<p>I like that interpretation =). Makes me feel better about have a 3.5 GPA unweighted (4.5 Weighted I think) because my courseload this year (and every year) has been the hardest (7IB, 2 AP this year, 6 IB in 11th, 3 AP in 10th).</p>
<p><em>wonders how sephiroth managed to take 13 IB classes over 2 years, even assuming 4 of them were HL</em></p>
<p>i think there is a way to tell if a school is competitive. or, not necessarily "competitive", per se, but good. if the average SAT score for ur school trumps the national average, or if past graduates have attended mostly good universities.</p>
<p>except i think that colleges don't care that much anyway. they probably divide all the schools in the US into like three-four categories, along the lines of "very good, good, average, crappy city school", and the divisions are not well defined. in addition, while going to a competitive high school is great, i think saying that u go to a non-competitive one is probably better, especially if ur a solid applicant.</p>
<p>one final note, on the subject of GPA, and saying that i "only have a 3.6 ,but go to a competitive high school". if u look at some school profiles, the good ones, anyway, u'll see a breakdown of GPA ranges, and who got in where from that GPA range. if colleges see that ur school has ppl with a 3.1-3.6GPA range, say, going to some very prestigious places, that tells them something about the competitiveness of ur school</p>
<p>Ah, it is not 13 different. I have 4 HL, and 3 SL</p>
<p>Math, English, Physics, History HL</p>
<p>Art, Bio, Spanish SL</p>
<p>=)</p>
<p>They're all multiple year classes, with one test at the end, unlike AP</p>
<p>
[quote]
one final note, on the subject of GPA, and saying that i "only have a 3.6 ,but go to a competitive high school". if u look at some school profiles, the good ones, anyway, u'll see a breakdown of GPA ranges, and who got in where from that GPA range. if colleges see that ur school has ppl with a 3.1-3.6GPA range, say, going to some very prestigious places, that tells them something about the competitiveness of ur school
[/quote]
So true. We had a kid get into Brown with a 5.8/7 last year, which looks very low, but certainly isn't equivalent to a 3.4 at a grade-inflated school where 4.0's are commonplace. No one has ever had a 7.0 uw at my school.</p>
<p>lol.. it does feel weird being told about IB, considering im in it... interesting, we don't get to take 7 classes (only 6 count for ur exam anyway..), nor is our gpa based on the 7.0 system... in fact, we don't get anything for beign in IB, no weighing of gpa, no special system. </p>
<p>but then again, 16 out of the 237 seniors in my school actually do IB</p>
<p>^Yeah, we don't get to take 7 classes either, unless you count TOK and aesthetic electives. As for weighting, grades are multiplied by a coefficient determined by the difficulty of the class.</p>
<p>IB Higher Level course: 1.1
IB Standard Level course: 1.0
Theory of Knowledge: 0.4
Aesthetic elective (art/music/drama/journalism): 0.4</p>
<p>So my unweighted GPA is a 6.3, but my weighted GPA is a 6.6.</p>
<p>I like art so I'm doing extra, but I'm not getting an IB grade on it just the same work =P</p>
<p>One that didn't appear on John Stossel's report? Ahahahahaha</p>