<p>Well put Squiddy. </p>
<p>Soccerguy, I think Cap got it right - Schools look to see if the student is taking the most challenging course load available in his school. If they only have 6 AP courses, How can you hold that against the student? </p>
<p>Also, I may be wrong about this, but I thought schools looked more closely at unweighted grades, for just the reason you identified - grade inflation and no easy way to compare from one school to the next.</p>
<p>I totally agree with Squiddy’s post. Well put.</p>
<p>(In an addendum which is slightly off topic, I would add that the citizens of Va also need to encourage their state legislature to pass a budget that will support and maintain the excellence in our state public K-12 schools. I am afraid we are heading into some dangerous waters in K-12 public education with what is being proposed currently. Sorry, just a little rant for a Saturday morning…)</p>
<p>GPA, whether weighted or unweighted, has been tinkered with to the point that it’s practically meaningless, out of context. The local school system has a “4-point scale”, right? Well, except:</p>
<p>a “+” grade - .3 point bonus
AP course - 1.0 point bonus, which used to be .7
Honors - .5 point bonus</p>
<p>And what constitutes an “A” or an “A+” is different from what neighboring counties standards are.</p>
<p>So, class valedictorians used to graduate with 4.4 to 4.5 weighted GPA’s. Now, with schools offering 15-20 AP courses, and “honors” level in virtually everything except drivers ed and study hall, we’ll soon see GPA’s of 5.0 or greater – on a so-called 4 point scale.</p>
<p>As for AP’s, I think for “most competitive” students at the local high school, (itself considered a ‘low-income’ school, which is ridiculous), 8-10 AP’s is about “average.” It’s pointless to compare yourself to the “average student”, with their 3.5 GPA and 2 AP courses, because the “average student” isn’t applying to W&M (for the most part - I’m sure we’ve all heard stories about the ‘friend of a friend’ who was admitted with a 3.0, 1100 SAT, and no AP courses.)</p>
<p>A more telling statistic, I suppose, is class rank. With some 85,000 Virginia high school graduates per year, W&M could fill the incoming IS class with just the top 1% of students. It’s a competitive world out there - and a 4.0 with 6 AP’s sounds great. Until you realize that that only puts you in the top 10 or 15 percent, which means there are literally thousands of students ranked ahead of you, and that’s just in-state. </p>
<p>Admissions says they do leveling between systems and curriculum’s - the question is basically, ‘did the student take the hardest course load available?’ If the school offered 6, and the student took all 6, great, “check,” But here in NoVA, the local school system offers 20 AP courses. And if a student “only” took six, you really can’t make the case that they took the hardest courses available, can you?</p>
<p>Well put, Squiddy. Schools such as the one my daughters graduated operate in blocks. D1 who is a JR at WM only had 5 AP courses. None offered to sophomores and only able to take two Jr. year and 3 Sr. year. Poor school district and on block system (4 blocks a day) there is no room for 20 AP classes even if one desired such.</p>
<p>The Nova schools are also on a block, but with only 7 credits a year since one of the periods isn’t a class, so your DD’s school actually has more credits during the four years. Only one AP is offered to sophomores. I can’t think of any kids who have taken more than 7 AP’s offhand, but I’m sure there are some. Those include 2 Englishes, a science (they pretty much have to take bio,chem & physics first, so not much opportunity until 12th grade), calc and 2-3 social studies. Maybe a foreign language, but that depends on when they started foreign since AP is a 5th year course. I’ve only lived here 3 years, but have heard countless complaints from parents and students about top students not getting in - one was a NMF. When we looked at districts, the others around here had similar setups - 7 courses/years, etc. with limits on AP courses.</p>
<p>With limited slots, there is no easy answer. Kids with better stats than others get denied while the lower stat kids get in, but you also can’t fill a school with kids from only one area of a state. It’s a similar issue to the Texas 10% (now 8ish), just not spelled out as such by a statute.</p>
<p>My D also attended NOVA school but it was Governor’s School. She was able to start AP classes in ninth grade, was on block schedule so she also took AP Spanish in 12th grade, and had DE Chemistry. With weighted classes, she had a 4.6 GPA and was in top 1% of class. She is finishing freshman year at WM but declared major this semester. She will be junior (according to credits) in fall but still sophomore social status (one of the dislikes of WM.).</p>
