School Difficulty and GPA Transfer

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akhilsharma13

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I had a question regarding if the Academy is able to determine the strength of competitive schools vs other less competitive high schools. I personally attend John P Stevens High school ranked 661st in the nation and within the top 100 stem high schools in the country; because of this, the weightage of GPA's within our classes are rated out of 6.3 with our Level 1 or Accelerated Classes being equivalent to other school's AP or Honors (I know this because of students who have transferred to JP in APs being placed in Level 1 or lower and vice versa).

Because of this downward shift in class weightage, AP classes within JP are incredibly difficult with less than 5 percent of the class receiving an A, for this reason, I wanted to know if USNA was aware of the Academic Rigor and placement of my school within their admissions process and accommodates for the GPA shift and difficulty. Thanks!
 
that is the main reason that USNA cares much more about class rank than they care about GPA. A top 10% student at one school might have a 3.95 gpa, and a top 10% student at another school might have a 3.4

class offerings, grade weighting, etc are different across the board. part of the USNA process includes receiving a school profile, that shows things like; % of students in AP, % of students that attend 4 yr college, 2 yr college, competitive colleges etc etc. as a result, they will also have an idea that a top 10% student at one school might be very competitive with a top 50% student from another school

they have more information about schools that routinely produce candidates and eventual mids that they do about a school that has not produced an applicant for a long time

even so, it's not a perfect process. at USNA there are plenty of mids who "took all APs" in HS, and "never got a B" who see some Cs and Ds once at USNA. There are also plenty of mids who had a mix of APs and Honors classes in HS, had good but not top grades, and get nothing but As and Bs at USNA.

USNA admissions, in addition to keeping HS school profiles, also looks at the academic success of mids once at USNA and connects that data back to the HS data. in other words, "we know that an average student from 'this' HS is very likely to succeed", while they may also think "we've seen 'top' students from 'this' HS and they have, on average, struggled".
 
Thank you I feel relieved to know that some sort of profile is given regardless of whether its perfect or not.
 
A6E is correct; Admissions knows and considers these factors, but I would also caution against using the quality of school and competition as an excuse. Your objective should be to do as well as you can academically, submit the best Application you can (including leadership, athletics, service, etc), and not dwell on how USNA weights things.
 
As a BGO, I cover one of the very, very top STEM schools in the country. Only 15% of applicants to the school are accepted and academics are super tough -- lots of students earn Bs, Cs and Ds. So what does this mean for USNA purposes?

First, USNA is well aware of the country's top STEM schools and the probably have a good idea of how grading generally works at those schools. If folks from your school have attended USNA in recent years, they know how that person did academically at USNA.

In my experience (let me caution, this is my opinion, not necessarily USNA practice/policy), USNA does NOT take the position that, if you're in the middle of your class at this super-competitive school, you would be at the top of your class at some other school. Having mediocre grades (Bs and Cs) and/or standing in the bottom of your class hurts you.

That said, if you are doing well, it obviously helps b/c USNA knows you can handle the academics.
 
USAFA had something online about supplying a school profile with an application. At our parent meeting, when I asked DS' BGO whether USNA did the same, he laughed and said USNA admissions already knows.
 
A6E Dad said:
that is the main reason that USNA cares much more about class rank than they care about GPA. A top 10% student at one school might have a 3.95 gpa, and a top 10% student at another school might have a 3.4

class offerings, grade weighting, etc are different across the board. part of the USNA process includes receiving a school profile, that shows things like; % of students in AP, % of students that attend 4 yr college, 2 yr college, competitive colleges etc etc. as a result, they will also have an idea that a top 10% student at one school might be very competitive with a top 50% student from another school

they have more information about schools that routinely produce candidates and eventual mids that they do about a school that has not produced an applicant for a long time

even so, it's not a perfect process. at USNA there are plenty of mids who "took all APs" in HS, and "never got a B" who see some Cs and Ds once at USNA. There are also plenty of mids who had a mix of APs and Honors classes in HS, had good but not top grades, and get nothing but As and Bs at USNA.

USNA admissions, in addition to keeping HS school profiles, also looks at the academic success of mids once at USNA and connects that data back to the HS data. in other words, "we know that an average student from 'this' HS is very likely to succeed", while they may also think "we've seen 'top' students from 'this' HS and they have, on average, struggled".
Click to expand...
Does USNA do the last part with cadidates that end up going to different SAs as well? We havent sent someone to USNA in the past while but we were able to send a few to USAFA/WP who are doing just fine there.
 
usna1985 said:
As a BGO, I cover one of the very, very top STEM schools in the country. Only 15% of applicants to the school are accepted and academics are super tough -- lots of students earn Bs, Cs and Ds. So what does this mean for USNA purposes?

First, USNA is well aware of the country's top STEM schools and the probably have a good idea of how grading generally works at those schools. If folks from your school have attended USNA in recent years, they know how that person did academically at USNA.

In my experience (let me caution, this is my opinion, not necessarily USNA practice/policy), USNA does NOT take the position that, if you're in the middle of your class at this super-competitive school, you would be at the top of your class at some other school. Having mediocre grades (Bs and Cs) and/or standing in the bottom of your class hurts you.

That said, if you are doing well, it obviously helps b/c USNA knows you can handle the academics.
Click to expand...
Does USNA do the last part with cadidates that end up going to different SAs as well? We havent sent someone to USNA in the past while but we were able to send a few to USAFA/WP who are doing just fine there.
 
i don't know for sure, but i wouldn't think that the SAs share info that they have about high school profiles
 
A6E Dad said:
that is the main reason that USNA cares much more about class rank than they care about GPA. A top 10% student at one school might have a 3.95 gpa, and a top 10% student at another school might have a 3.4

class offerings, grade weighting, etc are different across the board. part of the USNA process includes receiving a school profile, that shows things like; % of students in AP, % of students that attend 4 yr college, 2 yr college, competitive colleges etc etc. as a result, they will also have an idea that a top 10% student at one school might be very competitive with a top 50% student from another school

they have more information about schools that routinely produce candidates and eventual mids that they do about a school that has not produced an applicant for a long time

even so, it's not a perfect process. at USNA there are plenty of mids who "took all APs" in HS, and "never got a B" who see some Cs and Ds once at USNA. There are also plenty of mids who had a mix of APs and Honors classes in HS, had good but not top grades, and get nothing but As and Bs at USNA.

USNA admissions, in addition to keeping HS school profiles, also looks at the academic success of mids once at USNA and connects that data back to the HS data. in other words, "we know that an average student from 'this' HS is very likely to succeed", while they may also think "we've seen 'top' students from 'this' HS and they have, on average, struggled".
Click to expand...
Actually the academies are moving away from using class rank as part of the overall candidate file. Class rank can also be extremely skewed. SAT and ACT scores will still reign supreme.
 
^^^^

Everything can be "skewed." Many believe standardized tests are biased toward (or against) certain demographics. Also, those who can afford to take prep courses and take the test multiple times tend to do better. That obviously favors candidates whose parents are well-situated financially.

This is why USNA uses the Whole Candidate/Person Score. Looks at many different elements. In the end, there's no entirely "fair" way to select applicants to any school. Admissions offices all over the country do the best they can in an imperfect world. SAs are no different.
 
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