<p>I’m just wondering how large of a contributing factor it is, or how bad it’ll look if you’re not on it. I didn’t make it on the list because my grades weren’t too great freshman year, due to clinical depression and my idiocy in messing with eating disorders. (By “not great”, I mean by Ivy standards; I had mostly high A’s, but one B and low A first semester.)</p>
<p>Anyways, is it a big deal if you’re not on the honor roll list? My rank is still good, despite the freshman grades. I think I have a good chance of being 1st or 2nd by graduation. I’m just worried about how not having all A’s will affect m admission, since the majority of the people applying probably will.</p>
<p>Also, how important is honor roll to schools such as Rice and Vanderbilt?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Depends on what “honor roll” means. Every school defines it differently. For example, it may be 3.5+ UW GPA, in which case you’re probably not a competitive applicant by virtue of your GPA.</p></li>
<li><p>If you’re going to be 1st or 2nd, how are you not on the honor roll? Wouldn’t nobody be on it?</p></li>
<li><p>One B and low A? In your first semester freshman year? Oh, please. That’s hardly bad at all. You’re fine.</p></li>
<li><p>I’d argue that honor roll status, especially by whatever arbitrary definition your school uses that manages to exclude the Val or Sal, is irrelevant to admissions. Your GPA, course rigor, class rank, and GPA trends are what are going to matter on your transcript.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Edit:
The majority of people applying will probably have all As? Really? Perhaps you should take statistics.</p>
<p>The average GPA of accepted students is below a 4.0. The vast majority of students who apply are rejected. Therefore, the majority of students applying almost certainly do not have straight As.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Honor roll at my school is just anyone who has straight A’s all four years of high school in every class, every semester.</p></li>
<li><p>^</p></li>
<li><p>I thought they would be considered pretty bad, considering the acceptance rates of most of those schools… Aren’t they below 10%…?</p></li>
<li><p>Okay, thanks. :D</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Whoa, dude. D: No need to have a slightly mean-ish tone. I didn’t know. I thought the competition for Harvard and such was high enough for a lot of the people who apply to have straight A’s. I actually find it kinda hard to believe that such a large amount of the people accepted have GPAs below a 4.0. But I guess if you’re talking about unweighted… :/</p>
<p>Your question, then, is whether you need a 4.0 UW to get into an Ivy, Rice, or Vanderbilt. The answer is no, absolutely not. Plenty of people who neither have a perfect unweighted GPA nor are their high school’s valedictorian are accepted to all of those schools. I’m currently at Rice. I was unhooked and did not have a 4.0. Most people I know there didn’t have a 4.0 in high school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, the acceptance rates are low. I don’t think they’re all below 10%, but many are and they’re all low. However, one B and a low A, especially given a rank of 1 or 2, wouldn’t prevent you from getting in. As long as your application is strong overall, an academic record like yours shouldn’t be an obstacle.</p>
<p>You’re taking a wrong view of admissions. It isn’t all academics. As long as the university takes a look at your application and says, “yup, he/she can certainly handle the work he/she will face in college based on his/her academic record” you will have passed the academics obstacle. From then on colleges want to see what you’re like as a person and they will admit/reject you based on that. I’m fairly confident that if you go through high school with one B and one A- you will have passed the academic part of the admissions process.</p>
<p>Well that’s just untrue. There’s no “academic obstacle.” Holistic admissions does not mean academics are unimportant or that there is some academic threshold above which more impressive scores/grades don’t matter; rather, it means that more than those numbers alone will be taken into account.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, honor roll itself won’t matter. What will is your rank, which you tell us is still competitive.</p>
<p>Actually, dfree was partially right. Brown’s info session said that they first consider whether you’re academically qualified. If you are, you then proceed to the more detailed review where it’s more about your essays and recommendations (but still also about your academic performance). It’s probably similar at other schools.</p>
<p>So yes, there is a bar that you have to get over by demonstrating that you’re academically qualified, but once you pass that bar your academic performance still matters.</p>
<p>At one of our local high schools, on the state tests given second semester junior year, 42% of the class of 2012 met the minimum state standards.</p>
<p>First semester senior year, 92% of the same class made the honor roll.</p>
<p>“I actually find it kinda hard to believe that such a large amount of the people accepted have GPAs below a 4.0”</p>
<p>This is a sort of ignorant assumption. A GPA of 4.0 tells you next to nothing other than that the kid can study and may be very intelligent. US College admissions look for more than that.</p>
<p>I’d argue that a GPA says nothing at all about intelligence. Nothing. While the people who got 4.0s at my high school were by no means stupid, they definitely weren’t the most intelligent people there. The most intelligent people are often the ones who don’t turn in their homework (or BS it) when they don’t find it worth their time, and they’re also often the ones most likely to sacrifice grades for being right.</p>
<p>I agree with the rest of your post, though.</p>
<p>Hence the “may be” lol. I was going to say “is intelligent” but then I thought something similar to what you said. I agree completely with you RedSeven.</p>