I know that Oxford students tend to have slightly lower stats than Emory College direct-admits (3.56 avg UW GPA vs. ~3.8 and a 49% ED acceptance vs. 39% ED acceptance, respectively), but what is the true difference between the types of students who attend each?
Do Oxford students tend to be more prone to having "B"s and even the occasional “C” on their transcript as opposed to Emory admits who tend to be mostly “A”'s with the occasional “B”?
Thanks in advance.
@codemachine : I guess…if that is what the GPA stats say, then yes. I would ignore admission percentages because that often reflects application volume. Remember when Chicago had lower application volume (and higher admit rates) than peer schools, yet the stats were very similar to those places? Just ignore that. Regardless, I would pay attention more to post-grad or in college success . Oxford students usually end up doing quite well in terms of achieving post-grad aspirations. It is kind of like how Emory main has lower stats than its medium sized peers, yet the outcomes end up similar to or better than some of them in many categories. Whatever learning environment each has/type of students each draws results in stronger than anticipated outcomes, especially if you think input to each school directly correlates with output. However, this gets messy because all selective privates (not going by admit rate, but by stats), including Oxford have students with SAT averages over 1300 which is FAR above the national average (basically, you’ll get diminished predictability if you are comparing people already in this upper-range of stats and achievements…to truly compare, you’d have to look at strength and nature of EC’s which of course do not show up on a transcript. Like one school may have many people with 5s on AP biology, but another place with high score and GPA stats may have that plus tons of people who did research in the field or other special opps in that area…I think the Emory vs. Oxford achievement comparison looks more like this as the stats are actually quite close, especially SAT/ACT). The GPA is even higher at a place like Oxford considering they, like students at many selective schools take lots of APs. A 3.5 unweighted for an incoming freshman at Oxford displays much more fortitude than it would for an incoming freshman with a less high achieving student body.
Also, having the occasional imperfection on an HS transcript, excluding some genius, could be good for those entering a particularly rigorous academic environment. The students attending it are already more resilient and have experience with feeling academically challenged. Many students on main just skated and feel quite uncomfortable having to truly fight for a grade so are more likely to perceive a challenging instructor as unnecessarily or unfairly difficult. If you go to a place like the Oxford campus, more people may more or less anticipate being challenged or have some experience dealing with it. Does it reveal that the incoming students are not as statistically strong? Yes, but they are ultimately still extremely strong and may be more likely to have attributes (with regard to character and attitude toward academics) that students on main often lack whether they came into Oxford that way or not.
@bernie12 Something like 90% of Oxford kids find their way into the top 10% of Emory’s graduating class…something to think about.
Are you saying that a greater emphasis is placed on standardized testing than a physical academic GPA?
Also, if I received a “C” in a challenging course NOT relating to a possible major and is known in my school for being as challenging as it is (a total of 3 kids earned "A"s, 6 got "B"s, and the rest, roughly 80 of us, got "C"s or "D"s), would that still fall under your “occasional imperfection” argument? My GPA is still a 3.6 UW and 3.9 W, with a 1.5 years left of HS prior to applying.
@codemachine :
I think that number is exaggerated (One would need a 3.9 or higher and I know that 90% of continuees do not make a 3.9 at Emory as they comprise maybe 1/5-1/4 of any graduating class, and the top 75% starts at like 3.70-3.75 and if the Oxford GPA carries over, then certainly not as Oxford GPAs are a bit lower on average) but it is certainly a strong number as far as I know. They definitely do solidly overall and often outperform main campus STEM students for example
And yes, it would.
Possibly could weight the standardized testing a little more. But also realize that it could just reflect the type that applies and usually yields to Oxford which is often a person who could have potentially been admitted to Emory. They have many dual-applicants who apply to both and will certainly attend main if they get in, so what likely happens is that “borderline” cases for main tend to have higher SAT/ACT than GPA. Oxford has a higher chance of yielding these people if they choose to admit them and they don’t receive, say, a scholarship elsewhere (maybe some other medium-sized private like Tulane or an honors program offer from UGA). They are competing for a students who would typically be admitted to different places than those applying to main.
Also, I wouldn’t mention your major in essays unless you are applying to STEM oriented school and have to. Talk about your academic and intellectual passions (notice how I have it plural) and you wouldn’t even have to worry about being frowned upon for being “imperfect” in a class related to your major (which you should not really know by now, keep an open mind). Just because something is your major, does not really mean you should perform perfectly in it. If you knew everything perfectly, why bother majoring in it? Also, majors are specializations, so some requirements will be tangentially related to your interests (assuming you have any), so one “meh” or “eww” performance in a major course shouldn’t be a deterrent and at the HS level, there are other ways to display aptitude in areas you are interested in.
@bernie12 But how about for acceptance? Are you saying that one would need a 3.9 to be admitted to Oxford or to be competitive at Emory?
For those keeping score: 3.55 – 3.92 (unweighted) <—25%-75% admitted GPA. What would that be characterized as? A few B’s on a transcript.
By the way, my current UW is a 3.64 exactly, but my school only reports the weighted, so a 3.9000 for me.
@codemachine : Schools unweight it, report that data to ranking agencies (at least they are supposed to), and then reweight with their own, typically less inflated formula to account for rigor of courseload and to rank students internally.
Also, that range like gives a median of over 3.7 which means half of the students mostly make A grades and maybe the occasional B. Like they make mostly solid A’s and some like 35-40% A-/B+ here and there or they mostly make A-s and a few A’s. Needless to say, due to entropy(lol), the first scenario is most likely. Also 3.72-3.73 being the median is not much different from main campus’s 3.83. One difference is that the main GPA “may” even stronger than on the surface, because more students are likely to hail from more challenging/competitive public schools, boarding schools, or other independent schools. And of course this is due to a difference in reputation. But regardless, I think I would honestly aim for the same stats as you would if you were applying to main campus. Keep the rigor high and do well on the SAT (consider subject tests?) if you don’t think you can make your unweighted hit 3.7. You want to be near, at, or above the median for these places.
So how about the “C”? I have confidence my unweighted would be a 3.7 within the next 1.5 years, as the truly demanding mandatory courses in my HS are over. Now it’s classes I WANT to take and can thrive in without being bound to a school-sanctioned requirement list.
It is just one C…They aren’t going to just toss your file because of that one C in context of an otherwise very strong record.