Helpful Hints on a High School Profile

Over the years, we have developed a wish list for what Northwestern admission officers would like to see covered in a high school profile. These are the items that will help us understand your high school when we are reviewing an applicant to Northwestern from your school. We are posting them on our web site in case you are in the middle of updating or revising your profile and would like to see what we consider ideal. We hope you find this helpful.

Demographic Information

  • Provide school name, address, and CEEB code number.
  • Provide counselor(s) name, address, phone number, e-mail address, and FAX number.
  • Specify number of seniors who go on to college.
  • Provide percent of ethnic minorities attending your high school.
  • If applicable, specify amount of financial aid scholarships given to students at your school or percent of students on scholarship.

Curriculum

  • List minimum requirements for graduation.
  • List names of honors and Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses offered. (Grouping by academic department is helpful, or list all honors together, all AP together, all IB together.)
  • Specify whether there are school rules that dictate how many H, AP, or IB courses a student can take, or if they are not allowed to take them until a specific grade.
  • State any specific high school extra requirements, i.e. "All seniors are required to take a fine arts course." "All juniors and seniors are required to do 100 hours of community service each year."
  • Explain any course abbreviations on the transcript, if difficult to understand, i.e. MAII = Intermediate Algebra, Myths of Mankind = 11th grade English.
  • Specify whether your high school is on semesters, trimesters, quarters, block system, etc.

Grade Point Average

  • List an interpretation of your grading scale, i.e. A = 90 to 100, B = 80 to 89, etc.
  • Explain if the GPA is weighted or not. If weighted, how is it weighted?
  • Explain what is included in your cumulative GPA - only academic courses, all courses, only 11th grade, all years, etc.
  • Then, please calculate a cumulative GPA, or at least a GPA for each school year.

Rank in Class

  • Make a clear statement of whether you provide rank in class or not.
  • If you provide a specific rank, is it weighted or unweighted? If weighted, what does it include - weights only for H, AP, IB? How much weight is given?
  • Many schools give two ranks: a weighted rank and an unweighted rank (all course rank).
  • Do you have shared ranks? (There may be a place on the counselor report to answer this year - more appropriate than in the profile). If no rank is given, colleges need a grade distribution.
  • Provide a GPA range. The lowest GPA in the class, the highest GPA in the class, and the mean GPA for the class. This is a minimum requirement. Providing a grade distribution by deciles or quintiles or quartiles is preferable
    OR
    Some schools provide a visual representation of grade distribution by using graphs, bar charts, or scattergrams.
    OR
    Some schools provide a grade distribution by each course taught in the 11th grade (or for 9th, 10th, and 11th grades). This tends to occur at small private schools where the whole class is taking a similar curriculum.

Testing

  • List mean or median SAT or ACT (or both) for the junior class.
  • List score distribution or median / mean AP results at the end of the junior year.

Optional

  • List colleges your students have attended for the past year or several years.
  • Describe the community in which your high school is located.
  • Provide a web site address for the high school, if a web site is available.
  • Provide other "bragging" items about your students or community.

High school profile preferences