ORD_Buckeye;1875189; said:
It's no wonder that colleges have pretty much stopped looking at gpa in admissions--it's all largely test scores, class rank and AP classes these days.
AP classes are, IMO, a joke.
In Ohio, a high school junior or senior is better off taking advantage of the PSEO option and taking classes at a local college or university (which can be taken for free and count towards high school as well as obviously college graduation credits) rather than the AP equivalent at his/her high school. Put another way, a high school senior is better off taking Calculus I and Calculus II at a college/university (for free!) rather than the AP equivalent in high school. He/she will have taken a year of calculus (for free) that is already college credit.
That looks better to admissions than AP classes too. Having taken college coursework while in high school, rather than the AP coursework, seems to be showing something that universities would like to have as an undergraduate.
Class rank is as bad to look at as GPA since many classes are weighted. So while the GPA scale goes to a 4.0, with weighted classes one can have a GPA over a 4.0. Individually, a university can recalibrate a GPA that is over a 4.0, but to get a fair class rank the GPA of every student in the graduating class would have to be recalculated. Unless rank is used more generally as "top 10% or top 25%", it is almost as useless as GPA. (Now give me ACT scores, GPA, and class rank and those 3 together may give a clearer picture).
In any event, I blame soccer for all of this. Soccer moms have led to the pussification of the country with the "every game ends in a tie", "everyone gets a trophy", "everyone gets a snack after the game", mentality. Fucking soccer.