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I had the exact opposite situation. I was encouraged to challenge myself and take the hard courses through high school, because it would look better on my trans

I had the exact opposite situation. I was encouraged to challenge myself and take the hard courses through high school, because it would look better on my transcript. I finished with a rather low GPA (around a C+), while simultaneously having a really high SAT score (770 verbal, 710 math). Colleges here use both to determine scholarship eligibility, and it turns out I qualified for nothing. If I had taken the easier classes and raised my GPA to meet the threshold, I would have gotten a full ride based on my SAT. The moral here is you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

danieltillett 11y ago
The Australian system is very different in that we don't have the equivalent of the SAT with your entire university entrance mark determined by your final marks in your 10 best units of high school classes (there is a statewide final exam). Each subject was normalised to a mean of 60% with only 1% of marks over 90%. The universities then rescaled these marks so the mean for moron maths became something like 30% while 4U maths had a scaled mean of 80%. My unscaled mark was around 80% while my scaled mark ended up a little over 90%. My smart friends ended up with the oposite sort of mark.
- bryondowd 11y ago
  Ultimately, you have to know your system and work it, while hoping the system doesn't change on you in the meantime. If your system hadn't changed dramatically, it sounds like your friends would have been the ones coming out ahead. But I do suppose that the person who is 'cheating' the system is more likely to get screwed harder than someone doing the 'right' thing in the case of a major change. I expect that if things were changed in a way that hurt people doing what they were supposed to, there would be some transitional period, grandfathering, etc to protect them, whereas if a change hurts people who are gaming the system, it's more likely to just leave them hanging, since they shouldn't have been doing that anyway.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    I agree, but as I found out by chance it is very hard to work a dynamic system prone to political change when you have to invest years into it. If your exposure is only short-term you are far less likely to get caught out by sudden changes. The irony in all this is I ended enrolling in a science degree for which I only needed a very low mark to get into - I could have enrolled in any of my high school's subjects and it would not have mattered.

danieltillett 11y ago

The Australian system is very different in that we don't have the equivalent of the SAT with your entire university entrance mark determined by your final marks in your 10 best units of high school classes (there is a statewide final exam). Each subject was normalised to a mean of 60% with only 1% of marks over 90%. The universities then rescaled these marks so the mean for moron maths became something like 30% while 4U maths had a scaled mean of 80%. My unscaled mark was around 80% while my scaled mark ended up a little over 90%. My smart friends ended up with the oposite sort of mark.

bryondowd 11y ago
Ultimately, you have to know your system and work it, while hoping the system doesn't change on you in the meantime. If your system hadn't changed dramatically, it sounds like your friends would have been the ones coming out ahead. But I do suppose that the person who is 'cheating' the system is more likely to get screwed harder than someone doing the 'right' thing in the case of a major change. I expect that if things were changed in a way that hurt people doing what they were supposed to, there would be some transitional period, grandfathering, etc to protect them, whereas if a change hurts people who are gaming the system, it's more likely to just leave them hanging, since they shouldn't have been doing that anyway.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  I agree, but as I found out by chance it is very hard to work a dynamic system prone to political change when you have to invest years into it. If your exposure is only short-term you are far less likely to get caught out by sudden changes. The irony in all this is I ended enrolling in a science degree for which I only needed a very low mark to get into - I could have enrolled in any of my high school's subjects and it would not have mattered.