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<p>I don’t think there are any schools in NOVA that only offer 6 AP classes. Most kids who will be competitive for UVA/WM from NOVA will probably have taken at least [AP] US History, Government, English (x2), Foreign Language, Science, Math, and Elective (Music, Comp Sci, Econ etc). That’s 8 right there, and they are very standard classes. If you are taking all that is available, obviously that should not (and does not) hurt you.</p>
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<p>what are the negative parts of their applications you aren’t sharing? You are describing the perfect HS student, unless they aren’t taking the most demanding course load, which puts you at a huge disadvantage.</p>
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<p>they changed to this policy while I was there, and the reasoning was that the students still take 4 years to graduate. And if you are taking 4 years to graduate anyway, then there is no reason for you to have priority. It is possible to reclassify your social status, though I don’t know how involved the process is, but I did have a couple friends that graduated in 3 years.</p>
<p>Politically, a change in IS vs OOS ratios will not happen. It sounds like a perfect solution to the budget problems, and it is, but this is state politics. If they decide to admit a slightly larger freshman class, which the General Assembly would like, the actual enrollment ratio will have to be held constant. That said, it is way to late for this to happen for next year, and it may not happen at all due to the high demand for on-campus housing (and the requirement that freshman stay on campus). I’m not sure Res Life would look favorably upon this - at the very least until the new apartments open up in a few years.</p>
<p>One of the political complains was talking about, IIRC, a Valedictorian from a NoVa school who didn’t get into W&M nor UVA. It turns out that the school gave everyone with a grade above a 4.0 (over 70 students) Valedictorian status (keep in mind the honors and AP GPA boost - I know plenty of people with above a 4.0 who didn’t get in, and rightly so). I believe W&M does a good job at taking course rigor, the real grading scale, and availability of opportunities into account when deciding on admittances.</p>
<p>Soccerguy-D went in with 31 credits, wants to finish in three years and then get Master’s in fourth year. I will have to ask her to look into reclassifying herself, but from what she has been told (from registering for classes to applying for housing), your social status is based on the time you have been on campus (I think this differs at UVA and some other schools). Now at least when she registers for classes, she has declared and major and is supposed to get the classes she needs for that major. She plans on pursuing doctorate degree so one year off at $20,000 plus a year helps a bit :)</p>
<p>Several good points have been made in this thread. I would just add that AP classes are not all created equal. I suspect that W&M looks differently at the student who took BC Calc instead of taking AB Calc or AP Stats. The same holds for the student who took AP Bio instead of taking AP Environmental Science, etc. Taking the hardest curriculum means more than taking the greatest number of AP classes.</p>
<p>I agree that all AP courses are probably not viewed as being of equal rigor.</p>
<p>I believe W&M also has certain subjects which it prefers that students take in HS, listed (at least last year) on the admissions website: I think Physics, and maybe AP Calc as opposed to AP Statistics. Seems like if they go to the trouble to spell that out, it probably does carry some weight in admissions decisions, if an applicant had the opportunity but did not take the preferred subjects. On the other hand, at an information session last spring, a student asked about Physics specifically and 2 of the 5 or 6 tour guides (W&M students) standing on stage said they had never taken Physics. So maybe it’s the sort of thing where taking the recommended subjects can help you but not taking them won’t, alone, hurt you.</p>
<p>No matter how many seats are added, making the decisions for the last students admitted will always be difficult, and there will be students from NOVA and other areas of the state on the losing end of those decisions. The same thing applies to the IS/OOS mix. Some applicants will always feel overlooked despite a great HS record. That’s the nature of college admissions at tier 1 colleges</p>
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<p>If she is graduating early, I think she should be able to, although I just googled for a bit and didn’t find anything on it. Hopefully declaring her major will help some, and if she is emailing a professor to get on the wait list for a class, she should definitely explain that she is graduating early.</p>
<p>Thanks for trying to find some information! My daughter is going to ask again about reclassifying. Otherwise, when will she ever be considered a senior?</p>