<p>paigerr01 – in a class that small, top 10% has little significance because it has little predictive value, given the small sample size. What will be more important for you will be the school profile submitted by your GC with your transcript. The rigor of your school will put your application into better perspective than whether you are 3rd or 7th in the class, IMHO.</p>
<p>I have the school profile but I still don’t understand how a Adcom uses this to distinguish between schools. What’s in the profile of a really good high school vrs the profile of a really bad high school?</p>
<p>spackler – among other things, what percentage go on to college, what percentage take AP/IB classes, average SAT/ACT scores, etc. A rigorous curriculum and highly academically competitive student body will make a top ranked student’s credentials look even more impressive. </p>
<p>That is not to diminish the application of a top-ranked student in a school that does not excel on college attendance/rigor indices, though. It can be just as impressive when a student has high stats despite such an academic setting. But, it does put into perspective that just being in the top 10% there may not indicate a likelihood of success at a school such as UVa.</p>
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<p>Spackler,</p>
<p>Here are two HS profiles, one from New Jersey and one from Virginia:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.westfieldnjk12.org/education/page/download.php?fileinfo=UHJvZmlsZV8yMDEyLTIwMTMucGRmOjo6L3d3dy9zY2hvb2xzL3NjL3JlbW90ZS9pbWFnZXMvYXR0YWNoLzI2NTk5LzU4NDY0XzI2NTk5X2F0dGFjaF84NDIzMC5wZGY=&PHPSESSID=2d1f5a4b0110ae028c29bf85459aeaf8[/url]”>http://www.westfieldnjk12.org/education/page/download.php?fileinfo=UHJvZmlsZV8yMDEyLTIwMTMucGRmOjo6L3d3dy9zY2hvb2xzL3NjL3JlbW90ZS9pbWFnZXMvYXR0YWNoLzI2NTk5LzU4NDY0XzI2NTk5X2F0dGFjaF84NDIzMC5wZGY=&PHPSESSID=2d1f5a4b0110ae028c29bf85459aeaf8</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.acps.k12.va.us/tcw/counseling/profile.pdf[/url]”>http://www.acps.k12.va.us/tcw/counseling/profile.pdf</a></p>
<p>Which one do you think is the “really good” school" and which one is “really bad.”
(Understanding what “good” and “bad” mean for this discussion.)</p>
<p>Not so hard to tell from the profile, is it?</p>
<p>Thanks AVA55 and GolFather, Makes more sense now. I figured someone would have ranked high schools by State. Top publics top privates ect.</p>
<p>Do all schools have their profile available online? I want to look at my high school’s.</p>
<p>Golf father, I’m sure you did select randomly, but I do know several families and students at TC Williams, your “really bad” school. In fact, of the 10 kids I know well from there, the ones in the advanced curriculum classes can absolutely compete every bit as well as the kids I know from top NOVA high schools. Their AP science classes appear more rigorous, too, with separate periods for class and lab, like college science courses. While its fair to say one has more college bound students, it’s unfair to claim the TC Wiliams kids are not prepared for competitive colleges…</p>
<p>Interesting that golffather “picked” TC Williams to highlight above. Although he is from NoVa, as 89wahoo noted he appears unfamiliar with TCW – probably one of the most unique high schools in the Commonwealth, if not the US as a whole. As the only public high school in the City of Alexandria, it has an incredibly diverse population, not only ethnically, but also economically – including from the wealthiest families in Old Town and elsewhere in the city to almost all of the students residing in public or section 8 housing. Alexandria is the only NoVa school division that does not participate in Thomas Jefferson, and the school offers a broad range of AP classes to its students. As 89wahoo also suggested, the school regularly sends its stop students to Ivy League and other highly selective colleges and universities. On average 30+ students a year are offered admission to UVa, including several Echols Scholars offers. Many TC Williams students enter UVa with 20+ hours of college credit. Fortunately, for TC Williams students, while some aspects of the school’s profile read like one from an urban school, most admissions officers throughout Virginia and the Northeast are quite familiar with the uniqueness of TC Williams. As a result, those students with a strong college-prep background from the school are very successful in the college admissions process.</p>
<p>paigerr01 – ask your guidance counselor for a copy. He or she ought to be willing to show it to you. If not, ask up the school hierarchy for access.</p>
<p>For those that might have been offended by my link to TC Williams’ high school profile –</p>
<p>Please be aware that there were no value judgments or editorial agendas intended .</p>
<p>I know nothing about TCW other than it’s in Alexandria and that they made a movie about the football team.</p>
<p>I tried to find profiles online of Virginia schools strictly that I knew the name of. A lot, it turns out, were harder to find than others. In order not to spend too much time on this, if a profile did not come up immediately in a Google search I went on to the next name. As a matter of fact, the New Jersey school came up accidently while searching for a school in Virginia with a similar name.</p>
<p>I was just trying to show the O/P what a profile looked like and that differences can be compared among them. I make no guarantees about the quality, accuracy or completeness of the data. I did not invent them. Please keep that in mind. Also, if you’ve read some of my posts, it might be clear that I am a strong advocate that it is the student that is most important, not the school (whether HS or college). As a product of the largest inner-city school system in the country I hope that gives me some bona-fides.</p>
<p>Remember the Titans!</p>
<p>Even though I have no data to rely upon, I’ll take a guess, to try to summarize. Don’t rely upon this too much. If you go to a less competitive high school (such as an inner city or rural high school), you may need to be in the top 3% to be competitive. If you go to a very competitive high school, the top 20% may be more appropriate. If you go to the average suburban public high school, top 10% may be the aim to be competitive. One person told me that everyone he knew who was accepted to UVa last year from an Albemarle County high school, for example, was in the top 10%.</p>
