Better to get an A in less demanding classes for elite college admissions?

[ucbalumnus]

@RichInPitt

OP said “recent” statistics. The most recent published, showing 95.4% with a 4.0, can be found at https://ucomm.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2019/12/stanford-cds-2019.pdf

Fwiw, I take reported GPA statistics with a grain of salt, as noted above. Especially when schools start reporting average GPA’s like 4.39 (UNC Chapel Hill), with 92% having a 4.0 but only 78% in the top 10% of their class. The “using 4.0 scale” seems to be applied loosely/sparingly.

https://oira.unc.edu/files/2020/08/CDS_2019-2020_20200805.pdf

Have to agree that CDS C11 can be unreliable, since colleges have different ways of recalculating HS GPAs (if they do recalculate, versus taking them at face value) and reporting them. CDS C10 on class rank can also be unreliable if many students do not submit class rank.