College admissions look at your GPA down to two decimal places, but honestly, it doesn't weigh nearly as much as your SAT scores. I guess whether you have a 3.6 or a 3.7 isn't a huge deal, though everyone still stresses about getting that perfect 4.0
I think they mean they aren't rounding up individual grades anymore, just keeping everything as decimals. So, instead of getting a 4 in math, maybe it’s more like a 4.67.
Michelle Nelson4 said:See, that’s actually what I was wondering about (just curious, purely for the sake of knowing!)—do those entrance exams happen at the same time as the final high school exams? And how much time usually passes between the initial test scores coming out and when the final graduation results are official? (I know there's always that window for appeals and everything like that.)
I think this year the preliminary exam scores come out July 12th, and then the final ones around July 20th. Or maybe not, I’m not totally sure on the dates.
As for the entrance exams, I guess it really depends on the specific college. From what I know, they usually happen right after finals, maybe the first week of July.
rowdypanther12 said:That's pretty wild; it’s basically like trying to apply for high school before middle school grades are even finalized actually, it’s even more intense than that 😂
I mean, how else would they do it? High school exit exam scores are basically the foundation for getting into most colleges. Most places just tack those results onto your entrance exam points, and you pretty much have to pass the core subjects just to stay in the running, I guess.
Yeah, I guess you can add, delete, or shuffle your college choices on the list for a bit, but once the final SAT scores and graduation results are out, everything gets locked in. Some schools—the ones that require their own entrance exams—have their own specific deadlines you have to hit, too.
I mean, if you want to get into MIT, you've gotta nail those math and physics scores on your SATs, so people definitely scout which high schools have the best track records. And trust me, actually getting accepted to a place like MIT is probably the easy part—having a solid math foundation is what really matters for the actual coursework. I even heard they started offering some kind of "bridge" math course because freshmen were struggling to keep up. Obviously, you don't need to go to an elite prep school to get into MIT, just like you don't necessarily need an MIT degree to become a programmer.
I mean, a B in PE or even in history or a foreign language can be easily made up by a solid entrance exam score, which can carry up to 10 points. And let's be real, schools like prep academies are still high schoolers—they have to grind through history, languages, and everything else, plus they really need to nail down those study habits. But looking at what Sher says, it seems like kids in those top-tier schools still pull incredibly high GPAs, especially in the most competitive ones. So, I guess they don't actually run into much trouble getting into high school.
redridge13 said:Look, it’s simple: the entrance exam needs to carry way more weight than the overall GPA. That’s the only way this works. If some kid walks in with, say, 72 points based on his grades, but the exam is only worth 10%? He’s basically DOA regardless of how hard he tests. He’d have to ace that exam perfectly, while someone coming in with a perfect 4.0 would have to fail it miserably just to stay even. It’s totally unrealistic.
The way things are set up now, those exams are really just there to help filter through all the overachievers when the school hits capacity and can't take everyone.
The entrance exams for those elite prep schools these days are basically just math tests to filter out the top kids. If they actually wanted to make the exam carry more weight for admissions—even though it already counts for 10 points, which isn't nothing—they'd probably need to overhaul the whole thing first.
I'm not saying it wasn't a massive headache for parents and kids to deal with multiple entrance exams, but I guess my point is more about how hard it was to motivate those prep schools to actually adopt a single standardized test.
I honestly doubt those public high schools set up a unified entrance exam just to make things easier for parents. It’s more likely they did it because the sheer volume of applicants makes individual testing a logistical nightmare. Even so, I guess everything will eventually trickle back down to the individual schools.
The thing is, most high schools here have entrance exams, but they set the cutoff scores so high—like, 76 or 77 points—so if you're sitting at 72, you don't even get a shot at taking the test.
Yeah, obviously, once the lists are finalized, nothing changes. But between the initial sign-ups and the actual deadline, you can edit, delete, or add whatever you want.