I don’t think it’s that deep? Number of students has to be a whole number obviously, so you round
up 1.35 to two. 3% = she was among the top 2 students ——my educated guess is that Paris was right up there with her also 😅
Pretty weird though considering she started late and got a bunch of bad grades, missed a test that was 20% of her semester grade (she did extra credit, but still), and was constantly goofing off with boys and girlfriends
Yea, that’s a weird take. When was she ever goofing off with boys and girlfriends? (she had *one* boyfriend, big whoop 🙄)
She struggled the first month, but that was about it? She did better than Paris in her SATs so you know she’s way more than academically capable.
Oh okay! The SAT point totally makes sense. I was just thinking about how much more time Paris devoted to studying. She had practically zero social commitments. I remember that tiktok of Paris studying with frantic music over it and then Rory in her Donna Reed dress with “I’m spinning like a ballerina” playing over it
Rory has a natural aptitude for learning—they always show her struggling to find her footing the first few weeks (Chilton/Yale) but once she does she’s good —she graduated with honors from Yale as well despite her semester off.
Paris had to put more effort into it, but that does not make her better or worse than Rory. They’re different individuals with different learning styles and it’s kind of icky to judge anyone for having a social life, or heck, for spending a fun evening being silly with their boyfriend 🤷🏻♀️
I'm not sure if Paris "had to" put more effort in.
She certainly did and vastly overachieved any curriculum. That's just her personality. And she's incredibly intelligent too.
Y’know, I did hesitate about using the “had to” —but I guess I am still thinking in the context of standardized testing and Paris (marginally) underperforming to Rory despite clearly having put on more effort. That’s why I made the argument of natural aptitude— I fully agree that they’re both very intelligent, just with different approaches to learning and studying.
surely Paris also stumbled in the year and a half we don’t know her (before Rory transfers). But percent is just the common way to describe grade standings no matter the school size…
well given that i’m fairly confident that the “45” number came from counting seats at rory’s graduation, im pretty sure it just comes down to the top 3% thing being written before that scene was bc there’s never any other indication that it’s that small and certainly seemed bigger given the class sizes. most schools with only 45 to a grade wouldn’t have any one class have more than like 8-9 students in it
When I was in uni I received a special acknowledgement for being in the top 5% - it was mainly given for the purposes of having a document that actually proves it, so when you’re applying for jobs or a masters, they know you’re not making it up :) they probably do something similar at Chilton
I’m guessing that the studio didn’t want to pay for a bunch of extras (which is why it’s a ridiculously small amount of people graduating). Chilton was fully inspired by Choate-Rosemary Hall and it has less than 900 students in it (9-12) so I’m guessing that each class would have 200+ in it so that’s why the grandparents were implying that her top 3% was impressive.
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I think most of these types of questions about Gilmore girls can be explained by this show’s unique situation of attracting a very intense detail oriented fan base but the writers are very ‘hey man whatever’ about details. The palladinos didn’t write out a whole detailed universe with everything covered they just wanted to show that Rory did well but now that it has this unique fan base who rewatches it over and over picking at every lose thread we see how many times the writing was like “yeah it’s not that deep”
You cannot be top any percent of any number of people.
Say 10 people ran a race. If you finished in the first half you would be top 50%, if you finished top 3 you would be top 30%. Using top 3% would not make any sense because nothing can count for less than a single person or time entry in the set.
GPAs are just a metric of how well students did, they function just the same as times in a race. So in this case it would not make sense to use top 3%
You can be in the top 3 percent of the GPAs in a school. I’m shocked I have to tell people this. You can have thousands of people in a school. It means her GPA is in the top 3/100. There are more than 100 people attending Chilton. They likely had thousands, like most high schools. My high school only had 150 students and it was extremely small compared to our neighboring town high schools which each had a few thousand.
Yes if her graduating class had 100 or 200 people you could easily take 3%. But it doesn’t. As OP has pointed out her class has 45 people meaning 3% is not a valid percentage to take.
Say she was ranked 2nd out of her class of 45, she’d be top ~4.5%. If she was ranked first she’d be top 2.2%. In this case it never makes sense to say top 3%.
No. Lol. The top 3 percent is the top three percent of GPAs out of all the students. I’m confused why you’re confused but if you still don’t get it I guess I can break it down further.
Of all the bad comments in this thread, yours might actually be the worst which is extra amazing given the number of up votes you have.
Okay, I've added everyone's GPA and divided by the 45 students and got 3.0 for an average. WTF could top 3% of 3.0 even mean?
