[Ladybugmom]

Originally Posted by UHDEEGEE

How can you not get a 4.0 in high school? Hmmm, let me count the ways.
You attend an exemplary (and extremely competitive) high school, your senior class has 760 students with the top 10% ALL having a 4.5, over half of the top 10% are National Merit Semi-Finalists, your AP classes all use college text books, your high school peers are the highly intelligent children of rocket scientists (literally), doctors, entrepreneurs, CEO's, CFO's, etc. and your school administration KNOWS it so the curriculum is designed to be ABOVE what the state's minimum requirements are, a weighted GPA of 3.5 at your high school is still considered better than an unweighted 4.0 at just about every other high school in your city because of the rigorous curriculum.

I understand the value of a high GPA because I had that 4.0, but I see how much harder my son's school is than the one I attended 30 years ago. He does not have an unweighted 4.0, but if I dropped him in most ANY other school in the Houston area, he'd have that GPA because he takes the most advanced courses that his school offers. He opted to actually learn something in school as opposed to taking the "easy A" road.

Personally, I think this stupid Top 10% law in Texas is going to be the death knell of our higher education system. When a kid with a 3.5 GPA and a 900 SAT gets into UT over a kid with a 4.0 and an 1840 SAT simply because they are in the top 10% of their class, then I think there is a serious problem. When you don't look at the level of difficulty of classes that a student takes in high school, you cannot compare apples to apples.

I would pretty much guarantee that a student graduating with a 3.85 out of my son's high school (and those like it) is going to be quite successful at their college of choice.

Very, very well said!!!! You again have hit the nail on the head!! I would love to hear from others that have gone through recruitment at OU to see if they would agree that a 3.8 un-weighted GPA is just too low...