<p>So my GPA for the schools that I'm applying to is a little below their average, but the high school i go to is centered around duel enrollment, so i take around 12 classes a year (6-7 college, in addition to a couple APs). So while i dont get 6 straight As a semester like other applicants, i might get 8 As and a couple Bs, which lowers my Gpa. will admissions counselors consider this and could it compensate for my GPA?</p>
<p>Check the Common Data Set of the colleges in which you are interested to see what weight each element gets for admission. Google Common Data Set and the college name, look in section C7. Class Rigor vs. GPA.</p>
<p>Thank you, that’s very helpful. some of those GPA percentiles really make me nervous though</p>
<p>And say But say an admissions counselor is looking at two kids: one took 6 classes and got 6 As, and I took 11 Classes and got 8 As and 3 Bs. the first kid will have a higher GPA than me so will admissions officers thoroughly contextualize our grades?</p>
<p>a 4.00 is really different from say a 3.7</p>
<p>sloth83, my understanding is that most colleges have their own (secret) formula by which they recalculate your GPA/rigor and assign it a score. For example, they may start by throwing out all PE or shop classes, sometimes also art/music, etc. Then they assign some type of weight to honors/AP/IB classes. Then they figure in credits (for instance a lab science class is usually worth more credits) and apply a mathematical formula to rank you. Somewhere online you can find a calculator for something called “Academic Index” which is apparently somewhat similar to what ivies use, though each has their own tweaks. But that might give you a better understanding of the process.</p>
<p>So in your example above, not only are the number of courses and As or Bs factored in, but also what level course, what KIND of course, and how many credits.</p>
<p>If you took a rigorous courseload and got As and Bs, in most cases you’re more attractive than someone with all As who took the easiest courseload.</p>
<p>This has been very frustrating for my daughter and her intellectually curious friends, because while they were taking IB and AP classes and challenging themselves, the have ended up much lower on the “class rank” scale than the kids who took really easy classes and lots of study halls. Her school doesn’t weight grades at all, so those kids wind up in the top 10% while the kids who truly challenged themselves and are in fact the kids that colleges WANT, are down in the 30%/40% zone. </p>
<p>While some schools will recalculate GPAs others will just eye-ball the class rigor and the GPA. It depends on how many apps they get, how much time they have, etc. Many schools will use the class rank (either stated or inferred from the HS Profile sent with the transcript) to figure out whether a 4.0 from school A is a better choice than a 3.7 from school B. </p>
<p>@staceyneil, it’s to bad your school does not use any weighting for class rank. I believe I’ve seen some posts on the boards here from parents who were able to get that changed at their schools because of situations like yours - not rewarding the students who are challenging themselves.</p>
<p>@stacey: selective colleges know how to wade through the non-rigorous, high ranked grade grubbers to find those who really challenge themselves. Although I applied to colleges shortly after the earth’s mantle cooled, my transcript was pretty audacious and spotted w/a few Bs. My ranking was "meh’ and my scores were in the 25th percentile for my reach colleges. But my academic agressiveness (class rigor, not worrying about grades) didn’t hold me back and they all accepted me despite my seeming “weak” metrics.</p>
<p>What’s frustrating is that some colleges (publics) don’t take into account any weighting. My 3.7 GPA kid in a full IB program will be looked at less favorably than the kid who gets a 3.8 in a mediocre program when she applies to a public college that has an excellent department in which my DD is interested. The rationale is that they don’t want to disadvantage kids who don’t have resources of AP/IB programs. </p>