<p>I used to think the same, fc, when I use to disparage UMiami for reporting weighted GPA’s in its CDS, but the directions aren’t necessarily all that clear, IMO (and as was pointed out to me by the Miami partisans!)</p>
<p>Yes, the instructions say to report on a 4.0 scale, but depending your definition of what is a 4.0 scale, you could end up with a different answer. Some/many colleges have a 4.0 scale for an A, but award a 4.33 for an A+. (Cornell for its undergrads, for example.)</p>
<p>My point is that the directions do not say to cap all calculations at 4.0. If CDS really wanted to cap that calc, they could clearly state it that way in the directions. But they choose not to…</p>
<p>@Carotid unless you change the way everyone regards rankings, the rankings will always reflect one minor part of the school: prestige. And the importance of prestige is, it draws the smartest people, the really passionate people who aren’t doing everything for college. </p>
<p>While the difference between Harvard and Yale will be negligible, no matter what the rankings say, the difference between and Ivy and a really low level school, will differ majorly in only the student population. (Arguably the education at most schools, from top to bottom, are decent and good enough.) If you’re going into any field of work, networks should be important, and you can make good connections better at “top” schools. </p>
<p>I say all this in terms of undergrad. Grad will be different. </p>
<p>UCs automatically recalculate unweighted, weighted-capped (up to 8 honors points), and weighted-uncapped GPAs, so they can report any of them. I would not be surprised if the default to be reported is weighted-capped (the usual “UC GPA”) since it is the most important in UC admissions.</p>
<p>As noted above, weighted GPAs > 4.0 can still be on a 4.0 scale, depending on one’s interpretation. Note that law school admissions also recalculates undergraduate GPAs with A+ = 4.33.</p>
<p>Because colleges interpret the CDS HS GPA calculation differently (not just in terms of weighting, but in which high school courses are counted), it is rather risky to compare CDS HS GPA between two colleges where the ranges are fairly close. Class rank is also difficult to compare, due to many high schools not reporting class rank. UCs which report class rank probably estimate it from the data used to determine ELC eligibility (which compares the applicant’s UC GPA with the ranked UC GPAs of recent past classes from the high school) rather than using class rank as reported by the high school, which they do not care about at all.</p>
<p>The argument we have here is based on how colleges report their numerical data. Even if one college reported in a slightly different manner than another, chances are that the difference made is insignificant. We’re talking about a fraction of a fraction that makes up ranking data.</p>
<p>CMC admitted to lying about their SAT scores by ~20 points and have gone UP in USNWR ranking since then.</p>
<p>@carotid - I, at least, wasn’t saying that how an institution reports test scores defines that quality of that institution, and I think only one poster really is. The rest of us are both debunking that, I think, and talking about the details therein.</p>
<p>@bluebayou and @ucbalumnus - I see your points that a 4.0 ranking might still include allowing for adding bonus points for an A+ or AP courses or whatever, but to me that is being VERY expansive with what I think the intent of “using a 4.0” scale meant. But you are right, it is just another example of how the ambiguity in the instructions makes comparing schools, presumably the main intent of the CDS project, much less than perfect. It still seems also, in regard to Cal, that they must have changed from a fully weighted GPA to, most likely as you say ucbalumnus, the weighted-capped GPA.</p>
<p>Since CMC reports 42% or freshman submitted ACT’s, which is a high percentage for CA, it can just report the best SAT scores that total 58% and toss the worst ones. Data massaging always raises questions about what exactly was done and whether mistakes were made and if all individuals were accounted for. It’s much easier to answer the test-data questions truthfully and skip the puffery.</p>
<p>Even if outright lying got CMC 20 points, data massaging gets the school even more.</p>
<p>GPA’s are on all different scales and are intractable. Class rank or percentile ranges are a better measure.</p>
