<p>Your high school ought to have a published profile that will show gpa distribution for last year’s graduating class. THat is probably what schools will use to guage your son’s GPA. Obviously an imperfect instrument, since classes vary, and probably not to the advantage of students whose gpa falls at the cusp of the top 10%. Look at the guidance section of your school’s web site. Most schools have the profile up there.</p>
<p>Ok, I looked at the site and they don’t post up anything like that. The HS is a private catholic place, so maybe that’s why. They calculate gpa on a 100 point scale, but it isn’t clear if it is weighted or not, and whether it includes all the courses (like music, etc.) or not. I have looked at a couple of sites with gpa calculators using the 5 main things (science, english, etc) and came up with about 3.5 unweighted/ 3.9 weighted. Not sure if I’m using the same procedure the various schools will.</p>
<p>"Look at the guidance section of your school’s web site. Most schools have the profile up there. "</p>
<p>Our local public high school, where DD attended one year, does not publish a profile either. Nothing too good to report. </p>
<p>I would ask your counselor about a printed profile. DD private school had a nice one.</p>
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<p>I would also ask. I’m pretty sure that even if they don’t publish the school profile online, that they are required to send it with the transcripts. On the school profile, they will explain how grades are weighted, grade distribution, how many AP classes were offered, requirements to take AP classes, average SAT/ACT for preceding classes, average scores on AP exams, etc.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that many schools take those number grades and do their own calculations on them to try and have a level playing field on which to evaluate all applicants. So, if school A gives 2 extra points to an AP class and School B gives only 1 extra point to the same class - the college might take the grades and add only 1 point to them. At least that was my understanding from several of the college tours.</p>
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Note that not all School Profiles have this information. Ours explains the weighting system, but does not have grade distribution, but does have the class rank of the student. It has average and median SAT scores and mean for students attending four year colleges. It has SAT means for subject tests too. It says how many APs were offered, but not what the scores were, though it does say how many AP Scholars and other AP awards there were. It also has a description of the demographics of our town, our school, and what awards the school has won. It also includes a long list of colleges where students have been accepted the previous year. It lists dual enrollment courses and it probably has some more stuff I can’t remember. And the profile is not online. The first time I saw it was spring junior year.</p>
<p>sylvan, IMO you should figure out reach schools by picking where his SAT scores fall above or near the 75%ile and also where the top 10% in high school is below 70% of the accepted students. If your son is 35%ish in his class, the SATs don’t make this a “game changer” in terms of being able to go for the most selective schools, but will help it at some places, for sure. </p>
<p>I agree that any school with an acceptance rate of below 30% is going to be quite difficult. You could do 25 - 30% admissions rate as a reach, but anything more selective than that, I would put as a super stretch.</p>
<p>Do what you can to persue above advise about school profile.</p>
<p>In our area the one private Catholic high schools seems to have tougher honors academics than the typical high schools. (Not sure how it would compare to intense IB/AP schools - this school probably does not have enough students to support class variety. Also note that my observation is based on feedback from just one family.)</p>
<p>FYI, ds applied and got into ND with similar stats to your ds’s. He had geographic diversity as well as being a URM in his favor. Not until he was accepted did I realize how difficult it is to get in at ND! The school sets aside a large chunk of each class for legacies, so if he’s a legacy that will help. I will say that ND is the only school at which ds received no merit aid so you’ll probably have to cough up that EFC if he gets in.</p>