I’m a senior (US Citizen) from school outside US.
I’m trying to determine how the AOs will determine my grades since it is scored on over a scale of 100. Almost all of my scores are over 90, except for one in upper 80s in my junior year. I also have 4 APs (which was self study since school doesn’t offer)
i don’t know how this would land of GPA scale of 4 and how my application would be evaluated. Reason for asking is that I’m trying to determine my school/college selection based on my GPA.
Look on the international student admission* sections of the colleges you’re interested in for the country you’re studying in. They generally have info on what maps or at least what the minimum requirement is.
If you give your grades and country here, there is probably someone familiar enough with it to give you an idea too.
*you won’t be applying as an international, but that’s how to figure out how to judge your school curriculum.
Admissions for universities in the US will evaluate your grades based on what is typical at your high school.
As one example, I also attended a high school outside the US which graded on a 100 point scale. There was only one single student in our high school who had an average GPA over 90. That did not stop three of us from attending well known universities outside of our country as international students.
Do you know how your grades compare with other students in the same high school, or in the same country or province or state or region?
Have you asked your HS counselor (if this is a school that’s regularly sending students to college?) Does the school have a school report that addresses GPA and how it’s calculated? Some school reports will also have GPA/grade distributions listed. Generally your grades/rigor will be compared to your class peers and placed in that context.
Yes, asked them. They report the score as-is, no conversion 
Unfortunately there is no data on that. The class rank is not disclosed or calculated by the school.
My scores are in the top 5% in a class of 225. But this is not reported.
I would guess that your counselor notes this in the common app forms they complete and/or their LoR.
Here are some of the forms they often complete:
In addition, most schools have what’s called a school profile, does your school have that?
You shouldn’t do this because many schools don’t recalculate GPA and/or post what their admitted/enrolled student GPAs are. Even for schools that do post a GPA, you have no idea how they calculated it, so no idea how to calculate yours in that manner.
Generally you should use the school’s acceptance rate to categorize your schools. People will differ on this, but I would defer to your counselor for said categorization. Generally, any school under 10% acceptance rate is a lottery or high reach. 10-20% reach. 20%-50% target. >50% likely to highly likely. There will be some differences based on the strength of the student of course. Also be wary of those schools that consider demonstrated interest in the admission decision, e.g., Tulane, Lehigh…meaning they turn away many top stat students who didn’t visit (virtual or in person), or interview, or engage with emails they sent, etc.
Lastly, if you are targeting a relatively competitive major at a school that admits by major/school that can also impact categorization. Majors like CS, Engineering, and Business often have lower admit rates than the overall school’s. For example, UIUC overall admit rate is around 45% or so, so it might look like a target, but the CS admit rate is 7%. Business and Engineering are also lower than 45%.
Have you asked your counselor for help in developing a list and categorizing schools? Start with identifying at least one affordable highly likely/safety school. Have you done that?
A lot of schools outside the US don’t have a college counselor at all (much less someone familiar with the US) or school profile. We do need to know more about where the poster is and whether their school does any of this.
Yes, that’s why I’m asking. OP did say they had a counselor.
I’ve been involved with reading international apps, and if there’s no info from the counselor in the way of school report, or LoR, or school profile (all required at some level in the common app), we contact the school and ask questions. We do use the GPA on the transcript. No recalculating ever.
If no one takes our call and we can’t figure things out, well, things typically don’t go well for the applicant. But, that’s not what this school sounds like.
Thanks, we do have a counsellor, but they are not giving me enough information to compare myself against other candidates.
The answer I get is : “we report the scores as-is measured over a scale of 100”. The students have been having reasonable outcomes - Purdue, UIUC, CMU etc, but what is bothering me is that I don’t know how I compare with my scores at the point.
Right, but that’s not uncommon, even for students studying in US HSs.
School profile is a good idea, i’ll ask.
The school curriculum is a national curriculum in India, so it is fairly know.
Will AOs compare me against other students in the same bucket (or would I be compared against other categories as well)
You will be compared to students from your school, and where you place in your class wrt GPA and rigor (to the extent possible.) For international high schools/applicants, I expect colleges have varying practices as to the extent (if any) they might compare students across school types, cities, regions, within a country. Will you have an SAT or ACT score to report?
thx.
yes, will report SAT and APs (as well which were self study, since the school doesn’t offer this)
Also, is that a good thing - since I would be compared to a smaller subset of the applicants>
curious to know from any of you who have been involved with admissions here.