<p>“Keep pushing.”</p>
<p>missypie - The GC has essentially told you that she’s as yet undecided whether to check that box or not. (My speculation is “not.”) So yes, you need to keep pushing her until you get an answer.</p>
<p>I agree 100% with Dean J on the impossibility of establishing a specific numeric answer to the question as to what constitutes a “good GPA.”</p>
<p>But I would also suggest that it is difficult to state categorically what constitutes a good class rank (aside from perhaps the val or sal) due to the fact that methodologies used to calculate rank vary so widely from place to place (maybe this isn’t true in Virginia?). For example, Missypie notes that in her school an 88 in AP is the equivalent of a 100 in a regular college prep course. In my daughter’s school and 88 in an AP is the equivalent of a 93, as is a “community-college-in-the-high-school” course. An 88 in a “Regents level course” (basic college prep) is the equivalent of a 90 or 91 when it comes to ranking. This sort of thing invites a lot of gaming the system at our school and some others I know whereby AP-caliber students take the easier Regents level courses because they know they’ll be able to pull a higher unweighted grade than they’d get with a weighted grade in AP.</p>
<p>Bottom line – in my opinion ranking can only be considered within the context of a given school also, and that context is not always clear in the HS Profile’s I have seen.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I didn’t ask the question in the specific context of my own daughter. At “Junior Parents Night”, in the Q and A, I asked what their requirements were, how many APs, etc and she wouldn’t answer, said it varies. Does that mean that if your APs are in Calc and Physics she checks the box but not if they’re in Art History and Psych? </p>
<p>This is a large public HS that looks good when their students get into good schools. What movitation would a GC have to be stingy with checking that box? Seems like the public school GCs would want to check every box they could to help get their students into good schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here was my '09 son’s experience, all with very similar schools in the same part of the country:</p>
<p>School A: used weighted GPA for admissions and merit aid
School B: used unweighted GPA for admissions and merit aid
School C: used weighted GPA for admissions and unweighted for merit aid</p>
<p>None of that was on their websites - we had to ask the question directly.</p>
<p>No reason not to ask your daughter’s GC directly which box she will check. I’ve done it before and have always received an answer. I’ve suggested to neighbor’s kids that they ask their GC which box they’ll check and those kids have always received an answer. This would seem to be an essential piece of information when putting together a college admissions strategy, and I would fail to see what the GC would gain by witholding it.</p>
<p>I would think it’s grade inflation if even with weighing, such a high GPA is such a modest rank.</p>
<p>It’s not necessarily grade inflation if that many kids take APs and get A’s. If they’re all smart and all learning, if they all deserve A’s, it’s just a tough school and really hard to be in the top 10% So maybe the top 15% would be deserving of high honors.</p>
<p>Unlike a school where a 4.0 means nothing because you are the best of a sorry lot, and your 4.0 is the result of all A’s in easy courses.</p>
<p>Thank you, Mommusic. If our top 25 - 30 kids take 14-16 AP classes and get As in all of them, and the next 30 kids take 8-10 APs and get As in them, that’s pretty much the top 10% right there. I don’t really consider coming in slightly below that crowd anything to be ashamed of.</p>
<p>I think a real problem in today’s high schools (some of them) is the grade inflation arrived at because no one does any work, so anyone who exhibits a pulse gets an A or B and gets passed on to the next class. Eventually they graduate with a solid 3.0+ average and think they can do college work. </p>
<p>And think they can get A’s in college just for showing up.</p>
<p>missypie - Sorry, I misread your initial post … I thought you were asking in the context of your D’s situation. (I still don’t understand why answering this question should be problematic, but that issue’s probably better suited to another thread.)</p>
<p>As for motivation of HS administrators (re: why wouldn’t they check the box if they benefit from kids getting into top schools?) I’ve given up trying to decode administrators’ decision-making rationale … too many “Why would they do THAT?” moments in our school district.</p>
<p>At Son’s graduation last year, they asked everyone who had received straight As in high school to stand. Out of a class of around 600, one boy stood up. He wasn’t in the top 10%, or even in NHS. He must have taken all regular courses.</p>
<p>The kids certainly don’t have grade inflation in their AP classes. One of my pet peeves is that some of the AP teachers start giving timed AP practice tests early in the year, for a test grade. I think the kids deserve the weighting.</p>
<p><a href=“I%20still%20don’t%20understand%20why%20answering%20this%20question%20should%20be%20problematic,%20but%20that%20issue’s%20probably%20better%20suited%20to%20another%20thread.”>quote</a></p>
