What in the world??? Low elite College average GPAs??

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I was searching collleges on the princeton review website when I came allow the top 361 list. Obviously, I checked out the best schools like Stanford and Princeton, and found something. Their average GPAs were low.</p>

<p>Stanford- 3.90
Princeton- 3.83
Dartmouth- 3.73</p>

<p>I first thought these were unweighted GPAs, but I found that some other schools were clearly listed on the weighted GPA scale</p>

<p>UCLA- 4.12</p>

<p>Why is this like that?
I have to email princeton review and ask them what uniform scale they are using, if any.</p>

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<p>They usually just take the average GPA that the school gives them.</p>

<p>It varies from school to school, there is no set weight for a GPA.</p>

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<p>seems pretty uncharacteristic of princeton review to do that.
they should atleast indicate what scale the GPAs are on so that people who look up colleges on their website are provided with accurate information. </p>

<p>Why don't they just ask for a certain weighted or unweighted GPA rather than taking anything that comes their way?</p>

<p>very unprofessional</p>

4

<p>Yeah GPAs are really hard to understand. Weighting, public vs. private, etc all make it pretty complicated.</p>

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<p>I like how UCLA was used as the "non-elite" example, as if it's the dregs of the university community.</p>

<p>You might as well have put Penn, at that rate.</p>

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<p>darkburnout00:</p>

<p>UCLA (and the other UCs) calculates its own applicant GPA on a 4.5 scale. The unweighted GPAs are irrelevant to UC admissions so it's more accurate to apply the UC GPA instead.</p>

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<p>It would be easy for any college to weigh their GPAs in a way that boosts their numbers...the SATs on the other hand cannot be messed with.....so who knows what those numbers really mean...even very non competetive colleges say their average GPA is 3.5.</p>

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<p>"the SATs on the other hand cannot be messed with"</p>

<p>Well ... schools that don't require the SAT for admissions don't include these SATs (that they may require for placement) in their reported scores. I am also not sure if the verbal scores are always reported for students that are required to submit a TOEFL.</p>

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<p>I think class rank is more meaningful than GPA</p>

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<p>Class Rank isn't more meaningful than GPA.</p>

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<p>Yes it is. Some schools a 3.6 means Ivy League material, other schools hand out 4.0s.</p>

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<p>That was my line of thinking. </p>

<p>Also grade inflation would be more apaprent in GPA than rank.</p>

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<p>u might be ranked #50 in one school and still be brighter than someone ranked #1 in another.</p>

<p>there is more disparity in ranking than in GPA's i think</p>

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<p>class rank at my son's high school means nothing. there are no weighted grades. it's hard to compare a student taking foods and nutrition and algebra III their senior year with someone taking physics II and Senior Math.</p>

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<p>Oh interesting. At my school it's a different twist.</p>

<p>Students that take higher level classes get rewarded by having a weighted class rank, while other students that take food nutrition or w/e get a pretty solid GPA, but a lower rank. </p>

<p>So, from what I can conclude, in some instances GPA is more meaningful in others, class rank. Colleges are probably obviously aware of this, and that's probably why HS's sends out a school report with the students transcript.</p>

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<p>Colleges look at school reputation, too -- adcoms know most of the top regional schools (ones that the average citizen doesn't know) by name.</p>