<p>I believe it does probably vary with the school. There are no hard rules though. My kids attend an Albemarle County high school, and while typically the top 10% are offered admittance to UVa, sometimes someone in the top 10% is not accepted if their rigor wasn’t as strong as it could have been. Some were also surprised last year when several students outside the top 10% were accepted. If you really want to attend a school, apply and be hopeful, but realistic. Not everyone who is qualified can be accepted. We thank our lucky stars each day that both of our kids were accepted. But, they had other choices if they hadn’t been:).</p>
<p>According to Gary614 " there is only one way to see if you can get into UVA and that is to apply for admission", easy does it, right. Well, all I want to know is, why there should be so much ambiguity in college admissions. Why, UVA on its Common Data Set cannot have the GPA they are looking for. Look at it, it is blank. Not for W&M. This kind of secrecy and Cloak and Dagger techniques are so frustrating to applicants. Since we have Common Data Set to which many colleges contribute wholeheartedly why can’t UVA be open about their GPA requirements. What are they afraid of.</p>
<p>Fatherofm - I will not take a guess as to why other schools choose to enter a figure in that field while UVa does not. I am not, nor is anyone else posting here, with the exception of Dean J, a representative of the UVa admissions office. What I will offer is GPA is a number that can mean many different things at different schools. Dean J has many times here expressed concern over comparing GPA as without context it is meaningless. (back to my pondering now) Each school has the option to have a different grading scale, different weighting for APs or honors classes, and different rules as to how many APs are offered, who may take them and when. Not all 3.9’s are created equal. </p>
<p>Let’s look at student A who has a 3.9 with 5APs, 4 honors, but their school offers no weighting on any advanced classes; only 5APs are offered; an A is 94-100. Student B also has a 3.9 with 5APs, 4 honors; 10APs offered; an A is 90-100; AP’s are weighted 1.0 on a 4pt scale. Student C has a 3.9 with 5APs, 4 honors; 17AP’s offered; an A is 90-100; AP’s are weighted 2.0 on a 4pt scale and honors are weighted 0.5 . Obviously these students have taken advantage of what was offered at their school at a different level and the 3.9 they earned means very different things based on not only the grading scale but the weighting that was applied. This is a simple look at it. But you get my point.</p>
<p>GPA without context is meaningless. The transcript that admissions receives is accompanied by that profile giving context.</p>
<p>Agree with you wholeheartedly. My point is William and Mary , Duke, Vanderbilt post their GPA acceptance rate. Why not UVA? There is no Mystique about those numbers. What you are reporting on CDS is what you accepted last year, not your interpretation of different scores as you mentioned. In any given year these numbers are ging to be different but if W&M can put out their numbers what is UVA problem.</p>
<p>William and Mary evaluates GPA similar to the way it is evaluated at UVA. From the William and Mary Website:</p>
<p>“There is no average GPA for incoming W&M students. Academic potential is evaluated from a combination of GPA, choice of curriculum, and curriculum rigor. We evaluate an applicant’s academic achievement within the context of his/her high school. Grades are weighted differently within each school system. Therefore, we do not recalculate GPAs to a 4.0 scale. Likewise, rigor of curriculum is based on what is offered at that particular high school.”</p>
<p>Be a little careful about relying upon any common data set to understand what is important for admissions decisions. The common data set for each college is prepared by an institutional research staffer, not the admissions staff. It is better to rely upon what the admissions staff of a college actually say about what is important. </p>
<p>The common data set is very valuable to get information on actual financial aid and numbers of students graduating with various majors. Some of that data is also summarized for each college on the US Dept of Ed’s College Navigator. The College Navigator and CDS are also valuable because they offer comparable data - colleges are less likely to lie to the Feds.</p>
<p>Institutional Assessment puts out an average GPA. We don’t cite it. Even if they throw out the GPAs that are based on unusual scales (I’ve seen some interesting ones, including a 15 point scale), the GPAs left still have very different methodologies behind them. My standard response when people ask for the average is that GPA is a highly creative calculation these days and that it is fairly meaningless without a school profile, which explains the methodology.</p>
<p>Some admission offices recalculate GPAs left and right. One of my travel partners is at a school that recalculates five different GPAs. I’d much rather spend my time analyzing the school profile and transcript together than rely on a number to tell me about academic preparation and achievement.</p>
<p>Interesting comments about the class ranking required. As far as I can tell, for OOS students, being in the top 10% in a demanding school isn’t enough to do more than get the probability to about 25%. I suppose it depends on the competition in any given year, but based on the history from our school district in MA, it’s just as hard to get into UVA as an Ivy, possibly harder.</p>
Golf Father selected TCWilliamsH.S. which is the largest high school in the state of Va. It is an urban school with a diverse population and has some incredibly impressive statistics to boot. NJ is a less diverse state & the school you selected has only about a 14% minority enrollment. It isn’t a useful comparison. UVa is Very familiar with TC & the excellent caliber of its students. They have had an excellent relationship for yrs & know the school well, as I’m sure they know all the VA high schools. He also used TJ as an example. It also isn’t a good example due to their ultra selective application process. It is not a typical public hs. UVa knows their students well. That’s the thing. Most selective colleges know the high schools in their own state well as well as others. They make a point of visiting with and talking w/ h.s. counselors. It is more difficult to be admitted to UVa from Northern Virginia because of the sheer numbers of students applying for admission. In my experience every hs sends a school profile with each student transcript. Some districts are doing away with reporting class rank to colleges. There is more that goes into a decision than just one component. GPA, Test Scores, Essay, Extra Curriculars/Jobs, Sports, etc. They want to accept students who are likely to want to attend. College A isn’t going to want to accept you if they think you’re going to College B. It’s a tricky thing. Typically class rank isn’t going to be the only reason for a college to reject an application.