We all know that class ranks are one of the most important things in a college admissions process… which is why this is troubling me.
My GPA is about a 3.6 and my school does not weigh grades.
However, if my school did weigh grades, i estimated my GPA to be about a 4.3 (i’m taking the most rigorous course load that my school is offering)
My Problem:
My class rank is at top 18% or the second decile.
If my school did weigh, I would easily be in the top 5% of my class–but my school doesnt weigh so that information is pretty irrelevant, it seems.
So my question is… how badly will this affect my chances at one of the top-notch schools?
(i really want to go to upenn)
<p>oh and i forgot to mention some other things
I'm an asian male
varsity swimmer
good SAT's (assume that i will reach the 2250 mark on the new SAT)
decent leadership positions
decent recs
and i was thinking about CAS for penn</p>
<p>but my question is mainly about the unweighted class ranks as opposed to weighted ones.
thanks :)</p>
<p>I'm in sort of a similar situation. My school doesn't weight grades, and while my class rank is still very high, most of the people ahead of me are half-wits who take two sections of P.E. and three of art, while I'm taking 5 APs this year. I think it's worth taking into account that your colleges know that GPAs are not weighted, and they can look at your transcripts, so they know that you're taking a solid course load. Furthermore, even if you did have weighted GPA, that doesn't necessarily carry all that weight simply because what constitutes an A in an English Comp. class isn't standardized -- you might have a 4.8 weighted, but it might not mean a whole hell of a lot. I've had a few college admissions officers from fairly rigorous schools tell me that you can get your foot in the door for consideration with high GPA or test scores. It's the other stuff that'll make or break you. The "I built 300 homes with Habitat for Humanity, own twelve patents related to DNA micro-array technology, and have been published eight times in Nature for my work regarding space splasma released by Cygnus-A" kids are going to be the ones that beat you out, not the moron who has demonstrated his ability to consistently get a 4.0 in shop and commercial art.</p>
<p>Also, I forgot to tell you why weighted systems are stupid too --- they're just as vulnerable to manipulation as unweighted GPAs are. For instance, and this is extreme, but makes the point well, if you, beginning in your freshman year, depending on your school's policy, took only honors classes and AP courses, and got straight As, you could have a 5.0, or say you slip up once or twice, and have a very nice 4.9. Suppose also because of the limited number of honors and AP courses available to you at any one time, you take 5 courses at a time, and just barely satisfy your graduation requirements. Now say that I take all the same courses that you do, and earn all the same grades. But suppose that in addition to the courses you take, I also take a bunch of electives beyond my graduation requirements, say, averaging 6.5 classes at a time. And suppose I got all As there. Well, I did everything you did, and then some, adding extra classes on, and still getting As across the board. But because I took courses that were out of 4 instead of 5, my GPA will be lower. You can do less work, and to a certain degree, even do it less well, and still end up with a higher weighted GPA than the next guy if you're smart enough to leave a couple empty periods in you day and take a long lunch. So you, who took a hit in your GPA for doing more work, and not facing any numerical benefit from doing more, might just gain a little respect from the admissions people over Johnny the make-believe over-achiever, who went to a school with a weighted system, and got to wake up late and skip first period to preserve his high GPA.</p>
<p>hey thanks for the long post
but
it turns out that i would be the "Johnny" in that story (although i did take 6 periods each day)
but i did have a rigorous load.
but my point is:
i majorly slacked my freshman and sophomore years and got a 3.3/3.5/3.6/3.3
my junior year (this year) i got a 3.8 (woke up and stopped slacking)
but my previous two years are haunting me..
my class rank is relatively low, and the only thing saving me is the amount of APs and honors i took... i was just hoping that when colleges see my horrible class rank, they will see that it is unweighted..
thanks for the great posts though!</p>
<p>abeppu: Not all schools calculate it that way. GPA is first calculated without any weight. Then for every honors/AP course, 0.2 is added to the overall GPA.</p>
<p>Example: 5 A's and 1 B... 4 weighted.
[5(4)+1(3)]/6=3.83+4(0.2)=4.63</p>
<p>whoa..
oddly enough, i received five As and one B with four weighted my junior year.
but i thought an A turned into a five on the four-point scale.. so my weighted GPA would be a 4.5?
i dunno i would hope that colleges did it your way--it seems much more lenient =P</p>
<p>Well, my understanding is that weighted systems vary significantly not only in how much they weight, but where they weight, especially since what constitutes "honors" "advanced" or "accelerated" changes. A school in my district uses weighted, and has the IB program, and my understanding is that "pre-IB" courses are recognized as more difficult than normal ones, but are not weighted, while actual IB courses are. But in your case, it's worth noting that: 1) colleges look at trends, so doing better junior and senior years gives you a leg up over people with comparable schedules and GPAs who have gone down in their junior or senior years, and 2) some colleges discount the freshman year entirely. I forget, but I think it was either Stanford or Princeton that throws out freshman grades and recalculates. In part, they don't think it's really pertinent any longer, and an A in ninth grade requires a lot less than an A in your senior year. Furthermore, some systems, the ninth grade is at an entirely different school, and course availability, or grading systems may be different. You might be in better shape than you think. Really, college admissions, especially at competetive institutions, are more or less fair in comparing. But Penn might be a reach.</p>