gpa Index
April 16, 2009
Don't get us wrong. Professors consider "cram" to be a four-letter word. We don't think pulling an all-nighter the night before the test is the royal path to success. But sometimes cram happens. So if you're going to do it -- like 99.9947 percent of other college students -- at least do it right. After all, we'd hate to see you blow off all that sleep and still wreck your GPA.
Read More
April 02, 2009
Sometimes grades aren't everything when it comes to getting into college. Let's say you and another student -- let's call him Bobby for argument's sake -- are both applying to Colgate University in Business Administration. And let's say you both scored 2200 on your SATs...
Read More
February 04, 2009
How important IS class rank for admissions? Students (and parents) at very competitive high schools -- the kind that require a 3.89 GPA to be in the top 10 percent -- are questioning the usefulness of class rank as a good measure of a student's ability. Many high schools have even discontinued ranking. But does discarding class rankings really remove the pressure? And how big a factor does a high school's quality play in the admissions game?
Read More
October 24, 2008
After the last few posts on grades some questions were swirling about how we judge courses students take, so I'll steal liberally from my old posts and add some new stuff to create an overly verbose answer.In answering this question, admissions officers have been infatuated with the word, "rigorous." I believe this is because it lets us sound smarmy without actually providing useful information.
Read More
October 24, 2008
In August, I was on a panel with some other folks talking about the local grading scales with a moderator from USA Today. The last time I dug into the subject on my blog I got some great feedback (including being called full of excrement). That kind of robust and thoughtful feedback was probably helpful in prepping for the live session. Here's basically what I said...
Read More
October 20, 2008
So we know grades are really important. But are grades still important your senior year? It's true that, for the most part, junior year of high school is the most important period for admission as a college freshman. That's because it's usually the last full year admissions officers see before making a decision about your admission. Remember, however, that many colleges routinely require some of your senior grades before they will make any decision.
Read More
October 16, 2008
Have you heard about the secret ways to get into college? These generally focus on some lame way to send your application, or some special club you can join, or worst of all, some company to whom you pay a fortune. There's never any evidence that any of that works, other than a story about somebody who got in at some point by sending in their application that way, joining that club, or forking over that fortune.
Read More
