I’m a rising junior (Bahamian citizen) who will be attending an American high school this fall, however there is a slight problem with the way my previous school (a Dominican-American one) arranged the grades.
We have 13 classes (yikes, I know) and take one test and quiz per month that accounts 50% of our grade (once again, I know). The school I went to graded on a relatively holistic curve (with a 70 being good, and 80 being average, a 90 being rare and a 100 being near impossible).
About 1 to 2 students are awarded a 90 per class (I was one of those students and consistently earned a 90 and in certain cases earned a 100% - more than once if I might say so). I have however scored in the 70s (rarely- about 5) and 80s (a little more common, but the 90s outweigh them) and I’m wondering if this would affect the way that colleges look at me as an applicant.
Additional note: I spoke almost no Spanish when I first entered the school and there are only 3 classes in English; I was actually told by numerous professors that I was expected to fail, and I ended up on the principal’s list for all semesters.
“I’m a rising junior (Bahamian citizen) who will be attending an American high school this fall, however there is a slight problem with the way my previous school (a Dominican-American one) arranged the grades.”
Will this be your first year in the US? If so, don’t worry just yet about the effect of your previous high school on future college admissions. What matters right now is how the US high school evaluates your academic records, and how they place you. When you meet with the guidance office, make certain that you understand how your classes have transferred, and if your grades transfer find out how they were recorded and why. You want to be in the best position to graduate from that high school with a full high school diploma. It is not unusual for students who arrive from outside the US to find that they need an extra semester or two to graduate from high school here. It that ends up being your case, embrace it. You will have more time to pull up your GPA, take classes that particularly interest you, build the relationships that make for good letters of recommendation, and sort through the whole issue of which tests you need/want to take.
When you do apply to college, most places will require copies of your records from your first high school. That school will include information on its grading system along with the grades themselves. The admissions office at each college and university has its own way of interpreting international grades. There is no easy way to predict how they will be evaluated. If you will be attending a US high school that has a lot of experience with international students, your own guidance office should be able to give you some advice.