<p>As for motivation of HS administrators (re: why wouldn’t they check the box if they benefit from kids getting into top schools?) I’ve given up trying to decode administrators’ decision-making rationale … too many “Why would they do THAT?” moments in our school district.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don’t like it that they don’t appear to have a set standard. I fear that they do make an individual decision for each kid - do they decide that the AP math and science classes are more rigorous than the AP humanities classes? Or (a bigger fear), knowing that they should not say that half the class took the most rigorous course load, do they only check the box for the kids applying to selective schools and figure that the kids applying to less selective schools don’t need it?</p>
<p>Hmmm…I haven’t bugged the GCs for a while. I think I’ll press the issue.</p>
<p>What you have to understand is that at many top high schools they curve so that you can’t have a high achieving kid that ends up in the top 15%. By definition, while it seems like there is a competitive sector, this is not the picture of an overall highly competitive high school.</p>
<p>Why they don’t easily just check the most competitive box is because they would lose all credibility with the colleges. The colleges look closely, they know the tough teachers whose good recs mean something, they know what most rigorous means and it can’t extend beyond reason.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I disagree. I think that many private schools and some publics have such a bright student body that the top 20% or 25% or even 50% of the students are high achieving. (Which is why more and more of those schools don’t rank.)</p>
<p>"I don’t really consider coming in slightly below that crowd anything to be ashamed of. "</p>
<p>It isn’t anything to be ashamed of. But, the reality is that highly competitive colleges (if that’s the type of school your child will be applying to) will be comparing these kids to your D. Unless your child has outstanding achievement in an EC, or something that really stands out, she won’t rise above the kids with higher “rated” high school records from her HS.</p>
<p>So…the kid who took 12 - 15 AP’s…including Calc BC and Physics C …and has high grades in all of those AP classes, will be considered by elite universities to have taken a more rigorous schedule than a kid FROM THE SAME SCHOOL who took 8 -10 AP’s and didn’t take Calc BC and Physics C. </p>
<p>In our competitive public HS, the top kids in the class are basically told they need to take the highest level AP courses in math, science, English, gov’t/history and foreign language. There are a few who don’t take the highest level in all of those subjects who are admitted to elite colleges. But, in every case, they have some other strong hook that helps them overcome the competition with the AP brainiacs — like accomplished artist or musician, passion for theater, leadership in time consuming EC, participation in social science research class ,etc – along with incredible essays and recs.</p>
<p>Also, due to HS reputation, once a student goes below the elites…a student in the top 50% of our HS will often be admitted with lower objective stats (GPA and tests) than the median for that school.</p>
<p>As for high achieving student bodies – even if a school doesn’t rank, colleges know where students stand in relationship to other students at the school. At an admissions based public HS. like TJ in Fairfax County VA or Sty in NY, the mid 50% of the kids would be in the top 10-20% of an average HS. But most of that mid-50% won’t be admitted to the top elite schools , unless they have a non-academic hook or an unusual academic hook, because those elites won’t fill a class (even though they could) from Boston Latin, Sty, Bronx Science, TJ, Illinois Math and Science Academy, North Carolina School for Science and Math, Andover, Exeter, the Harker School, etc.</p>
<p>Plus here you’re looking at a school that does rank. When kids are looking at schools that take 92% that were in the top 10% of their class, these kids will not get in without a hook. I do agree that at schools a bit down from there they’ll have a boost from being at a strong HS.</p>
<p>A thing to note - a lot of smaller schools don’t rank at all. My child’s school doesn’t rank because it would be entirely impossible to weight courses and because the school is so small.
GPAs are also generally understood in context of the school, which is why school profiles are generally sent. Admissions officers for a given geographical area also know at least some of the schools in their region and take things in context.
This ties into why the GCs don’t just ‘check the most rigorous box’ for kids to give them a boost. Schools develop reputations over time. If all the GCs at school X always check this box, without regard to reality, admissions officers will figure it out over time and discount it.</p>
<p>That all being said the ‘most rigorous’ thing is somewhat problematic. The most rigorous course may not actually be the one with the AP label. I remember that the hardest course in the history department at my high school was an Asian history course, not the survey AP course. I can also tell you all that Greek is very tough , but there are no AP Greek exams anymore.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My daughter chose to take regular physics rather than honors physics because the regular physics teacher at the high school is a once-in-a-lifetime teacher with a waiting list of students who want to be in his class. Counselors recommend that the honors physics looks better on the transcript particularly for students who have taken all AP sciences. Some students listen - the honors teacher (okay at best) manages to fill a classroom - and those students usually regret the choice.</p>
<p>I will say that my daughter will not be applying to any school remotely considered “elite.” I’m looking for merit money and know that she needs to be near the top of the applicant pool to get decent offers.</p>