<p>Is there a huge difference? I’m a freshman in high school here. First semester just ended and I have straight A’s and only one A+ in biology. Is that bad for Stanford?</p>
<p>My school doesn’t let me take AP classes for freshman year, so there are all regular classes. Also, am I still in the running for being valedictorian? 
An A is still 4.0 but I’m scared percentages count too.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t think there’d be much of a difference. According to their website, they “will focus our evaluation on your coursework and performance in 10th, 11th and 12th grades, primarily in the core academic subjects of English, mathematics, science, foreign language and history/social studies.”
[School</a> Reports & Transcripts : Stanford University](<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/application/freshman/transcripts.html]School”>http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/application/freshman/transcripts.html)</p>
<p>I’m not sure how all high schools pick valedictorian, but mine is based on the highest weighted gpa.</p>
<p>
Stanford recalculates GPA without freshman year. Ignoring this, the admissions decision is far more likely to be influenced by non-stat factors, such as what you do outside of the classroom, than an A vs A+.</p>
<p>Wait, Data10, how do you know that Stanford recalculates GPA without freshman year? Is it on their website? And do they also recalculate GPA based on the A+/A/A- system? Because my school doesn’t give A+, only A - and that wouldn’t seem very fair, IMO.</p>
<p>Information about Stanford’s recalculation has been posted by several admission officers and Stanford reps. The idea of recalculating is to put everyone on more similar ground and compensate for differences in grading systems in different HSs, like you listed. It also gives the opportunity to discount areas that are less important to them. Regarding +/- grades, several years ago a Stanford rep wrote the following:</p>
<p>*“When reviewing applications, we recalculate a student’s GPA using a straight 4.0 scale, discounting +/-, and include only those classes that are considered core academic courses.” *</p>
<p>This fits with the quote from Stanford’s website that was posted earlier on the thread, which also mentions the focus on core academic subjects, saying:</p>
<p>“will focus our evaluation on your coursework and performance in 10th, 11th and 12th grades, primarily in the core academic subjects of English, mathematics, science, foreign language and history/social studies”</p>
<p>Note that this is quite similar to the recalculation that the University of California schools use. They still see the full transcript and may consider performance in freshman year and electives, but the emphasis is on the areas listed in the quotes.</p>
<p>+/- really does not matter. For perspective many of my teachers simply did not give +'s at all (the only options were B-, B, A-, A, etc)</p>
<p>“Is that bad for Stanford?” </p>
<p>What is bad is another grade grubber rather than someone who actually embraces learning.</p>
<p>Even if they were to use a +/- scale for the GPA recalculation, I’ve never heard of a school treating an A+ any different than an A. The logic is that nothing (in an unweighted system) can be higher than a 4 -which signifies an A. Giving 4.3 for an A+ goes against this policy.
As others have said, don’t ficus so much on your grades. Stanford and the other top tier schools are looking for unique people who will make a difference: not just straight A students. For example, I have a 3.8/4.5 ish GPA and was deferred by Stanford REA while at least 3 kids with higher GPAs (3.97/4.7, 4.0/4.8) and class ranks got rejected. While I had done a lot of unique ECs they really just had high numbers.</p>
<p>^^well said…Stanford is not looking for “perfect” students but the “best” students who are not afraid to fail…students who are willing to challenge the status quo…students who have great potential to make a lasting impact on the Stanford community and the World at large…</p>
<p>Does Stanford have a team of low-paid workers inputting grades from transcripts into their computer system? Very tedious.</p>
<p>The UC’s calculate GPA, but they require applicants to enter their grades into the on-line application, so calculation is a simple computer matter.</p>
<p>Yeah, SoCalDad, i was thinking the same thing - how exactly do they “recalculate” all the numbers? Seems tedious.</p>
<p>I thought it would but lets break the numbers down</p>
<p>Lets say it takes roughly 4 Minutes to type in each student’s grades for recalculating.<br>
38000 applicants.
152000 minutes total or 2534 hours roughly
2534*$10 dollars per hour for student workers(could be more)= $25340 which isn’t actually that much.</p>
<p>
It may take even less considering most applicants have 5 core classes, taken 3 years. There may also be simplifications, such as only entering grades of B+ or lower and non-standard courses. The cost would be expected to be well under $1 per app, which can be easily covered by the application fee. I expect the bulk of the time and cost goes to other portions of the application, such as reading essays. They hired new readers over the summer to support the increasing number of applications.</p>
<p>Data10, but do you know how they “hire” readers? Like is there an interview process or something? Can any old Joe become a Stanford app reader? Or are they mostly current students?</p>
<p>@coolbeans123 none of us know Stanford’s requirements/expectations of candidates for the reader positions. We just know that they have recently hired several more readers due to the ever increasing number of applications per a university newspaper article.</p>
<p>
A copy of the job ad they put out for the reader positions is at [Seasonal</a> Reader :: maybrooks.com](<a href=“http://maybrooks.com/job/seasonal-reader/]Seasonal”>http://maybrooks.com/job/seasonal-reader/) . The position’s requirements and desired skills are quoted below:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I definitely agree with all the other posters about Stanford not caring that much about grades.</p>
<p>At my school, there were like 25 kids (out of 300) who applied REA, including the kids with the top 5 GPAs. They ALL got rejected. Why? Well for one, all of them did the same, typical extracurricular with no national-level accomplishments. Only like two had state-level accomplishments. They didn’t do much else. Furthermore, they were your typical “grinds;” they didn’t have much of a social life and took tests and regurgitated material.</p>
<p>There were 4 kids who got accepted. Everybody (including average students who pedestalized the kids with the highest GPAs) was VERY surprised when the results came out. While the max GPA in our class was like a 4.7, with a ton of people above a 4.5, these three had a 4.4, 4.4, and 4.5, with tons of Bs and even one C. But what else did they do? One started his own pool cleaning business in 7th grade and grew it into a large operation that’s well known throughout our town. Another spent the last two summers teaching math to socioeconomically disadvantaged 3rd graders for SIXTY hours a week for seven weeks and then got involved in education policy reform. Another was very involved in tap dancing as a male. He also defended our school in the local newspaper (without any prior prodding) after some bonehead reporter tried to expose a nonexistent “scandal” at our school. The latter two were guys you’d genuinely want to have a beer with, and I guess that came out in the recs. The last one… was black. I personally think half these kids wouldn’t have a chance at HYP given their class ranks, but what do I know. Similar things have happened previous years.</p>
<p>tl;dr Stanford cares far more about your personality/what you do outside of the classroom than about your grades/scores.</p>
<p>Ummm… this seems sketch? And on a website for working moms? “Specifically, candidates must have Windows PC skills such as left and right, single and double mouse clicks and using a mouse to drag and drop.” Who knows how to use a computer and doesn’t have that skill???</p>
<p>
You won’t find active job listings on the major sources since they are not hiring at this time. So what you are left with is websites that copied the ad and have not taken it down even though they are no longer hiring, such as the link above. If you’d prefer to read the ad posting on a different website, one on Yahoo groups is at [Yahoo</a> Groups](<a href=“Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos”>Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos) .</p>