<p>Getting a B for a semester grade in APUSH, but getting a 5 on the AP exam/800 on the SAT II. </p>
<p>Will they think I'm lazy?</p>
<p>Depends. If most of the class got B’s or below, they’ll think it was just a hard class. If most of the class got A’s, they’ll think you’re a slacker.</p>
<p>^He could not have been any more wrong. First of all, the college does not know what grades your peers earned. Secondly, they won’t think you’re lazy unless most of your grades were B’s. Other than that, most people have a few B’s on their transcripts and still get in to great schools.</p>
<p>“First of all, the college does not know what grades your peers earned.”</p>
<p>With class rank they do. They won’t know the grade distribution for an individual class but they’ll know how difficult the school was in general. Individual classes tend to reflect that. </p>
<p>As far as getting a B, I don’t think they’ll care because it’s not like a B was ever some horrible abomination anyway.</p>
<p>Should not be a big deal, unless you have a bad class rank it will be implied that the class was hard.</p>
<p>Not at all! If those are the scores you got on those exams, colleges will understand that level of difficulty of the course at your school is much higher than others around the country. Thats what standardized tests are for, so that they can look at their applicants on a level playing field. While you may have gotten a B in a hard APUSH class, others might’ve gotten easy A’s, but are less prepared for exams and college in general. So don’t stress!</p>
<p>That’s reassuring to hear.</p>
<p>Class rank in my school is kind of skewed; it’s based on unweighted GPA.
Not sure how they’d tell in that case.</p>
<p>We have a student in our class who got early acceptance to Harvard and was accepted to Stanford who has the exact same class ranking as someone who is known to be a slacker in our school, with no rigorous classes.</p>
<p>“it’s based on unweighted GPA.”</p>
<p>They can still tell if there’s grade inflation. Low GPA with a higher rank means there’s probably less inflation.
Even if the class wasn’t that difficult, most people get Bs at some point.</p>
<p>At my school, a lot of people have the same class rank, and the same GPA.
There’s a lot of 4.0s and 3.9+'s since many of them tend to take easier classes with no rigor.
For example, my friend who has taken 12 AP classes (5’s and 4’s), got a 2250 on the SAT has the same exact GPA as three other people who have never taken an honors or AP class. (3.978)
Her class rank is 11/408 or something.</p>
<p>There will also be a school report telling various factoids about your school (not sure exactly what) so colleges can get an idea of how much grade inflation/deflation it has. </p>
<p>Again, though - a college is not going to look at everything else you’ve accomplished and decide to reject you solely because you got a B in one class which means you must be lazy. Certain extremely selective colleges will most likely reject you anyway, but it won’t be because of that. </p>
<p>Also, a rant:
I don’t understand schools that allow ties in class rank. (I can understand if it happens once or twice, but there’s usually some kind of difference that would allow you to rank one person above the other. As in course rigor, not test scores.) If a lot of people have the same class rank what’s the point of having class rank at all?</p>
<p>I honestly don’t know myself.
Some of my teachers have told me it’s because if they had a normal class rank system, it would hurt people’s feelings.</p>
<p>Eh, the only people who have the personality necessary to get hurt feelings over class rank probably would have good ranks anyway.</p>
<p>My county/school doesn’t rank. At all. No one can figure out where they stand. The say it’s because there’s too many 4.0’s and people think that’s normal.</p>