I can say with an extreme degree of certainty that EVERYONE only reports the best SAT (or ACT) score out of the various times a student might have taken the test. No school reports all times a student took the SAT (ACT). If you are saying the school would arbitrarily not include an SAT score of a student who only took the SAT and not the ACT, that is absurd and you have zero evidence to support such a contention. What their reporting percentages say is that of all the students that took both the ACT and SAT, they selected the one that was best for the student. Nothing wrong with that; as I said that is no different than taking the best SAT score or ACT score of multiple test dates.</p>
<p>Quit trying to make it look like this is a CMC issue, especially in areas where they really are not doing anything wrong. If you have a vendetta against CMC, just say so and let’s be done with it.</p>
<p>@drax12 - I am just trying to explain why CMC shows exactly 100% and not greater when you combine the SAT takers and ACT takers. Almost all other schools show a percentage greater than 100%. So it makes sense that CMC only considers one of the tests if they receive more than one. And in addition, I believe, they only report the one they chose on the CDS. That might be considered manipulation. I believe, however, fallenchemist’s idea that once CMC throws away the scores it doesn’t use, those scores are “forgotten” as a result of the way they retrieve those scores for CDS purposes. I could be wrong and it could be straight manipulation like you believe.</p>
<p>@GrudeMonk - Yes, I cannot of course say for certain that is why it happens this way. But I think it still wouldn’t be “manipulation”, at least not in the pejorative sense that word connotes. I continue to say that I see nothing wrong in calculating the reported data based on the best test presented, just like they do if the same test is taken multiple times. Under any logical construct, it is the same thing, given how they are used by admissions the same way. A person presents 2 SAT scores, they take the best one. A person presents one SAT and one ACT score, they take the more favorable one. Just because other schools choose to interpret the CDS question differently doesn’t make CMC wrong, manipulative, unethical, or anything else except perhaps smarter than the others.</p>
<p>Most of you who have had various responses in pages four and five…</p>
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<p>We’re talking hs grades…</p>
<p>But neither Miami’s nor any other inst’s mean gpa would be > 4.0. For any UC, any hs course on an uw scale that is an ‘A’ grade is rounded down to 4.0. Clearly the language states “unweighted,” if not capped at 4.0.</p>
<p>And I realize you’re arguing specifically to a 4-point scale and offering counter examples.</p>
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<p>Here’s a quote from UC Berkeley’s College Tools:</p>
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<p>I’ll add, since the algorithm towards calculating the various gpa’s branches out later on, the uw and fully w gpas are 10-11 and a-g courses. </p>
<p>Both UCLA and Cal admit mainly off of uw and fully w gpas because UC gpa is mainly only, as it says, an eligibility calculation. I believe that for u’s, both sets of gpa are presented to the readers along with all the other info, including transcripts of all grades. Individual grades can shoot down an applicant’s admission if it is pertinent enough to his/her future studies.</p>
<p>For example in the importance of uw a-g, 10-11, I can see thresholds of entry based off of these. Any student with < 3.8 uw from a higher end public hs, is more than likely shot down. (Again, Cal probably makes more exceptions for students from top-tier private hss.) </p>
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<p>I know what you’re saying, but the one college that does indeed report all SAT’s and ACT’s for a total of ~ 120-140% is UCLA. Actually, it’s more complicated than this. UCLA takes all students who matriculated, subtracts out all of the Int’l students from all calculations, gpa, SAT, ACT, component scores, and calculates all the various stats. </p>
<p>(We know that UCLA Int’l students have higher means/medians scores than instate students, because a portion of the latter are admitted on holistics (read:‘other factors’) rather than stats as related to/for the former (because gpa is harder to “translate” for the former and therefore scores become the ultimate in importance). (This paragraph is proven by a UC Berkeley link, which I’m too lazy to supply.))</p>
<p>UCLA then computes all SAT’s and ACT’s for the mix of domestic students and includes them on all of its reporting including CDS. This is one of the four (not three) ways that UCLA purposely understates scores. </p>
