College Planning, GPA and Rank - Where do I stand?

Profiling...sometimes it's necessary.

No, we don't mean profiling in the negative sense that you hear it.  What we mean is that it is very important that you know your own college profile for the sake of college planning.  You can't keep your eye on the prize (and you should always have a prize in mind!!) if you don't know what you have to do to get the prize.  

Know your digits.

A basic college profile is made up of numbers.  It's your starting point for comparing where you line up against a college admission's standards.  Many students have dreams about attending a specific college or university, but do not know what their chances are of being admitted until they're applying.  Then it's about wishing, hoping and praying.  While wishing, hoping and praying has it's place in life, there is so much you can do to prepare for your dreams beginning from your freshman year.  So what do you need to know in order to begin figuring out where you stand?  GPA, rank, quartile and scores (when the time comes).

Fall in love with dreaming.

First, come up with your goal.  And make your goals big!  If you want to stray away from the norm and dream about attending schools like Penn, NYU, Duke, Dartmouth instead of your state flagship schools, then dream it!  But know what it takes to get that dream.  It is never to early to begin researching the admissions standards of your dream schools.  If you don't have specific colleges or universities in mind, but you know you want to go to school in Boston, Chicago, Philly, Los Angeles, up north, midwest, California...start researching now what colleges and universities are located in those areas.  If you've dreamt of the traditions of Big Ten-type schools and big state flagship schools like UT Austin and Texas A&M, those schools still take lots of preparation for admittance.  Bottom line: dream and research.  Dream and research.

Once you have a list of schools and a list of what you need to get admitted into those schools, now you can begin planning.

What is a GPA?

A grade point average, or GPA, is the system many schools use to show how a student has done in their classes overall.  Each grade a student earns in class is weighted according to a uniform scale of "points" so that a single number can be used to express grades earned over a semester, year, or even entire academic career.

The GPA works, roughly, like this.  Please note that this is NOT the scale that Spring Branch ISD currently uses and is merely a sample for the purposes of understanding how a GPA is calculated.

For each class, the grade you get at the end of every semester is worth a certain number of  points:
                                                                       
                                                                             100 = 4 points                                            
                                                                        95- 99 = 3.5 points
                                                                       90 - 94 = 3.0 points
                                                                       85 - 89 = 2.5 points
                                                                       80 - 84 = 2.0 points
                                                                       75 - 79 = 1.5 points
                                                                       70 - 74 = 1.0 points
                                                                         0 - 69 = 0.0 points

Additionally, if a student decides to take Pre-AP/Honors, Dual-Credit or AP/IB level classes, your student may receive additional points.  For example, a Pre-AP/Honors class might award a student an additional 0.5 GPA points per passing class and an AP/IB class might award a student an additional 1.0 GPA points per passing class.

So now, we calculate.  Imagine a student has received the following grades at the end of a semester.

                                                               Theater I = 89
                                                              English 3 = 76
                                                    Pre- AP Physics = 91
                                                                Athletics = 99
                                                             Model UN = 78
                                                            US History = 83
                                            Pre-AP Pre-Calculus = 92

For each of these classes, the student receives a certain number of points (per the sample scale above).


                                                               Theater I = 89 = 2.5
                                                              English 3 = 76 = 1.5
                                                    Pre- AP Physics = 91= 3.0 + 0.5 (Honors level)  = 3.5
                                                                Athletics = 99 = 3.5
                                                             Model UN = 78 = 1.5
                                                            US History = 83 = 2.0
                                            Pre-AP Pre-Calculus = 92 = 3.0 + 0.5 (Honor level) = 3.5

Then it's simple averaging.

                   2.5 + 1.5 + 3.5 + 3.5 + 1.5 + 2.0 + 3.5 = 18
                                                                                      = 18 / 7 = 2.57

This means that at the end of this semester, this student's GPA is 2.57.  If you have multiple semesters, you would find the GPA for each individual semester and then average all of those averages together to find your cumulative GPA.  Colleges and universities will base their admissions decisions on a student's cumulative GPA (the overall GPA).

So, if a student, for example, finds out that at the end of sophomore year they are averaging a 2.57 GPA and their dream is to attend a school like UT Austin or Rice, they have a lot of work they have to do to raise their GPA to either school's standards.  Imagine what it would be like for a student to have this GPA and never know it until they are applying for UT and Rice their senior year.  Knowledge is power!!


A GPA, to college admissions counselors, is thought to be the best indicator as to a student's ability and potential success on their college campus, more even than their SAT or ACT score.  It often is also used as a way of ranking and distinguishing people for purposes of scholarship awards, and Honors interviews and admissions, etc.

What is class rank and quartile/percentile?

Class rank is a measure of how a student's performance compares to other students in his or her class.  Long story short, you take the person with highest GPA and begin to put them in order from highest to lowest.  The person at the top with the highest GPA is Ranked #1, the next person #2, the next person #3....and it goes all the way down to the lowest GPA.

Ranks are commonly also expressed as a percentile. For instance, a student may have a class size of 800.  They have a GPA that is better than 750 of his classmates.  This means they are ranked #50 and they are in the top I6% of his graduating high school class.

Why is this important?  Currently, in the state of Texas, if a student graduates in the top 10% of their graduating high school class, they are awarded automatic admission into every public college or university in the state.  Some private universities also honor this, though the number of those is few.  Many colleges or universities have admission standards based on "top 50%" or "top 25%".

Bottom line: find out where you rank and what percentile you are in.  You need to know in order to plan!

For more information about class rank in SBISD, click here.

Now what?

Now you have the information you need to keep yourself on target for your dream college or university - research, research, research!  Find your colleges' or universities' admissions websites and begin learning and writing down what you need in order to be a strong candidate for admission.

What is an admissions matrix?

Most public colleges and universities use an admissions matrix as a large part of making their admissions decisions.  An admissions matrix is basically a chart that shows what a student needs in SAT or ACT scores depending on their GPA or quartile.   For colleges or universities that utilize an admissions matrix, they are easily found on their admissions website.

Contact your admissions office or look online to find what matrix they are using for processing applicants.