<p>Would a 3.86 GPA be considered high for some tier 1 colleges and lower ivies? I ask this because the top 10-15% of my high school (average public high school) are valedictorians with 4.0s, which pushes me to like the top 20-25%. My course load is different than most students because I’ve been taking full college course load at a community college since my junior year.</p>
<p>Not high, but good, although many CCers will likely disagree, especially because of the class rank (which is a crap measurement anyway). community college is also a plus IMO</p>
<p>A 3.86 is excellent (although it is a little weaker if it is only top 20-25%) especially if it is at a school where 4.0s are hard to come by.</p>
<p>Class rank is the measure, not GPA. GPA is only meaningful in the context of your school. Being below top 10% at a non top HS would make ivies very difficult.</p>
<p>The top 10-15% of your high school are valedictorians? That will be one long graduation 
!</p>
<p>A 3.86 is a great GPA, but the 20-25% rank will hurt for Ivies/top LACs. Then again, the college class would help that situation. Many schools (esp. Ivies) look at applicants holistically, so a 3.86 will not shut you out. However, they’re also a crap shoot for everyone, so the chances of getting in aren’t great.</p>
<p>Okay well my school doesn’t rank but just for curiosity purposes, say your school has 36 people in the grade and your ranked like number 5, is that still considered pretty bad.</p>
<p>5/36 comes out to about 14%… I’d say you’re fine.</p>
<p>Over 90% of the class at all ivies were in the top 10% of their class. The vast majority were much higher than that. At Dartmouth, a mid tier ivy, 40% were either val or sal to give you an example.</p>
<p>When a HS doesn’t rank, colleges use the school profile and historical data to guess a rank for you.</p>
<p>Ahh okay thanks guys.</p>
<p>“The top 10-15% of your high school are valedictorians? That will be one long graduation”</p>
<p>Well, last year, we had ~40 (class size of 39X). They each recited like a few words of the poem Jabberwocky, and it was kind of lame. We don’t have a valedictorian speech like other high schools haha.</p>
<p>at my school, there isn’t a single kid who has a 4.0 uw cumulative. ap world gets us all.</p>
<p>GPA is all in context of your class rank. To contrast your example, I have a 3.35 UW gpa, and I am in the top 12% of the class at the 134th best public high school in nation.</p>
<p>^richan90</p>
<p>Oh. LOL! I was imagining 40 kids standing up and giving ten minute speeches. I think attendance would be minimal 
. Though I think it’s a cute idea to honor the top kids in the grade without pinpointing one… less competition, less stress, less hair-pulling.</p>
<p>Well the rest of us who get anything below an A on a single class get dropped from rank 1 to like the top 10-15% =/.</p>
<p>That’s pretty rampant grade inflation. What state are you in?</p>
<p>Washington State</p>
<p>Because there is no weighted GPA, it is incredibly easy to take even all honors classes and get straight As without being a hard worker. It gets harder when you go into the APs, so most people taking those courses get lower than a 4.0. I don’t think a college would delve that deeply into our school profile though.</p>
<p>hmom’s post are frightening. I go to a school that stopped ranking this year where few people ever apply to Ivies. Those schools don’t have historical data, and to top it off the guidance counselors are new this year.</p>
<p>Richan and illuminar, if you’re applying to schools where few apply from your HS, ask your counselor to touch bases with admissions to address these issues. Also ask for a school profile to see how clear it makes things like the fact your school doesn’t weight.</p>
<p>At my kids’ school there have only been four 4.0 students in the last 20 years. There is no ranking of the class and there is no weighting of the grades. According to an article put out by WSJ and acceptance into Ivies, our school was in the top 50 with something like 10% of the class accepted to Ivies. This said, quite a few of even those students with straight A’s and perfect scores, etc. need a hook of some kind or a bump whether that’s legacy, sports, URM, some other special talents or some combination thereof in order to gain admissions. </p>
<p>So while I truly believe that schools such as Dartmouth fully review the sum total of a kids record and have a good ideal of the reputation of the high school (and if not, the school usually sends profiles anyway) so they can see where you may or may not fit in their puzzle. And if, for example, you’re the second tuba player who has summer studies in science to come along to admissions, well… you’ll be considering other schools. :)</p>
<p>hmom5</p>
<p>Although my counselor is a great guy, he has no time for touching bases with admissions officers. He does not simply BS recommendation letters, and spends about 1-3 hours on each student writing them, and having over 150 students, this is an admirable feat. However, my recommendation letter that I basically wrote with him is about 2 pages long and addresses issues of my special course selection through community college classes. I hope that helped haha.</p>
<p>Part of a college counselors job, in my estimation, is building conversations with admissions people. It is part of their job to put your school in perspective to other high schools. And certainly this can be slightly better accomplished with a school profile. And if a lot of kids from your HS neither apply or get into Ivy schools, I wonder if they would if there was more encouragement and the process. Please note the use of the phrase, I wonder. </p>
<p>While I understand the constraints of a large school as my oldest D attended one with a class of nearly 800, I find a recommendation you basically wrote with him by your own admission kind of disingenuous. It sounds like you spend those 1-3 hours with him not in addition to time with you. It does seem to me that certain colleges build better relationships with some high schools more so than others, and while I hope you had less to do with your other recommendations, it would appear that any “promoting” might perhaps have to come from you vs the support of your counseling office.</p>