Sounds like a fun trip, @bigmacbeth! Safe travels.
@hs2020dad, unless they’re glaring inconsistencies (as opposed to minor ones), it’s not likely to make much, if any, difference.
D20 has one what I consider ok and one just awful one that I wonder if she mis-bubbled. Does anyone think the June sitting has the harshest curve because so many students take them at the end of the year?
DS’ “excuses” of his not doing well in physics: 1) IB physics does not require memorization of formulas; 2) IB physics and SAT physics don’t overlap well; 3) he was tired after finishing Math II. I don’t really buy any of them, and don’t know whether the “curve is harsher”, he felt really good after Math II but not good after physics, so we are not surprised about the results he got.
S20 got his final grades for junior year. His transcript lists his GPA as 91.58. That is unweighted, his school doesn’t weight. So would you consider this a 3.6? S20 is convinced that they round up and it is really a 92, or a 3.7. Not that it really matters, just wondering, since it seems strange to me that they wouldn’t just use whole numbers. Still waiting for that APush result, too!
I would think the level of importance would be SAT>AP> SAT subject score>GPA. The SAT and AP score are easily comparable. The SAT subject score is unnecessary for most. GPA is like comparing apples to oranges. Too hard to compare the many different high schools.
@Nicki20 at most colleges, GPA/course rigor is the most important. ACT/SAT is a very close second but many colleges are dropping the requirement to submit them. I don’t see any colleges dropping GPA as a requirement to admissions.
I also think GPA/course rigor is the most important one, LOR second, SAT/ACT third (as a good benchmark to correlate with GPA). But for STEM kids, I think subject tests are important. While AP scores are least important, icing on the cake kind of thing.
Some of this - LORs, for example - does vary more from school to school. Always check the Common Data Set, if the school fills it out. And there are exceptions to any general rule. 
But generally speaking, GPA/rigor (the student’s transcript) is ahead of all the other factors.
I agree with @hs2020dad that: GPA > SAT > SAT subject test > AP score. Every admission presentation I have been to stresses that they value GPA the most. You don’t need a perfect GPA though - at a certain point, they look at other things. I have also heard that the SAT/ACT is used to check for the possibility of grade inflation since it compares students on a mostly standard metric (with obvious biases). I have read that colleges care about the SAT subject test since they are good predictors of how one does in the subject in college. So, doing well in math/physics subject tests would predict doing well in an engineering program. One elite college admissions presentation I went to said that 700 and above is a good enough score on a subject test to submit.
How many times on the threads, not necessarily this one have you seen my kid got a two on the AP test but an A in the class. Another kid got a B in the same class but got a 5 on the AP test. By what I am hearing the A outweighs the 5 on the AP test? Its the “same class” but is it?
@Octagon - I’m a little surprised about the >700 advice, because I think it’s very subject test specific. For example, a 730 on Math II was something like 53 percentile . . . I wouldn’t submit that score.
@NYC2018nyc
I have no idea how each university “translate” 100-point grades into 4-point GPA (what scale do they use? Do they differentiate A+/-?) Does anyone else know? Or it is all different? Is it realistic for colleges to recalculate each student’s GPA as I heard people on CC state?
The more I think about it, the more @Nicki20’s “Apple to orange” comparison makes sense.
At DS’ school, the transcript shows each course in 100-point grade, the letter grade was then given based on 6-point scale (95 is A-, 94 is B+) and the cumulative GPA has four decimal points.
@bigmacbeth I hope you have a nice visit in spite of the weather! It definitely can get hot and humid here in MN in the summer, and it looks like this is one of those weekends. Last year I was out of town towards the end of June and looking forward to coming home, but when I got here it was 100 degrees.
FWIW, I’ve heard great things about the nursing program at the U of MN. They have a reputation, locally, for turning out really good nurses with solid clinical skills.
We heard 750+ on subject tests are good enough, but then one coach at a top STEM school told us to retake a 750 subject test to get it in the 770+ range. I guess it is because applicants of this given school are all sending in test scores of 800. It felt like splitting hairs sometimes, as the point difference could be just the result of one or two additional mistakes.
@Nicki20, for one thing, the overall high school course selection (which factors in rigor) and trajectory of grades provide a more long-term picture of how the student engages with coursework. An AP test grade may or may not reflect the student’s capabilities - it’s a snapshot on a given day, among other things, as are all standardized tests. On top of that, not every high school offers AP courses, or the same selection of AP courses, and many limit the number students can take, so it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to place the highest emphasis on students’ performance on AP tests when that isn’t even relevant for plenty of students. And yeah, as you say, college admission personnel are very aware that it’s not necessarily the “same class.” All of those factors underlie the reasons the transcript matters most.
There are several good sites that will walk you through converting a GPA, @makemesmart Prepscholar has one, College Board has one, Princeton Review has one. Depending on what transcripts look like at your child’s school, different ones will probably be more helpful. And from the college lens, there is zero difference between an A and an A+.
I know some people will be shocked to see it, but there are plenty of high schools that don’t give the A+ grade anyway.
Yes @MommaB123. That is what she (admissions rep from an elite college) said in response to a question from a student but I believe she was talking minimum for the general program. Otherwise, she said if only “recommended”, you may not want to submit it. I think if you are applying to a stem major or engineering, they will likely look for a great stem subject test score. For those interested, college board has a pdf of the percentiles for each subject test score for each year.
I hope ya’ll right that it’s Transcript>SAT/ACT>Subject tests>AP score!
Our high school has +/- on the transcript, but they don’t count when calculating the gpa. A-/A/A+ all = 4.0 for a standard class (4.5 for a honors or AP)
@makemesmart interesting that a coach would encourage that (retake of a 750 score test). I am a statistician, so I took notice of something new when my son got his scores the other day. The CB reported both his score, and his range of scores (they explained that the test, if taken the next day, can swing a certain number of points). And they seemed to have measured the swing. He got a 780 on Math II, but his range was 750-800. But he also got a 780 on chemistry, and that range was 760 to 800. I took that to mean that the colleges should not differentiate between two scores which are 20-30 points apart. I do not know if the range differs in other parts of the curve, but this is the first time I have noticed the CB reporting a range for score interpretation.
About the percentiles in subject tests - they need to be interpreted in proper context. i.e. a student with 800 in Math2 will only be 70 or percentile (not exactly but very close to that) and a 780 score can be in high 60’s percentile - not bad if you look at the max percentile possible. In other subject tests like ‘Chinese language with spoken’ an 800 would be even less in terms of percentile. The students who write these subject tests self select and so percentiles are wacky. A general recommendation someone told me was to look at the score for subject tests.
Also the diff between an 800 and 780/770 can be just one or two more questions - I understand that AO’s have to draw line somewhere but it would be unfair if these one or two questions tilt a decision.