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<p>I’m not the one that is accusing CMC of data manipulation; you’re confusing me with @rhg3rd. I said that most colleges, if not what CMC does in reporting a total of 100% of both tests, do make the adjustment to 100% in reporting the 75th and 25th medians.</p>
<p>All three GPAs should be available to UC admissions readers, as they are automatically calculated from the self-reported courses and grades.</p>
<p>Unweighted and UC GPA are likely 0.3 to 0.4 apart for most UC frosh applicants and admits, since most have taken more than 8 semesters’ worth of honors and AP courses.</p>
<p>I think one thing to keep in mind here is that the main purpose of the CDS, I believe, is to make it easier to compare schools on a consistent data basis. So for all the nuances, citing of statements made by schools, etc., it seems clear to me that the intention of the statement made in section C11-12 was that schools were supposed to recalculate HS GPA based on A=4.0, B=3.0, etc. without any bonus points for AP courses, etc. Those factors would presumably be reflected in their class ranking. Now perhaps a smarter way for the CDS to have done it would be to set a standard for honors courses and AP courses to have bonus points (0.5 for honors, 1.0 for AP?), but at this point they have not. So while I can see what a couple of posters have said that just saying “using a 4.0 scale” can still be somewhat ambiguous, it seems to me that when you combine the most likely interpretation of that statement along with the presumed purpose of the CDS, everyone ought to be calculating what I would call a “clean” GPA. Clearly many are not, while many others do exactly that.</p>
<p>
Again, I am not arguing that some schools (many even) don’t report the total that took each test without taking out the overlap for that particular stat, which simply states how many took each test, regardless of their scores. This strikes me as trivial since I doubt anyone really cares how many took each test when they are trying to evaluate how strong the students at a school are academically, or for just about anything else for that matter. The only people that would care about the split between each test are the people that work for ACT and ETS. So I and just about everyone else really don’t care if it adds up to exactly 100% or if everyone took both tests to make it 200%. Since the CDS instructions are far less exact in this regard (as compared to the GPA instructions already discussed) I can see how different schools decide to proceed differently.</p>
<p>I also am not arguing that some schools (probably fewer than the number just referenced) don’t include both the SAT score(s) and ACT score(s) from the same student when calculating the 25-75% ranges. Again, the instructions really are not clear as to exactly what data the schools should be including or are allowed to omit when doing their calculations. Just to restate, I think very few people would disagree that the school is on perfectly valid ground when only counting the best SAT score out of 3 times a student took it, or even using the superscore if the instructions don’t specifically say one sitting. The same logic says that a school might choose to only use the better of a particular student’s SAT and ACT score. Until the people doing the CDS make the data set desired to do every calculation perfectly clear, there are good arguments for doing exactly that.</p>
<p>Keep in mind also that, as far as I know, the CDS is voluntary. There might be a lot of pressure to do it because not doing it creates its own set of issues, but I don’t believe the Dept. of Education has adopted it as a requirement at this point.</p>
<p>Some (hopefully) small corrections from my previous post:</p>
<p>To bluebayou, I wrote:</p>
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<p>the “‘A’ grade” s/b ‘A+’ grade or over a 4.0 on a 4-point scale which does happen in some hss. I don’t know the exact awarding, but it could be, say, 4.25, so there are a very few who could graduate with > 4.0 on an uw scale. I’ve heard of one person who did this in hs, who without irony chose to attend Harvard. For UC purposes, though, a 4.25 for a course would be rounded back to 4.0. This works in the other direction also: a ‘B-minus’ grade for a course is awarded a 3.0 in gpa calculation. </p>
<p>ucbalumnus:</p>
<p>"For example in the importance of uw a-g, 10-11, I can see thresholds of entry based off of these. Any student with < 3.8 uw from a higher end public hs, is more than likely shot down [by Cal and UCLA]. </p>
