I agree that colleges look into each students as individuals. They look more than just numbers on the transcripts or standardized test results. Personal essays submitted by students do tell the personal side of applicants and should be honest and sincere and should show passion for higher learning. Check out this blog http://topcollegeprep.com A blog written by a parent for other parents on the issue.
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Course selections signal to colleges a student's interest in, and capacity for, challenge as much as grades address performance in those courses. Making course choices early in high school is important to allow sequential schedules to play out to a student's academic favor in many areas. Parents can help push even if a student resists. If an incoming senior has missed geometry and advanced algebra or a first course in a lab science, it's hard to catch up.
Some students try to protect their GPAs by taking only three academic courses during the normal year, supplemented by a course or two during summer sessions. It's not a good strategy. A 4.0 GPA achieved with five academic courses during the normal year better reflects the workload we would expect at a college like Pomona than the same GPA achieved by taking three courses during the year supplemented by courses pursued during summer.
In some grade-inflated American high schools, a 4.0 weighted GPA may place a student in the bottom half of a class. To that student, it may seem a lot stronger. In another school not far away, a 3.0 may place a student in the top quarter of the class. Is one school more challenging than the other? Maybe. Maybe not. They may simply use grades differently, and admission staffs must sort through the local contexts. I recall reading a teacher recommendation from a school with tough grading. The teacher remarked that the student earned A-, a stunning achievement in that Jesuit school, where the teacher observed, "Only God is perfect. Only God could earn an A." I understood what that A- meant.
We examine grades along with a student's program of study and standardized testing. The picture of both performance and ability comes more finely into focus with more information. Add authentic personal statements, references from teachers and counselors, and a representation of special talents or an interview (where available), and the jigsaw puzzle comes together. It all matters and all must fit together to form a coherent picture of a real person.
As high schools move away from providing class rank to reduce competitive behavior among students, they may also deprive a student or the college to which she applied any solid context for the performance achieved. Students may over- or underestimate their abilities and capacities to compete well in a selective admissions process. Grade-distribution tables help, but some schools have moved to withhold even that information, or withhold a calculated GPA entirely. The high school may pre-emptively absolve itself of blame for anything going wrong with a candidacy, though it may also have obscured the truth of the performance. Admissions officers don't want to guess and may not be able to offer blanket benefit of the doubt.
As students narrow their list of colleges, they may better understand the values those colleges apply to the selection process. Students could be in a better position to address (not invent!) in their own applications those things the colleges seek to appreciate and understand. This isn't a game but a legitimate part of the process.
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