GPA is so stupid.. Am I wrong?

Applying to College
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<p>Hi, am I the only one who feels that GPA should not be counted in college admission?</p>

<p>And I really dont get how standardized scores (SAT,AP, IB, ACT) are not bigger factor than GPA…</p>

<p>GPA is so different from all around high schools so everyone is evaluated in different scales.</p>

<p>There are so many discrepancies between rigor of each class in high school. Some high schools easily give out As and some high schools hardly give out As…</p>

<p>In my case, I received A in my psychology class, but only received B in math. There are 40 other students with A in psychology class because teacher literally gives out free As when one does homework. However my math teacher gives out such hard tests every week and it is literally impossible to get As. The math class’s highest grade is only B… (nobody gets A)</p>

<p>And this is so stupid and unfair. I work 10000000x harder in math than psychology (and better in math) but gets lower grades on my transcript?</p>

<p>College admission officers say that they will understand student in context of school. But they fail to consider difficulty of each classes and teachers. So many students who deliberately takes easy classes with easy teachers always top GPA in my school. And colleges have no idea about this… all they care is if an applicant is in top 10%, 25%, 50%…</p>

<p>Looking at other example, I received B+ in physics class because the teacher doesnt like how I dont talk in class and gives me F for my participation grade… Another student who does talk a lot received A because he does ok on tests but he gets perfect grade on participation… But in SAT 2 physics test, I received 800 and he got 650… But for colleges that value GPA (probably all colleges), he is better than me in physics because he got an A? (lol…)</p>

<p>Seriously… why do colleges value GPA more than SAT???</p>

<p>If so, how is GPA standardized… Student with As in math class with 500 on math 2 is better mathematician than a student with Cs in math class with 800 on math 2?</p>

<p>Sorry for whining, but GPA really ****es me off…</p>

1 Like
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<p>For varying degrees of difficulty between teachers of the same course (ie there is one super easy IB HL english teacher at my school and one super tough one), there is no way for colleges to know that, which is unfortunate. However, as far as I’ve seen in both of the high schools I’ve attended, that tends to average out. Each student tends to get the same amount of excessively tough/easy teachers as their classmates, so I think in terms of GPA this evens out. In your example, you have one teacher that gives out A’s and one that refuses to. The effect is that these will essentially cancel out, and your GPA will be the same as if you had two average teachers for those classes instead of one tough one and one easy one.</p>

<p>As for your complaints about colleges not looking at the challenge of the course, most colleges consider the challenge of a student’s courseload to be a very important part of their application. A student with a 4.0UW in all grade-level courses is not considered to have a better application than a student with a 3.8UW in honors/AP/IB courses. So in your example, colleges will know that a psychology class is generally easier than a math class, especially if the math class is honors/AP/IB and the psychology class is not.</p>

<p>As for the SAT argument, I think that the SAT is really more about knowing the formula for taking the test than knowing the material. I go to an international HS, where kids are <em>much</em> less well-practiced in terms of standardized testing, and even though they are overall a smarter, more hardworking, more knowledgable group of kids than at my HS in the states, they did much, much, much worse than the kids in the states who have been practicing standardized testing since the CMT’s in fourth grade. The SAT subject tests may be a different story, and I think a B+ in physics plus an 800 on the subject test reveals you to be a quite strong physics student. Also you should learn to participate in class, most teachers count that as part of the grade. I had issues with that two in my first two years but my grades have gone up considerably since I started working on it. </p>

<p>I would actually see the rise of GPA over standardized testing. SAT tests provide a very limited and formulaic presentation of a student’s abilities, while GPA reflects a student’s work and performance in class. Sure, teachers grade differently, but I believe that in the long run over four years at HS, you’ll have had enough tough, easy, and average graders for it to all even out relatively fairly.</p>

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<p>In an ideal world, I would just have standardized testing at the end of each year replace GPA.</p>

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<p>olaolaolaola -</p>

<p>GPA is important in admissions because it is the single most powerful predictor for all measures of success in college - first year GPA, final GPA, graduation within 4 years, grad school admissions, etc. etc. Scores from the ACT and the SAT general exam are almost useless as predictors, and add only a tiny bit to the overall prediction when combined with GPA. Lots of fun reading on this subject at [The</a> National Center for Fair & Open Testing | FairTest](<a href=“http://www.fairtest.org%5DThe”>http://www.fairtest.org)</p>

