<p>I’m starting to get worried that I won’t be competitive with students of other schools not because of my lack of achievement, but because my school lacks an organized system that represents the context of a student’s grades in comparison with his or her peers’ well enough. My school uses a 0-99% grading system. A score of 70% or higher is passing, anything below this is not. We do not have GPA’s on a 4.0 scale, and our class rank is not weighted based on course-load. The three AP classes available are only allowed to be taken senior year, due to pre-requisites, and while my school has courses with the same difficulty and content of Honor’s courses, they do not hold that title. </p>
<p>I am worried that by having chosen to take more numerous and difficult classes, at the cost of a higher GPA, than students who have taken fewer classes and less difficult ones; I have disadvantaged myself in the eyes of top-tier schools. I’ll explain my situation. I have a 95.6% GPA on my school’s 1-99% system. That puts me at 19/177 in class rank. Somebody else I know has a 97.1% gpa (8/177), but they’ve taken 5 fewer classes and of lesser difficulty than I have over the 4 years of school. They also chose not to take any AP classes this year. How exactly would a college know this though? I assume they would check my course-load, but certainly they wouldn’t check the course-load of every person above me in class rank? Since it is unweighted, this person gets away with a higher class rank than I do, but with far less work put in. That hardly seems fair or representative of a student’s achievement in my opinion. But if I were to go to a school that weighs GPA, with the presence of AP and Honors courses, would it not make sense that I’d have a higher weighted GPA than the person who would not take these advanced and more numerous courses? In a case like this, when comparing two or more individuals from different schools, would they disregard GPA and class rank entirely, but rather compare the grades and course-load itself between the two or more individuals? How would that latter process work if somebody took the most difficult classes their school provides, yet they aren’t at the level of some other school? </p>
<p>Actually, I think what I’m really asking is how a competitive college/university goes about accepting or denying an individual. Would an unfair class rank or grading system limit somebody, for example?</p>
<p>Oh and another side-question. My guidance councilor has a ridiculous % gpa -> x/4.0 gpa conversion chart that doesn’t make sense at all. On a 90%-100% = A scale I’d have all As and a 4.0 GPA for example, on a 92%-100% I’d have 2 Bs which means about a 3.85 GPA after calculating it. With the use of my guidance councilor’s ridiculous chart, I have a 3.68 or something along those lines. How exactly would a chart like that work? Certainly it isn’t comparable to a school that would use an A-F grade system where an A=4, B=3, C=2, and D=1, and it is the same for everything in between, right?</p>
<p>Thank you beforehand for any answers or help you may provide!</p>