Grades
Grades are a crucial part in your application no matter which country you apply to. They show the universities whether you are actually ready to take on the challenge of higher studies.
Since HSC and A Levels are the main high school leaving exams in Bangladesh, this section will be focused on only these two exams and their curriculum. Feel free to add any other ones.
(Will be updated soon! :D)
Grade Deflation, Class Ranks, Being Consistent in Class and the Obsession with A+/A*s in Board Exams
Alright. So, recently, I've come across lots of posts/comments that ask stuff along the following lines:
My internal marks are poor but I scored pretty high in OL/SSC/HSC/ALs - will this be a problem?
My position is good in my class but my marks are poor - will that cause a problem?
and many more..............
And of course, there are lots of people who slack off all year but ace final exams/board exams. But how do these situations affect your application?
Okay, calm down.
A pretty common problem in Bangladesh is Grade Deflation - which basically constitutes the first FAQ I mentioned - the average/median marks of students sitting internal tests in schools are pretty low compared to official standards in leaving exams like HSC or ALs. A firsthand experienced example would be at my alma mater Notre Dame College: the median mark probably lies around 50% (or even less 😕 ). The valedictorian usually has an average mark somewhere in the 80 percent range; just remove 10-20 marks off that and your rank pushes to 600+ amongst 2000+ students. It's considered completely normal in NDC quizzes to score somewhere around the 30%/40% range in chemistry/physics considering the strict grading curve and problem-set rigor. I'm pretty sure this is also the case in MANY other institutions, as heard from my friends.
However, did this disadvantage us at any point? I don't think so; the number of top-college admits from the school disagrees with that. What else is playing a role here then?
This is where your Class Rank scrubs in. A class rank gives the AO a crucial piece of info: how you are holding up relative to your peers. Your marks/scores don't mean much if there is no further context regarding your course rigor, the quality of your peers etc. Internal scoring of an institution, unfortunately, doesn't have fixed rigorous standards like board exams; hence AOs would expect a reference/benchmark to get an idea of your relative performance. How do they do that? Hold on!
Here comes the School Report and School Profile. The former provides info about your school's curriculum, standards, etc, while the latter is basically a brag-sheet for your school, indicating how good it is, how many people get into top colleges every year, examples of successful alumni etc.
They'll know about your school's rigor from the school profile and school report, submitted by your counselor. And from rankings, they'll get to know the aforementioned crucial piece of info.
To illustrate this even better, let's consider an example: School A is a pretty rigorous school notorious for grade deflation, while School B is lenient in both academics and giving out grades. The 90th percentile mark of School A students is around 70%, while that of School B is 95%. When AOs get two applications from these two schools, are they going to choose the School B kid over the former school kid, assuming they have exactly similar stats other than this? The answer is NO. Since School A is more rigorous getting a 69% in school A is way more impressive than getting a 69% in School B. In case of the latter, 69% is a pretty poor mark; in case of the former, getting a 69% means you're in the top 10% of your class.
Subsequently, the kid who got a 69% from School A is going to end up with pretty high 90%+ scores in board exams, while the School B kid is going to score slightly lesser.
EDIT: I had to make this edit since people misinterpret a lot of things. Some of you expressed concern whether you'd be at a disadvantage if you go to a "lower standard" school rather than some of the feeder schools in Bangladesh. An essential thing to remember is that most schools in Bangladesh, unlike US schools, don't have a "course level" (e.g. regular, honors, AP, etc), and there is no standard metric to determine coursework rigor anywhere. A school having grade deflation does NOT necessarily mean coursework there is hard. It could mean anything; most commonly being purposefully deflating students' grades to "motivate" them to do better. This post simply addresses the issue of grade deflation on its own.
In some cases, the holistic system may even put you at an advantage. Think of this: person A going to a posh school with lots of resources and training available, and person B going to a "generic" school with no clubs, both became champions at the physics Olympiad. Person B had to overcome all the lack of resources and training to achieve the same thing Person A did; this is more impressive to the eyes of an AO.
So don't get sad over not going to a feeder school. Be the first US college admit from your school! Create a whole culture in your school! 😃
TLDR: DON'T WORRY ABOUT POOR MARKS IF THERE'S ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST YOU CAN THRIVE WELL WITHIN YOUR PEER GROUP.