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<p>To consider only grade-point average, separate from other factors such as course selection and level (AP/honors/standard, etc.) would be stupid. That’s why colleges don’t do that. After that, there’s a lot in your post that’s wrong–in the sense that it’s simply not how the college-admissions process works.</p>

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<p>Believe this if you wish, but it’s just plain untrue.</p>

<p>Selective colleges do not simply look at an applicant’s GPA; they read his or her transcript. They look at the kinds of classes the student enrolled in (Physics or Photography? One is better for MIT, the other maybe for RISD.), the level of those classes, and the grades earned. They look at the Secondary School Report to see whether the school considers the applicant’s course load to be typical or rigorous or “most rigorous.” They look at the School Profile–a document that actually will tell colleges, for example, that most students who took Psychology got an easy A, but almost nobody in your math class did. And they look at teacher recommendations; if these are well written and informative, they’ll tell the colleges what kind of student you are relative to your peers.</p>

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<p>This is why there are School Profiles. </p>

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<p>If colleges have no idea about this, then the fault lies with the guidance department in your school. If colleges don’t know about this–and I bet they actually do–then those people aren’t doing a good job of assessing the rigor of students’ high-school course loads.</p>

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<p>They don’t. Or, at least, most of them don’t, and none of them should. But they absolutely should value an applicant’s transcript, and probably also teacher recommendations, more than standardized test scores. SAT and ACT scores tell how an applicant performed on one Saturday morning. A transcript, if you read it, tells how an applicant performed in an academic setting over four years. Now, be honest, which one of those do you think is a better predictor for how a student will perform during four years of college?</p>

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<p>@Sikorsky I agree with what you said actually… thanks for clearing up my confusion with discrepencies in course rigor.</p>

<p>It is true that usually those ‘smart’ and ‘organized’ kids have high GPA… But I kinda disagree that SAT and ACT tells you how an applicant performed on one Saturday morning. Many people, including me, put so much effort and time in SAT prep, and those effort are reflected on scores. No one (except some genius) can score 2200+ or 2300+ on SAT without any prep and previous knowledge about how SAT looks like. So many people put efforts in ‘studying’ SAT and this requires some huge commitment during ur free time on weekends. I think high SAT score doesnt show ur intelligence on taking test on saturday morning, but it DOES show your efforts to memorize those vocabs and grammar rules and show that you actually care about going to college. I personally increased my SAT score from 1800 to 2200 over a year, and I put so much effort into this.</p>

<p>This is why there is somewhat a correlation between GPA and SAT. Those with good GPA gets good SAT scores - not always true, but most of the times. I agree that GPA is better predictor - it shows ur work ethic and commitment… but high SAT also requires some work ethic and effort. some might argue that some people are just bad test-takers so your high GPA can dismiss low SAT…and give up on SAT… but NO ONE is borned to be good at 4 hours straight test… people practice practice practice for SAT and get good scores.</p>

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<p>The most important problem is being overlooked in that neither GPA nor SAT proves no long term mastery of the subject matter. It also doesn’t improve intelligence or ones willingness to work. All it proves is the short term ability to memorize the probable answers to a test. Yuck! Good luck with that skill in the real world.</p>

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<p>I couldn’t read the entire thing because you kept typing “As”.</p>

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<p>I think GPA does have some minor issues but I do NOT think test scores are the best measure of intelligence. Some people have amazing test scores and do terribly on every test in school and do not work hard and vice versa.</p>

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<p>In my opinion ACT/SAT scores should be used solely to validate GPA. In an ideal world all students could be exposed to a standardized rigor of curricula and easily compared for academic performance barring personal circumstances; however, since this is impossible we have to fall back on test scores. Sure there are exceptional students with lower test scores from test anxiety or exceptional students with low GPAs, but unfortunately rules have to play toward a majority and rely on other factors to justify exceptions. For instance, if one 4.0 student has a 24 ACT (I know of several) and a 3.9 student has a 36, chances are the latter is a much stronger student in perhaps a more rigorous academic environment. On the other hand, if a student has an UW GPA of 2.3 but a 2400 SAT, that probably raises a bunch of red flags for admissions officials for academic motivation or potentially test fraud.</p>