Grade Point Average

GPA is the most important part of any college application. While a spike may be able to compensate for a lower standardized test score on the SAT or ACT, it cannot compensate for a significantly lower GPA. GPA shows colleges your work ethic, capability, and academic history. This is why it is so critical to maintain the highest GPA possible.

How Grade Point Average Impacts Admissions

High school grade point average is the single most important factor in college admissions. Colleges will consider this before anything else along with standardized test scores. Thus, it is vital to get the highest GPA possible. However, GPA is just one of many components that form the holistic approach to college admissions. If students have great spikes that demonstrate promise and potential impact to admissions officers, or great standardized test scores, that can help compensate for a GPA that is lower than a college’s average. However, GPA cannot be significantly lower than average, or admissions officers will think applicants did not apply themselves and are unlikely to succeed at the college. Of course, there are some special circumstances that impact GPA, such as having to work to support family or taking care of a sibling. During the actual application process students with these special circumstances must mention them in the additional information section of the Common Application or Coalition.

How to Select a Course Schedule

Core Curriculum

Depending on how competitive the college of choice is, students’ course loads should be comprised of at least some but preferably mostly advanced classes, such as AP, IB, AICE, or some variant. If students want to get into a top 100 school, colleges will expect them to have taken a mix of some advanced course work and honors and have mostly been successful. If applying to top 50 colleges students’ courses should be the most advanced that their school offers, meaning every class they take should be advanced. Honors will not help like advanced classes will. Admissions officers will not usually make exceptions to this rule. This is the same but even more true for students applying to top 30 colleges. At these levels, there will be almost no exceptions. If the course schedule is not advanced, college will likely reject an applicant immediately unless there is a very special circumstance. Top 50 colleges desire candidates with mostly A’s and some B’s, top 30 colleges expect all A’s with only a couple of B’s throughout high school. Ivy league colleges will expect this as well (3.8 +, 3.9 and 4.0 unweighted preferred). Taking advanced courses means that classes will be weighted, which means on a 4.0 scale, applicants taking such courses should have a weighted GPA above 4.0.

Electives

It is important to note that students should NOT replace electives with academic or advanced courses unless they are extremely passionate about a certain class or are given more than one elective. Students should take advantage of electives to lessen the load of their coursework, but if given more than one, they should fill them with advanced courses like APs. Taking more than one nonacademic course (out of 7 classes a semester, for example) could indicate that students are not taking enough advanced courses. However, taking all advanced courses will be overload and will not help applicants get into the college they want, not even an Ivy League. Colleges want to see applicants succeed in all their courses but taking more advanced courses than required is not going to help. Use electives to take art, drama, band, orchestra, or something else of interest. Students should not take extremely hard electives because that will just take time away from core courses, developing extracurriculars, leadership roles, and community involvement, all of which are far more important than taking one more AP class. Remember, maintaining a high GPA is time consuming, but it is still not the only factor of admissions, so make sure to focus on the other factors as well.