<p>Some schools have mega grade inflation, some have none at all. How can admissions officers tell?</p>
<p>Rank and ACT/SAT mainly</p>
<p>But if the grade inflation is school wide, how does rank help?</p>
<p>That is what Standardized tests are for, making sure someone doesn’t just go to any easy school.</p>
<p>Than why is GPA a more important factor for admissions than SATs/ACTs?</p>
<p>Usually if there is a big disparity in SAT scores and GPA, such as a kid with a 4.0 unweighted having a composite SAT of 1250. Not to mention that class rank is a dead giveaway. Such as if a kid has a weighted of 5.0 but is ranked only in the 75%tile of his class, then his school likely has grade inflation. </p>
<p>GPA is not a more important factor. SAT scores are used to back a GPA’s validity.</p>
<p>One way to tell if there is grade inflation is based on the HS grade distribution. If a 3.83 is salutatorian in one school vs in the bottom 50% at another school.</p>
<p>Grade inflation can help students more times than not in terms of college admissions and merit money IN GENERAL. Most colleges and programs do not have the time to sit there and equalize GPAs across the board. The independent schools with steep grading curves and preselected students often have problems with their students qualifying for this program or other with unweighted gpas. </p>
<p>However, when you are talking about highly selective school admissions, those schools do go through the trouble and can spot grade inflation very quickly from the college profile. I lived in the midwest, and our high school had a lot of grade inflation. Large school with more than half the kids on the honor roll and in honors courses with so much weighting that a 4.0 could put you in the bottom half. 50 kids would tie to be the val and more for the sal. Upper middle class community with a pretty high median income, few PELL eligible students and 90% of the class going on directly to college. About 700 kids in the graduating class, and if a kid from there got into HPY or equivalent in a year, it was a big deal. The schools knew. Very few kids went to the most selective colleges, other than the public universities that did not do the type of analyses that those top colleges do of difficulty in curriculum and grade inflation. </p>
<p>You did well going there if you wanted to go to most colleges. Your chances of getting into State Flagship or even a school like UVA were better than at at most schools without that grade inflation. For my kids, it would have been a problem since they tend to be straight B students regardless how difficult the course is in highschool. So they would be in the bottom quarter of the class of such a school which would eliminate them for a lot of things. But a diligent student with high test scores could do quite well in some areas. I do believe that some colleges do discriminate against such schools. There were just too many top rate kids that did not get inot selective schools from there as oposed to the privates in the area— but this is just my opinion that I am stating here, and won’t argue it.</p>
<p>A lot of schools are different and grade differently. Everyone above is correct. A high school will pride themselves on how many kids graduate with honors, and their average GPA per graduating class, even if it doesn’t look good on the students. It’s mostly common sense. If a person graduated with a 4.0, and was #1 in their class, but they only got a 1500 on their SAT and a 22 on their ACT, you’d assume they went to some tiny high school with a graduating class of 30 rednecks. Say someone graduated with a 4.3, but was only #70 in their class, but got a 2100 on their SAT and 30 on the ACT, you’d assume they went to some amazing college prep high school you have to actually be smart to go to.
Honestly both GPA/class ranking and test scores can get you into college. I’ve heard many colleges say it. You may not get the best scholarships, but it’ll get you to college. If you get a 2.5 GPA, but get an extremely high SAT or ACT score, you’ll get into most colleges. If you get a 4.0 (and you’re within the top 25% of your class) but you get a low-mediocre score on your tests, you’ll still get into most colleges. My brother brought his GPA up from a 2.5 to a 3.0 his senior year just to get a scholarship, but he was accepted into every college he applied to based on his 34 ACT score.</p>
<p>so class rank with ACT/SAT</p>
<p>If colleges look at class rank for context, will they also look at my SAT percentile within my high school’s graduating class? I’m not sure they even have access to that type of info but think it would bode well for me.</p>
<p>So what if I did well on standardized tests but most people at my school with high GPAs don’t? Will they assume my school has less inflation than it does?</p>
<p>There is no way to answer this without knowing the numbers. If you have a lower GPA it could mean you are lazy or not taking school seriously.</p>
<p>One other way schools determine grade inflation is actually through past experience/records. Schools with known grade inflation are often identified and placed in a list.</p>
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<p>Simple. If a 3.9 uw is top quartile, for example, than a college knows with certainty that such HS has massive grade inflation.</p>
<p>Does 3.9 and ranked fourth sound highly inflated?</p>
<p>^^how many in the class? 30? 300? 600?</p>
<p>Around 150.</p>
<p>DS’ private HS prepares an annual “school summary” which describes school, curriculum, grading standards and benchmarks, GPA methodology, average GPA, etc. Don’t most HSs do this as part of the counselor’s letter to admissions office?</p>
<p>^ Yes, the HS profile that goes with the transcript.</p>