<p>I've been reading a lot of posts about GPA lately, and there seems to be a consensus that colleges look at the whole of the "transcript" and not the gpa alone. Do colleges actually care about evaluating the transcript as a whole though? Why would a competitive college accept Kid A who has good scores, extracurriculars and grades over Kid B who has everything except for gpa, even if the transcript shows that the intellectual abilities of Kid A and Kid B are the same?</p>
<p>I am asking this because I am beginning to have serious doubts about my college application decisions, due to the fact that my junior year was poor due to a close friend passing away. Although I believed that my supplemental essay on the matter coupled with my GC's LOR would more or less alleviate the problem, I now fail to see the logic behind the "transcript vs gpa" argument. When colleges have their pickings from other qualified applicants who have perfect gpas and transcripts, why would they prefer my transcript, which has a blip junior year first semester? </p>
<p>On common data sets, I see that most top schools hover around 90% students that are within the top 10% range. This means that 10% of accepted students are accepted outside the 10%. However, taking into consideration recruited athletes, special cases, etc, and the fact that this is a percentage of students who supplied ranks at all, I feel as though I have no shot at top colleges with my subpar rank. So my question is: Do colleges REALLY value the transcript over the rank/gpa?</p>