Anonymous wrote:The top private colleges are aware and appear to adjust accordingly in admissions.
Our kid’s independent school does not inflate grades nor does it weight grades. It offers just a few AP classes and took them out of the curriculum years ago.
I think my kid is typical-high for his class: 3.75, SAT 1560 in one sitting.
Non-hooked kids with similar profiles from this school go to top 25 schools, pretty much exclusively. Kids with similar profiles AND a hook go to Yale, Harvard, Penn (legacy, development) and Columbia (URM, legacy, athletic).
The 3.5 - 3.85 UW thing is demonstrably not holding back these students, so I’ve concluded that admissions counselors are able to discern differences among grading practices at applicants’ high schools
I agree with this (our kids are likely at the same school, LOL)
I think what we are seeing is kids who a generation ago would be shoe-in at Ivys are now dispersing their applications, particularly ED, to a wider range of schools - so you see places like Northwestern, Emory, Pomona, Hopkins, Rice, Tufts, WashU - are now receiving many more ED/ED2 applications because the kids are just as happy with them and a little less angst. All fabulous schools and always have been, but given the proliferation of international applicants, test optional etc, it just seems to be not as worthwhile to pin "hopes" on a school with a 90+% rejection rate.