| I assume these are based on weighted GPAs? If your kid placed in top 5 or 10 percent, what HS and what was their approx weighted gpa for which cutoff (e.g., school name, 4.72, top 10%)? Or does anyone know the actual cutoffs? |
| MCPS does not rank, so people don’t actually know their %. But I think what you are looking for is the school profile which is sent to colleges with the counselor recommendation letter. Those are usually posted on the school’s website under the counseling page. |
| School profile is useless because 20% are in the top tier in the profile. |
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Did you read it? 40% of students are in the top level in that document. |
Why do you care? Colleges don't get them and they are meaningless. |
| Op here - no, I mean the awards given at graduation for the top 5 and 10 percent. Every MCPS school should at least have the top 5% because it’s a state award. I’ve seen the list in multiple graduation programs this year. |
| Pretty sure top 5% is UW, while top 10% is weighted |
Yes, I did. It’s a good example of why MCPS doesn’t rank. It’s meaningless when kids take all Hon/AP/IB (weight=+1) and have 4.0 unweighted GPA. As far as the award that OP is referencing from the state, I think a school has to apply for that award for their students. RM didn’t the year my DC graduated, and they had 4.0 and the highest possible WGPA, along with 30-40 other kids (guessing from Naviance.) Ultimately, it’s a meaningless distinction at many of the high schools. |
You mean 40% |
Let’s remember this when someone tries to claim public school grades aren’t inflated. |
| DS was top 10%. He had one B in AP Bio, the rest As. Might have had a B in Honors English freshman year. Took basically all AP and Honors classes. |
Thank you. |
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Our HS never specified the criteria for top 5% award, and doing the math, it actually went to slightly more than 5% of the class, so we concluded that they did not base it strictly on a GPA cut off. For a variety of reasons, we suspect they gave it to everyone with an unweighted 4.0 GPA, but we really don't know. There are reasons to second guess whatever the criteria are -- the fact that AP/IB/Honors classes are all weighted the same, yet can be of radically different degrees of difficulty for one.
But the bottom line is that the award is of no use for the regular college admissions process since it is not announced until April or May. |
| PP here: And our HS did not offer awards for the top 10%. Just the Governor's award, which MCPS by state statute has to award. I doubt they'd even do that if they didn't have to |