<p>How common is it for applicants at HYPMS to have GPAs of 3.99 or 4.00 unweighted on a 4.0 scale? I specifically mean high weighted GPAs like 4.5, 4.6 in a track filled with advanced classes.</p>
<p>Very common.</p>
<p>At HYPMS? Basically everyone. You have to be very close to maxing out every criterion to have a more than trivial chance at those schools.</p>
<p>Yep, it’s usually the norm. That’s why admissions to those places hinges so much on hooks and what sets you apart through your ECs, essays, etc.</p>
<p>What do you mean by “hooks”? Like original character traits or unusual accomplishments?</p>
<p>^Being George Bush’s son. Being a star violin player with national-level awards. Being black.</p>
<p>I think it’s safe to say that only one in twenty students finish in the top 5% of their class.</p>
<p>As to how common is it – Does anyone in your school have a straight A average? More than one. Probably something close to the top 2% or so of each class does this or comes close.</p>
<p>@GlobalDolphin- I mean something that sets you apart from everyone else; what makes you unique. A strong passion of yours, an unusual accomplishment- something to bring your application to life past generic statistics and numbers.</p>
<p>An estimated 3.2 million high school diplomas will be awarded in the U.S. this year. Suppose zephyr15 is right that around 2% of them will graduate with a 4.0 UW average. That’s 64,000, or on average about 1.5 per school for each of the 42,000 high schools in the United States. That sounds about right to me, recognizing that at some schools there will be none and at other schools there might be 5 or 6. Is that “common”? Well, relative to what? Relative to the number of HS grads, it’s not exactly common. But relative to the number of applicants at HYPS-level schools? Yes, I’d say it’s quite common. Common enough that in 2011 Princeton admitted only 14.1% of applicants with a 4.0 HS GPA (I assume unweighted, because that’s as high as their scale goes). That’s a higher admit rate than the 3.9-3.99 GPAs, who were admitted at a rate of 8.9%. But it still means they’re getting enough 4.0 GPA applicants to comfortably reject 6 out of every 7 of them.</p>
<p>Brown, similarly, tells us that they rejected 81% of the 1,883 HS valedictorians who applied—most of whom presumably had UW GPAs somewhere around 4.0. But I’d say there’s good news and bad news in that for the 4.0 applicant. First, the bad news: even a 4.0 and being HS valedictorian isn’t enough, in itself, to get you into Brown, because they reject the overwhelming majority of applicants with those credentials. The somewhat brighter news, I suppose, is that only 1,883 HS valedictorians applied to Brown. Put that in the context of 42,000 high schools, and it means only 4% of high schools had their valedictorian apply to Brown. Now I’ve long maintained that a lot of people on CC wrongly assume that all the smartest kids in the country apply to HYPSM and the “lesser Ivies,” and only go elsewhere if they don’t get into these schools. Clearly that’s not the case. But even I am surprised that only 4% of HS valedictorians apply to Brown. Of course, some might be applying to more techie schools like MIT and Caltech; a few might think they’re too good for Brown; and some undetermined number of high schools don’t name a valedictorian (though that’s balanced to some extent by a number of high schools that name multiple co-valedictorians).</p>
<p>So based on that, I’d say it’s likely that nowhere near all 64,000 graduating seniors with 4.0 UW GPAs will be in competition for a seat at your favorite elite institution. But it seems pretty clear that schools at this level aren’t all that impressed by a 4.0, so the lighter competition at that level doesn’t help you all that much.</p>
<p>At my school, that’s about the going GPA for top 10%. So I would imagine that is very common at HYPMS! :)</p>
<p>I think that there are a lot of high gpa’s. I am constantly amazed when I see kids on CC that have 3.9 unweighted gpa’s, but then you find out they only have a 29 ACT.</p>
<p>To me, this grade inflation is a good reason why standardized tests are still needed, so you can more properly and fairly compare people from all around the country.</p>
<p>another way to look at it … there are 30,000 high schools in the US and there are something like 1500 frosh at Harvard … virtually every high school has a 4.0 val … and Harvard has room for 1 out of 20 of them … never mind all the other very high GPA kids out there.</p>