Boarding School with Grade Deflation - Does WP Admissions Know Each High School?

D

DeepWaters

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I go to a boarding school in the NE. I am blessed to have this opportunity and love my school. It is also one of these august institutions that seems to take delight in their grade deflation practices. In any given class only 1 or 2 students will get an A. As a result, I have what amounts to a 3.5 GPA. My school also does not rank me. I have a decent ACT (32 and have been trying to retake) but I know that a 3.5 is going to be a weak spot on my overall application. 3 sport varsity athlete (team captain) and other strong ECs.

Are there any folks out there who have gone through a boarding school or prep school or any other private school with a rigid grade-deflating system? 100% of my class goes on to 4 year colleges and most to Ivies and "elite" schools.

Will WP Admissions be aware of the academic rigor of my high school and somehow credit this in evaluating me and my GPA?
 
Capt MJ said:
Last para, yes. The SAs know this stuff and how to evaluate your record in conjunction with a particular school.
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Thank you. Is that mainly through the School Profile my school sends? My school also sends 1 or sometimes 2 grads to WP each year. Does Admissions have an institutional memory of schools, especially those that may send graduates there on a regular basis?
 
Most likely, yes and yes. Remember this is an anonymous Internet forum, where advice is worth exactly what you pay for it, including mine. Your best resources for accurate and current info will be your primary sources and contacts through USMA.
 
RC's are responsible for a geographic region and are familiar with most high schools in their area. Even when they get an application from an unfamiliar school (or the RC is new), they will use the school profile to put the performance in context.

Follow Capt MJ's advice. Followup with your RC and make sure they understand your situation.

One RC had a similar candidate a few years ago - she was ranked near the bottom of the class at a school that sent every student to Ivy League caliber universities. According to the RC, "We are not going to lose an excellent candidate just because she is competing in a superior group and would be at the top of the class at almost any other school."
 
DD and DS were in a similar boat if I can use that metaphor in the USMA forum. They went to a rigorous high school (they even required one year of Latin) and many teachers graded on a curve. There was no "grade inflation". The only downside I saw to this was that some scholarships and financial aid from universities are based upon a raw GPA. I thought that was rather unfair.
The SAs look at the entire candidate and will normally consider this along with your other areas. ACTs sound about right as does being a 3 sport varsity athlete and team captain. Make sure you practice for and do well on the CFT. Don't leave anything on the table.
 
First, as others have said above, USMA has an internal rating of a high school's academic rigor. Sounds like that is in your favor. The rest of this advice is probably worth what you're paying for it.

My concern wouldn't be with USMAs admissions office; it is with your nominating sources. No nomination, no appointment. I'm assuming that yours is a competitive district/state. Because you're at a boarding school, your nominating MOC may have never heard of your school because it is across the state or country.

The staffers in charge of your MOCs nominations and members of any nomination committees may not know about your school's tough grading curve. They have busy lives and other duties. You will be competing for a nomination against people with higher GPAs. You need to get past any low GPA filter in their process.

I assume that your boarding school has a college counsellor. It is part the counsellor's job to manage relationships with college admissions offices. Presumably your counsellor has prepared a class graduating profile (or something like it) that shows a graduating class's average GPA, grading policies, SAT/ACT/AP exam statistics and past college placement. Good counsellors know how to sell their graduates to admissions.

I suggest that you contact your college counsellor and ensure that your school has placed the most recent profile in the hands of the relevant staffers of your nominating sources, so they know how your school's grading works. Make it easy on your counsellor and give them names and contact info for the correct staff person. How? Check the website. If it isn't there, call the local office and ask. A blind mailing to a congressional office won't do much; you need to become a known quantity with staff. Your counsellor may already be maintaining this relationship with a local MOC, but what about yours?

Your counsellor will know how to respectfully present the information, and it will be better coming from your school than coming from you. A candidate can sometimes come off as arrogant or defensive presenting such information, and that won't get you nominated. The MOC staffer may even pass along the info to any nomination advisory board members.

Use all of the resources available to you. Just my $0.02. Good luck to you.
 
Does Admissions have an institutional memory of schools, especially those that may send graduates there on a regular basis?
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Absolutely.

USMA is very familiar with all of the New England boarding schools (Andover, Exeter, Choate, etc.) as were our state's nomination panels even though almost no students from our state (AZ) choose boarding school. These schools do a tremendous job with their school profiles, personal recommendations, and advocacy for their students to all college resources. Note, though, that even though there is zero grade inflation at any of the NE boarding schools, there ARE students at those schools who are top-of-the-class and earning those uninflated As and 36/1600 test scores, so you may be competing against them as you will be compared against students from that pool who are applying to USMA the same year you apply.

Our son's FFR was local to his boarding school, and it was this person who helped him coordinate all the moving pieces, including advising him on the vagaries of the nomination process and the challenges of applying from boarding school. I would suggest establishing a relationship with an FFR local to your school if you haven't already.
 
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This is not addressed to OP, but with e-“learning” I am seeing a lot of grade inflation and not a lot of actual learning. I wonder how this will effect admissions
 
Slightly off topic, but VelevteenR's post leads me to my soapbox:

Those outside of New England often view "boarding school" as a pejorative. Fellow Californians were either sorry that we had a problem child who needed to be sent away or were revolted that we would neglect our child rearing responsibilities. They imagined the Hollywood version seen in movies such as Scent of a Woman, Dead Poets Society, etc. We quickly found that portrayal to be absurdly inaccurate. We also adopted the term used in New England - "Prep School".

There are 60+ prep schools in New England and all deliver an outstanding education; some are well known and some are "hidden gems", but all provide a fantastic environment to learn and grow. Any student with the opportunity and desire to attend one of those schools should jump at the chance.

As far as USMA knowing the Prep Schools - the Army hockey team heavily recruits from all of the New England Prep schools. Admissions knows them well.
 
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