Rank, Competitive Curriculum, relatively low GPA question

Applying to College
1

<p>Hello all -</p>

<p>I go to a competitive charter school where, due to attrition, the initial class size of 250 has dropped to ~100. It’s screwed up our rankings really badly.</p>

<p>The primary reason why the attrition rates are so high is because of our curriculum. I’m scheduled to take Calc II/III next year (as a junior), and by the end of my junior year I’ll have taken 7 APs, 10 by the time I graduate. </p>

<p>The problem is, our (the entire student body) GPAs are relatively low. Mine’s currently a weighted 3.75 (out of 4, the weighting here is weird) and I anticipate it to be in the 3.8s by the end of this year.</p>

<p>Our school is also considering either eliminating ranks or using a quintile system (I would be in the top quintile). </p>

<p>Would a relatively low GPA (and one B- in a “regular” lab class for AP bio, which WILL be an A this year) hurt my chances greatly (to say… HYP) if I get 5’s on the AP exams and my rank is in the top quintile?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>IMO, Unless your school sends quite a few grads to the Ivies you will have a tough time getting in unless you are in the top 5 or so of your class.</p>

3

<p>^Unless the school doesn’t rank. Anyway, at my school with a class of 50, the top 10 GPAs usually look like this: 4.000, 3.987, 3.985, 3.955, 3.940, 3.930… It really depends. In small schools it can be hard to interpret rank which is why most small schools choose not to rank.</p>