

Many schools are aware of how school grade is treated in different countries, and also the relative comparison between foreign grades and US grades

For example, 70% in A country may be equivalent to A(90%) in United States.

4

Your counselor will need to explain how your performance compares to 1° students in your school and 2° in your country. In addition, the counselor should explain whether your school practices grade deflation. For example, 89 in your courses at your school is likely to result in a 6 or 7 in IB HLs, or 84= a 6, 90= a 7, or 85 in our school results in the country’s national board scores being around 95…