What is a competitive high school?

<p>I am planning on transferring to a US college from Canada. I was the salutatorian of my high school (of 367 students), but I'm not sure how "competitive" my school was. The provincial government sets the median student's grade to 65%, and that was the average grade in our high school (I had 94.6%). Does that mean that my high school was not competitive?</p>

<p>With a 64.5% average? Unless Canada’s grades are ridiculously deflated compared to those at most American schools, then I would say your school is not particularly competitive. That said, I don’t think the competitiveness of your school will make or break your application. They really only care about what you did in the CONTEXT of the opportunities you had at your school.</p>

<p>Canada’s grades are deflated, I agree. Things like a “100% average” don’t exist, but I hear that getting thrown around a lot on college confidential. </p>

<p>We write standardized exams worth 50% of our final grade, and the exams are curved to set the provincial average to 65%. I think that my high school followed suit, and if the class averages got too high, the teachers would give harder exams. They made an exception for AP classes though, which had an average of 80%.</p>

<p>Anyone else?</p>