<p>Newjack88, I actually repeat what I heard in JHU’s open house admission session. The adcom was a very nice black man, he said what he presented were mostly true in top ranked colleges. He also mentioned sometimes the val from some schools mean nothing to them, he said it was a joke that some HS at middle west have 80 val. how can you take this seriousely?..SAT and AP are the only things they can OBJECTIVELY measure up students academic achivement across from different schools…one thing you are right though, the GPA from different schools has different quality. That’s why college adcom need to look at SAT, AP scores.</p>
<p>arachnop, a good hs GPA could also mean (not excludedely) the student took all easy courses. The same adcom said, if your took only one AP while your school offer 12, they will have a ? on how you chalange yourself enough. If they admit you, will you effeciently use the resource JHU provideded to you. ^-^.</p>
<p>Anyway you can’t just look at the GPAs from different school. The courses are taught in different level, the teacher’s score standards are different, student body are different, etc.. In our local public HS, there is no A+, some teachers don’t give out A easily, some just don’t give A…I think adcom knows how to read your GPAs against your school’s profile, read your SAT against the kids from other schools.</p>
<p>I’m sick of ppl saying how SAT score could be ‘bought’ by well of parents…most case a very convinient ‘excuse’ for those who can’t make the cut. And if you kept making excusing, you will never make the cut.</p>