DixonLi

I know there's no way to change what has already happened with GPA but I'm just asking this question for a little peace of mind, or angst of life.

Anyway,

My school doesn't weight GPA for rankings and I'm ranked in the top 18% percent atm. However, there are a few explanations for this. 2nd Quarter of Freshman year I had a 2.9 Cumulative after being sick and out of school for nearly 3 months. But 3rd and 4th quarter I had a 4.0. Sophomore year I transferred to a new school district and got a B+, A-, A- in Precalculus since it turned out that the school districts had different teaching standards for Algebra II (Which is what I took in 9th grade). I did manage to get a 4.0 the last quarter that year. Junior year I did very well. I was in the IB program but our school is a little whacky and all of our IB courses are actually just the AP courses. We literally sign up for AP/IB courses and are taught alongside the AP kids and take the AP exams at the end of year too. So Junior year I took 6 AP classes (one of them was BC calc which was double blocked) and self studied AP French (which I got a 3 on after only taking French 1 the year before) and maintained a 4.0 the whole way.

Senior year I decided to take AP physics in conjunction with 5 AP/IB Higher Level classes. Ap physics is one of the most brutal classes in the school since the tests are difficult and the teacher isn't very good, every year only about 2 or 3 kids can maintain an A in the class all 4 quarters. I just finished first quarter and ended up getting a B+ in the class which ruined my chances of getting a 4.0.

Our schools not weighting is a little ridiculous since at least 50% of the 4.0's (everyone who gets as 4.0 automatically gets ranked as 1 and the person who happens to get a 3.9999999 gets ranked as 23 if 23 people have a 4.0) have never taken an AP course or have only taken 2 or 3 their whole high school career. The IB class which probably has 80% of the smartest and hardest working students in the school has most of their rankings falling in the 50th-25th percentile.

I did have my counselor talk about sickness in 9th grade and another supplemental rec talked about how I should be ranked in top 5% in the class if the school ranked according to weighted GPA.

Given all of this information how would my gpa be viewed by Yale? Especially the B+ in physics.

booyaksha

To answer your q, "how will it be viewed by Yale?"

My guess is not very well. Unless you had cancer or one of your parents' died, I don't think that Yale will really care too much about your reasons why you didn't get a high gpa. They have so many qualified applicants w/ high GPAs that it makes little sense to accept a kid lower than than even if there are good "excuses" -- because, ultimately, they are nothing more than excuses. Especially if you don't go to a super competitive high school, you need to be at the top of your class. One B+ is far far from the end of the world, but multiple B's throughout high school isn't good.

That said, I think you have improved your chances by having your counselor explain the causes. You have also improved your chances by taking the hardest courses. You should apply -- and the admissions counselor will give you a fair read. It is impossible to say what they are going to think of it all though.

DixonLi

Hmmm, I guess my main concern right now (Since I can't change any of the Past GPA) is how much thought adcoms put on ranking when a school doesn't weight its rankings since my GPA itself isn't that bad. The school itself is pretty competitive, every year except for the last 2 years 3-5 students go to HPS (no one has gone to Yale in the last few years, not sure why) and a handful go to other Ivy league schools.