When highly selective colleges review a student’s high school transcript, does the actual numerical value play a significant role in the selection process? I know it is not the only factor in admissions process. I understand the holistic approach, but as far as the school transcript goes and please assume its a very rigorous class load. At my D’s school, there is no A- or A+. Just a plain A, but it does includes the numeric value. Assume that an AP class has a range of 93-105 for an A and she has all 105/104 values for her classes, would she stand out against the lower/mid-range A range students? How does this factor in, if at all, with the Admission Officers? I am hoping that it does play a part in assessing the quality of the applicants.
It might play in slightly if there are numerous applicants from the same HS applying to the same college. Similarly if in a class of 1000, ranks 2, 5, 8 12, and 15 apply. Yes, the colleges will note the difference. But as you said, grades are just one part of the equation.
@skieurope Can I ask about your background as it relates to this process? I like your answer and it is encouraging to know that in the situation you as you described it can help her stand out from the crowd. She comes from a competitive public HS that actually two years ago had one of the “Accepted to All Ivys” student.
If - near the end of the long, drawn out selection process - the AOs still have to pare down the admit list by another 100 students and your daughter and another student from her school who has exactly her grades, test scores and ECs (unlikely, right?) are tied in the running then maybe, possibly they might notice that your daughter had three 104s versus the three 96s the other student received.
Otherwise, probably not. Based on the process the top selectives use, other factors - many of which you won’t know about - will come into play long before any examination would get to the level where they’d be using that level of detail.
BTW, my daughter will NOT be applying to all ivys:)
I’m a rising senior at a college often mentioned on this site. The more experienced users here, like myself, recount their experiences based upon having gone through the process themselves or with their children. That’s all we can offer as few of us are AOs.
Note that every year, highly selective colleges reject some 4.0/36/1600 candidates while accepting some with lesser stats. As noted, there are a lot of pieces to the puzzle.
Also note that one cannot compare 2 applicants with an “all other things being equal” view, because all other things are never equal.
Agree that it’s a rather fine distinction and then they’ll move to the next factors they look for. A 96 is also an A. Having, in effect, an A+ isn’t a special tip. At this point, you may want to focus on the rest of what she offers and how she matches.
" it can help her stand out from the crowd"
From the glimpses we have of the top college selection process(es), probably not. Their process just isn’t granular on that level for grades like the metric based colleges are. Using the Harvard admissions process as an example (and I’m only using it because it’s been in the news recently so it’s likely familiar to people), the academic portion of the review is only one of multiple factors and within the academic portion, each app is given a score of 1-6, 1 being the highest/best score. Using a system like that, all the students from your daughter’s school who have her GPA and test scores would receive the same credit for that portion of the academic score, whether their As were a bare 93 or a 104.
My son was an example of how holistic admissions produces some results that are difficult to predict without having all the info from the application. He also goes to a highly competitive school but unlike your daughter, was not at the top of his class. Of the 7 early applicants to his college (UChicago), he had the lowest GPA and about the middle test scores. But he (and one other applicant - a star in every way, shape and form) were admitted. The parents who don’t know him well - which is most of them because he’s an odd, introverty type - were probably very surprised. But that’s because they didn’t see his LoRs or know about his full ECs. So I’m a believer that beyond a certain level of demonstrating competence, extra GPA points don’t make the difference. Then again, I also believe MIT’s blurb about how it doesn’t give preference to a student who scores an 800 on the Math II over one that scores only 720, it’s just that the 800 scorers also tend to have all the other stuff the colleges are looking for so are admitted at a higher rate. So if your daughter is the type that has all the other stuff, the GPA minutia won’t be a factor.
Since the latest SAT revision, at some very top colleges, that 720 example has inched up. (Or, in MIT’s case, their past saying that ‘any score with a 7 in front of it’ shows one can do the work’ has shifted up a bit.)
But there’s a lot of weight in what milee wrote. You won’t likely know other top students’ actual strengths, the full picture they present. And that ‘the rest of the story’ does often trump over a small difference in stats.
The conventional wisdom is that colleges treat an A+ as an A, and may or may not treat an A- as an A, with the caveat mentioned above of evaluating kids from same HS against each other.
The rationale would be that when seeing an “A” from student 1 versus your “99” as student 2, who is to say that student 1’s “A” was not also a 99? If student 3 has an “A-“ how do you compare that to the aforementioned “A” from student 1 which could just as easily have been a 90 as a 99 in the underlying work?
My advice: if your school does solely percentiles and does not give a conversion chart, just go through and give yourself an “A” for anything 90+, “B” for 80-89, etc. Most colleges do not treat this as an exact science, so you should not try to divine one in an attempt to handicap your admission chances.
OP said this hs has an A range of 93-105 and it seems both the letter grade and the numeric value are visible on the transcript. No conversion needed.
The OP said “assume” which implied to me she doesn’t really know what the exact range is, because I really doubt the school’s handbook says “93-105 is an A”.
@BooBooBear For AP courses, it is 93-105 and it is the HS range for AP classes only. 5 extra points are given to for an AP course, Honors is 3 extra points so that range is 93-103 and a regular course is 93-100. At this HS, a 70 is an F.
So it’s weighted?
Will the transcript show both a letter and a number? If the School Repirt indicates this adding of raw points, an adcom might just go with the letter. Her 104 is really a 99?
More often, weight is added to the letter grade. Eg, an A in AP might carry .x points on top of the 4 points.
Yes it is weighted and a 104 would equate to a 99 with no weight. The GPA calculation also has the same 5, 3, 0 weight to it. 5.0 AP, 4.5 honors, 4.0 regular for the A range. I have been told that a lot of selective schools will remove this grade weight to recalculate what the “real” A should be. So a 104 AP numeric grade would be recalculated to a 99. I personally wish the HS did not weight the numeric grade, but it is out of my control.
Mistake in wording- GPA calculation adds 1 point and Honors adds .5. Therefore, AP is 5.0, honors is 4.5 and regular A is 4.0.
Only certain top colleges recalculate. Eg, UC. Some other publics. Most adcoms can just look at the transcript, see the courses and letters. And an A is an A. Different hs weight by different schemes, so it’s the basic UW grade. Eg, for hs where solid A grades are weighted up to a 5.0 gpa, it’s still the letter grade and unweighted that adcoms compare by.
Thanks @lookingforward
Her transcript will include both the alpha and numeric value per class per semester.