<p>All other UC’s probably admit mainly to fully wgpa, UCSD, and a combination of fully wgpa and UC gpa, for much of the rest. (You can pretty much eyeball a gpa and tell if it’s good enough, but, as you stated, it along with the other two are necessary calculaitons.) SD will accept someone who is weighty in AP’s, but isn’t as strict towards uw gpa as UCLA and Cal are. This (last point) is evident in, say, more the 3.6/4.3+ gpas that this SD accepts, especially prior, when its admission was more formula based. </p>
<p>If UCLA’s uwgpa is ~3.84, and Cal’s ~3.86 (it isn’t 3.9+ which is more of an admitted student gpa rather than those who’ve actually matriculated. [Cal likes to report class stats after acceptances are given.]) … SD’s would be hard to guess, because it doesn’t anywhere report this. I would guess, however, it would be ~ 3.75 max, and I’m thinking lower, maybe ~ 3.70, mainly because its yield is woefully low of top-end stats students (except for as you noted the ‘specialty’ majors as engineering).</p>
<p>fallenchemist:</p>
<p>I don’t have any problem in most of the reporting of CDS’s by colleges. I just like to point out some of the subtle differences that do exist because of ‘loopholes’ in language. I also wanted to get the word out that UCLA understates scores in about four ways. </p>
<p>“I think one thing to keep in mind here is that the main purpose of the CDS, I believe, is to make it easier to compare schools on a consistent data basis.”</p>
<p>Exactly my point about reporting ACT and SAT scores.</p>
<p>“Again, the instructions really are not clear as to exactly what data the schools should be including or are allowed to omit when doing their calculations.”</p>
<p>Only if you’re a clown are the instructions unclear. The USNWR survey at questions # 158-161 elaborates exactly on what is meant. It certainly doesn’t mean that UCLA or anyone else can exclude test scores of internationals, URM’s, athletes, legacies or any category of students.</p>
<p>All three reports: CDS, USNWR and USDOE have a large overlap of core statistical information. Institutional Research departments are well aware of this. If CMC and a few others are clowning responses to the CDC, then they are lying on the more precisely defined USNWR survey.</p>
<p>@rhg3rd - If you are going to make claims about the wording of USNWR, then you should give a link to the wording they use. I see nothing of value in the links you gave to Wesleyan’s submission to USNWR, it doesn’t include any wording I don’t see on the CDS itself. The link to CMC’s College Navigator page is similarly useless, it sheds no light on the discussion. All you’ve shown is what we already know, that different schools have interpreted the data needed to fulfill the request differently, and IMO each interpretation is legitimate. Unless you can find instructions by any of these entities that differ from the CDS instructions and give us that link, it is like you are just shouting more loudly but not saying anything different. I think I have amply demonstrated the ambiguity of the instructions, despite the fact that they seem clear to you. I certainly hope you are not calling me a clown.</p>
<p>^I did give a link to USNWR survey. Wesleyan is one the few institutions which publishes it. The wording is at questions 158 to 161, which I posted above a few pages back.</p>
<p>There is NO ambiguity to the number of enrolled freshman who submitted SAT’s nor those who submitted ACT’s.</p>
<p>@rhg3rd - I guess I didn’t make my point clear. That’s great for Wesleyan. Where are the comparable numbers for CMC on the USNWR, not the CDS. I don’t subscribe to USNWR and so I cannot see what CMC actually reported to them.</p>
<p>But let’s even say that what they reported on their CDS is what they gave to USNWR. Who cares?? Talk about a meaningless statistic. I said it before and I will say it again. Of the two statistical areas, the one that reports the 25-75% numbers and averages is FAR more meaningful to people than how many took which test. It certainly isn’t used in the rankings, while the average test scores are. I honestly don’t know why they even ask that any more, but they do. So if the way CMC keeps track of test scores is to throw out the ones they don’t use when they consider a student for admission, and that same system then generates who took which test and only reports back the test they used to make a decision, then fine. Man, you are screaming about the most meaningless thing in the world on this. It is like making a Federal case if someone shorted you a penny when making change at a store. Maybe they technically stole your money, but good Lord, get some perspective.</p>