Anonymous wrote:For top schools like the Ivy Leagues, MIT, or Stanford, they do expect straight As in a demanding course load. In committee when admissions officers are discussing candidates, Bs will be used as an argument to not admit a student. People have gotten in with some Bs, but the rest of your application has to be even stronger to compensate for it.

First of all, in college admissions, no one cares about your weighted GPA. Weighted GPA just exists to make students feel better, but it isn't helpful for properly evaluation academic performance in admissions. To know your GPA, you need to look at the unweighted GPA for core classes only (i.e. PE does not count).

For many competitive high schools here, a single B can place you outside of the top 10% of your class, which will kill your chances for admissions.

Even for slightly lower ranked top schools like UCLA, a single B will place you below the 25% percentile of admitted students.

A ton of applicants to top schools are going to have straight As. Grades matter a lot, and you want to avoid anything except for As if you want to have a shot at top schools. Even then, many students with straight As will get denied.

Anonymous wrote:Both of my public school kids go to T20 colleges. They each had a few Bs - mostly in Spanish which they started in middle school. Those Spanish grades from 7th and 8th grade do count though. But I don't think those Bs mattered. A B in Calculus or AP English would have mattered a lot more.

But selective colleges know the difference in grading between a public high school and NCS for example. With the amount of retesting that's allowed in public schools - not to mention they way they curve quarter grades - it's not hard to get straight As. My kids had it down to a science. They knew exactly what they needed to do each quarter to get an A for the semester. They'd roll with 4 As and 3 Bs in the first quarter; and then they'd switch their focuses. They'd make sure those three Bs became As in the second quarter, while not stressing too much about maintaining As in the other classes. In a public school quarterly system, A + B = A for the semester. It doesn't take a genius to get straight As in public school. Just some efficient time management.

Anonymous wrote:This is not true.

Anonymous wrote:OP- why are trolling here AND Reddit?

It’s the same post word for word.

Anonymous wrote:For top schools like the Ivy Leagues, MIT, or Stanford, they do expect straight As in a demanding course load. In committee when admissions officers are discussing candidates, Bs will be used as an argument to not admit a student. People have gotten in with some Bs, but the rest of your application has to be even stronger to compensate for it.

First of all, in college admissions, no one cares about your weighted GPA. Weighted GPA just exists to make students feel better, but it isn't helpful for properly evaluation academic performance in admissions. To know your GPA, you need to look at the unweighted GPA for core classes only (i.e. PE does not count).

For many competitive high schools here, a single B can place you outside of the top 10% of your class, which will kill your chances for admissions.

Even for slightly lower ranked top schools like UCLA, a single B will place you below the 25% percentile of admitted students.

A ton of applicants to top schools are going to have straight As. Grades matter a lot, and you want to avoid anything except for As if you want to have a shot at top schools. Even then, many students with straight As will get denied.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unhooked DD got into multiple Ivies, Ivy+'s, and WASP schools with a couple B's in Spanish over the years. She was still top 5% and also had strong rigor, test scores, ECs, and, LORs. YMMV.

She’s probably full pay, and that’s a hook.