top hs=average grades okay hs= high grades

CCSurfer
Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:31:09 +0000

Ndinchick –

My kids’ experience is that attending a top hs with tough grading is taken into consideration and makes a big difference in college admissions. Every year I see a list of all the schools the seniors are entering in the fall, and it’s very clear that students who are nowhere near the top 10 or even 20 percent have been accepted at schools that generally don’t look for students anywhere near the middle of the class. That said, I don’t know what UC’s or other state schools that admit through a strict formula do with a transcript from a very tough, excellent hs. But admissions officers would be silly if they treated your 3.5 as if it were comparable to a 3.5 at a hs that graduates a cast of a thousand 4.0’s.

Why don’t you go check with your college counseling office and see what kind of data they collect about college admissions? Do they have scattergrams or some sort of graphs that show the GPA’s of seniors who apply to various colleges and what percentage of students in different GPA categories are accepted or rejected by each school? Many schools will provide this info if you or your parents ask for it, and it would certainly answer some of your questions.

Remember, some of the students represented in the data set may be hooked in some way (recruited athletes; URM’s; legacies), but overall the data should give you a sense of how a range of colleges consider GPA’s from your hs. And in terms of your state school, your GC has to have a lot of experience! Ask for a realistic assessment of your chances of getting into various UC’s based on his/her experience in the past couple of years.