<p>I know that the people here on CC have absurdly high grades, but, even then, how can such a significant amount of the students out there get a 3.5 gpa or above????</p>
<p>In my country, you'd probably get a 3.5+ only if you're in the top 5% of the batch, and these are the people who get 2300+ on the SAT!</p>
<p>Is it grade inflation, or is it just the fact that the majority of high schools in the U.S. aren't very difficult, even with AP's and all that?</p>
<p>As someone who has attended both foreign private and public American schools, I’d say it would be a mixture of both. Back at middle school, I used to be an Honor Roll&Principle’s list student, so I’d had an average GPA of about 3.75+ without even trying. When I moved to a foreign school in China, my grades dropped to around a low-mid 2.0s, which is sort of average there. Though, getting used to the rigor there did improve my study habits and work ethic. Now that I’ve moved, as of now my average GPA for all courses taken at my current American public school is at a 4.88 weighted, which is around the GPA of the school’s valedictorian and salutatorian. </p>
<p>The inflation here is pretty bad. A kid with a 3.4 here is likely going to be in the middle of the pack, and they usually have a SAT I of 1500.</p>
<p>For the sake of some standardization, my SAT I is about a 2000(1410 with jut CR+M), my subject scores are all above 750, and my AP scores are mostly 4s and 5s.</p>
<p>That’s a bit of a relief for me… </p>
<p>Looking at all the GPA averages and the GPA-SAT scatterplots online scared me into thinking I had no chance at the top schools.</p>
<p>I just have to hope the adcoms are aware of this!</p>
<p>It’s both.</p>
<p>Grade inflation is a genie-out-of-the-bottle phenemenon. Every school wants to help their own students have the best college/career prospects. Allotting higher average grades improves those chances. </p>
<p>The result is a gradual slackening of standards, a tragedy of the commons outcome where it is now difficult to differentiate between the truly great and the merely good.</p>
<p>This is where the SATs and class rank come into play.</p>
<p>The GPAs reported here are self-reported, and the students posting here are only a small subset of the entire US student population. Please do not take the GPAs reported here to be anything other than that.</p>
<p>I always attributed it to American exceptionalism.</p>
<p>I’m a student from Singapore, slightly above average in academics. I had my grades converted to US GPA through an agency and I only get 3.23. But I get around 2100 in SATs.
This low GPA thing is killing me.</p>
<p>The worse part is that the SAT’s might not save us since they expect 800’s from Asians,
especially in math, to get in.</p>
<p>So much for our dream colleges huh? :/</p>
<p>I think the reason for this is that most foreign countries have higher expectations of their students so their courses are much more rigorous.</p>
<p>So do you guys think I should still give UPenn a shot with a 3.36 GPA and 2240 SAT score?</p>
<p>I’ve always wanted to go there but I’m still in doubt over my chances</p>
<p>The GPA is low for UPenn by US school standards, but your SAT is strong. If you know stats for kids at your HS that got into Ivies and other highly selective schools, you can make a better assessment. Are you in the top 5 or 10% of students at your school? That would certainly help.</p>
<p>If you are in the top 25th percentile at your school for GPA, and your school sends only the top 5 to 10 % to highly selective schools, you could look like you are a kid with high brain power (SAT score) but low discipline or low drive (B+ GPA), which doesn’t often get you in to this caliber of school.</p>
<p>If your school frequently sends the top 25 percentile to highly selective schools, then you should assume your chances are worth applying. This can happen in the US at certain prestigious private and public schools that are nationally recognized and ranked, and if your HS is similar, it could work for you, too.</p>
<p>People on CC aren’t your typical high schoolers and I feel some people bumb up their stats to make them look better on here. Might just be me.</p>
<p>I assume I’m at least in the top 15% by rank, and the number of students from our high school, ranked 1st among private schools in our country, that get sent to the universities in the United States have been increasing ever since our valedictorian went to Harvard for the first time back in 2007. </p>
<p>Schools like Yale, NYU, Fordham and Penn have also sent representatives to our high school for the first time this year, so hopefully my application year will be the year when adcoms abroad start to get students beyond the top 5%.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies! :D</p>
<p>Being from a high-expectations foreign school will not damage your chances, trust me. Last year my old international school sent a kid to MIT, so I doubt adcoms are ignorant of the lack of grade inflation outside American high schools.</p>
<p>Just found out something now:</p>
<p>Apparently, a 90+ is an A in the US (right?) while in our school an A is 95+.</p>
<p>I get a lot of B+'s (90-95 here) all the time so, I suppose my GPA is worth more when you adapt it to the American system.</p>
<p>You’re right that American schools generally tend to give a higher percentage of As and a lower percentage of Cs than internationals do, although there are differences among US schools in this regard as well. For example, at some schools here a 3.7uw is quite good and at others it is rather average. Admissions officers are aware of this and try to take it into account, especially in connection with international schools. For the schools that provide rank or an estimate of percentile with the counselor’s recommendation or transcript, that information is valuable to help put GPA in context.</p>