The Formula For the Highest Academic Achievement Rating in the College Admissions Process: Grades, Ranking, Testing, OH MY!
In the last piece, we covered how an admissions officer would assess a student’s curriculum rigor and strength; which is the first of five points of how admissions would render an Academic Achievement (AA) rating. Just in case folks do not remember or are joining us for the first time, here are the five calibration points of Academic Achievement:
Curricular Strength And Rigor
Academic Performance/Grades
Your Place Within Your Graduating Class/Class Rank
School Strength (How Many Students Are Going To 4 Year Colleges)
Testing (If Applicable)
After reading every piece of “The Formula For the Highest Academic Achievement Rating in the College Admissions Process” you will have all of the ingredients, including examples of nuance within the context of highly selective admissions, to not only be able to synthesize how a college or university renders a AA rating but will also have a basic foundation for admissions decision-making processes. You will know how to think about academics like an admissions officer and will understand what type of academic conversations occur in the college admissions committee rooms.
Understanding Academic Performance in Context: Evaluating a Student’s Grades in the context of Top 75 Colleges
I am happy to share that the mode for evaluating a student’s grades is fairly straightforward. For the most part, outside of student-athletes (but even then honestly), students have mostly if not all A’s among the admitted groups at the top 75 colleges and universities in the country. The way they parse through straight “A” students is by anchoring students by their curriculum and allowing that to be the main difference between applicants and their grades. For example, a student with all A’s and 9 APs is significantly stronger than a student with 6-7 APs and all A’s. Having more rigorous classes is the difference at the top colleges, not grades. Do students with a few B’s here or there in their early years still get admitted to colleges? Yes, typically these students are incredibly textured (we will define what that means in a later piece), but those admits are usually in early decision; or the applicant identifies as a boy (he/him/his).
More and more girls are applying to college than boys and there is an infamous saying in college admissions, “late blooming boy.” Meaning that they have straight A’s in junior year and at the quarter/semester in their senior year but had several B’s in their 1st and 2nd years of high school typically coupled with solid test scores. The ladies on the other hand, have close to perfect curriculums and have straight A’s; it is hard to be in a girl applying to college right now; aye ladies listen to me, DO NOT SLEEP ON ALL WOMEN’S COLLEGES. Truly, these colleges are just as strong, if not stronger than their Co-Ed counterparts. Do not let their admit rates fool you or be a form of elitist assessment, remember that their applicant pools only represent half of the world’s population. So Barnard College’s 8% admit rate is more like 4% in context. For students who do not identify on the spectrum of boy or girl, I will be releasing a piece specific about colleges that would be great fits for you, but know that these gendered binaries do not apply to you.
Your Rank or Placement in Your Graduating Class Will Make or Break Your Admissions Run At A Top College or University
Class rank or placement is so important. When you first enter high school, or whenever you happen to get wind of this information, learn how your college ranks or places students on your school's High School Profile. Do they have numbered ranks, deciles, evaluate by how rigorous a curriculum is, give grade distribution charts, give GPA ranges, etc? Some of you might find, especially if your student attends a private school that you say nothing about rank or placement. What happens then, is colleges are allowed to go rampant with their assumptions about who and who isn't a top or good student. They go based on year-to-year applications received to form an idea and read into the counselor and teacher recommendations. They ask themselves, do these teachers and counselors see this student as a good student, a top student, or a top few students (within the single digits of the top 10 of that class)? This level of analysis of the recommendation letters is typically true for all applicants no matter what is reported, but a rank, decile, or some type of placement can circumvent just okay recommendations which cannot happen for those applications. Below is an example of what a placement chart can look like from the Cate School’s High School Profile:
As you can see, Cate organizes their rankings by grouping GPAs. I think this is an excellent way to give admissions officers an idea where a student is in the class because it gives them a sense of who their tippy top students are (4.5+) while still showing the students in the 2nd and 3rd groups are still quite excellent and show they are still very good students!
If your school does have rankings or gives an idea of what a student class ranks here is a tier list to pay attention to:
Top 1%
Top 3%
Top 5%
Top 10%
Top 15%
Top 20%
Everyone else
If you are trying to go to a top 75, maybe even a top 100 school, having a ranking within the top 10% is so important and key. Rank is something that colleges continue to report with their data when sharing their data with the public. You will always see colleges reporting what percentage of students are in the top 10% and top 20% in their class profiles. Just Google “x college class profile” and you will see that stat ever present among the top colleges and universities.
The Strength of Your High School
The 4 year to 2 year college-going rate matters to colleges but not as much as you think. Truly colleges and universities only put stock value into this data when you have a straight A student with no testing from a high school they never heard of. If this is a student whose high school has a high rate of students going to 4-year colleges at least 50%-60% then admissions officers have confidence that those As are real and rigorous As. When it’s not, colleges feel like they need another data point to confirm the grades like AP scores or tests, and when they don’t they tend to waitlist that student, since nothing can confirm the grades and curriculum.
When To Submit Testing
Every school has their averages, their middle 50%. I believe that one should only submit testing in this test-optional landscape when it boosts your academic rating or when the tests do not affect your academic rating. So while 1450 for example might be at their middle 50% if not lower, if you have more B’s than A’s and you’re applying to a school like Boston University (BU) for example, you will want to submit that testing because it boosts your candidacy since we all know that students who are being admitting to BU have mostly A level grades these days. An example, of when submitting your test and having it do nothing is when let’s say, you’re a top student (top 1%-3%) applying to Cornell University and your ACT is a 35 then that score is fine to submit, but let’s say you had a 33 then I think you should hold the test as that would lower your academic rating; I am just one person however. Here are the SAT and ACT scales:
SAT
1600-1590
1560-1580
1550-1540
1530-1500
1490-1470
1460-1440
1430-1400
1390-1360
1350-1330
1320-1300
1290-1270
1260-1240
1230-1210
1210-1190
ACT
36
35
34-33
32-31
30
29-28
27-25
24-23
22-20
Colleges have no preference as to which test you submit, that is very true. When you have one score or scores that are a lot higher than another you want to ensure that they are higher in your areas of academic interest if you are submitted them to a college or university.
We Did It!
With all of that being said, we are officially done covering how to think about a student’s academic achievement score or rating from the perspective of an admissions officer. From here we will go to the second admissions evaluation point - intellectual curiosity! Excited to release the next stage for you all so sit tight!
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