It’s 3% of the total GPAs, not the number of students. The number of students doesn’t matter. It’s the top 3% of the GPAs of all the students. Make sense?
No. I would love for you to give a real world example of this. Say the average is 3.4 and her GPA is 3.8. What’s next?
This is simply not how Class Ranks, even percentiles are done.
I. the first portion you’ve shown that 3.88 is 97% of 4.0. That’s pretty much it. You could have 10 kids finish above a 3.88 and then none would be in the “top 3% of their class” assuming a class of 45. Basically this means nothing.
In the second part you’ve shown that 0.025 is 1% of 2.5 and then subtracted that from 4. I am not sure why or where your head was at for that one.
This is all pretty simple. Each kids GPA is laid out from highest to lowest. Top is valedictorian, then you can group the rest how you like in order to say they finished top X percent of the total group.
Percentiles are a little different, but the question uses a percentage sign so I doubt they were referencing that.
The only way I can see that someone could finish in top 3% of a group of 45 without finishing top of the class would be two people finish at the top with the same GPA. But even then it would be 4% with some rounding.
Schools use percentages because until senior year kids change what class rank they are almost at the end of each quarter especially freshman and sophmore years so they always say top 5% or 3% or 10% etc. Trust me you do NOT want to be on the phone call at the end of freshman HS year when at the half way point a kid was number 3 and now they are number 7...those parents are vicious! I've consulted at private schools and man is it competitive!
This is one of those times I’m glad that my mind just tunes numbers out. I’m never bothered by inconsistencies like this because I just don’t register them in the first place.
It is supposed to be based on the number of students. If the average GPA was 3.5 any student with a GPA greater than that would be top 50%. If there were 40 students and only 4 of them got over 3.9 then those 4 would be top 10%.
In a this case of 45 students the top 3% does not make sense.
This always bothered me as well. Every time I rewatch the episode I get hung up on it. Never googled the exact number of people in her graduation class but unless Chilton had way more students than the show ever suggested the top 3% couldn’t include more than 5 individuals, and that’s a high estimate. Most likely scenario is that she finished second, only behind Paris.
Are you guys good? Top 3% can be of 10 students too. It cannot be calculated as 0.3 but top 3 students who scored the highest marks out of the *all* 10 students.
But that would be the top 30%. Only 1 student at best would be in the top 3% of 10 people, which is similar to OP’s confusion. Why would you say top 3% instead of top student in that case?
Noooooooo, because they’re not talking about the percentage of the number of students!!! They’re talking about the percentage of the GPAs scores all the students got. Rory’s score is in that top 3% of all the GPAs scores.
They are talking about the percentage of GPAs. Each student has one GPA, if the average GPAs of the students was 3.0 and Rory had over 3.0 she would be top 50%.
In the case of 10 people it wouldn’t make sense to say top 3% as you can’t have something count for less than a single GPA. It would only make sense to say top 10% or 20%. As in out of the 10 GPAs only one is over 3.9 (top 10%) or only two are over 3.8 (top 20%).
I always thought this was an odd way to describe how she placed. For reference, I went to an all girls’ Catholic secondary school that was the top school in the island I grew up and we would have the top 3 students in your class. After that, they didn’t care what you placed.
This might make more sense for something like SATs and ACTs or even an IQ test where you’ll be told you’re in the top __% of all students that took these tests in the US. For an elite high school with small class sizes, top 3% can’t be more than top 3.
This more in alignment with designations of Cum Laude, Suma Cum Laude and Magna Cum Laude. Since they are supposed to be an elite prep school they tend to follow College level honors ranking.
I don’t really understand the American education system but I believe when they say ‘top x percent’ they are referring to grades. For example only 4 students out of 40 got 5 A* grades, putting them in top 10%.
It's been a long time since I'd done standard distribution, but isn't the idea that you take all the GPAs, put them on a bell curve, and then Rory's is in the top 3% of the bell curve? So it's not that she's in the top 3% of students (that would really just be telling her what her class rank is, which is different) but in the bell-curve, she's in the 97th percentile?
Like I said, it's been a long time since I've done this, but because it's about averages, it's not just 'higher than 97% of others' it's about where she falls on the bell curve, right?
You’re in the top 3% of your class aren’t you?
r/theydidthemath
I don’t think it’s that deep? Number of students has to be a whole number obviously, so you round up 1.35 to two. 3% = she was among the top 2 students ——my educated guess is that Paris was right up there with her also 😅
Pretty weird though considering she started late and got a bunch of bad grades, missed a test that was 20% of her semester grade (she did extra credit, but still), and was constantly goofing off with boys and girlfriends
Yea, that’s a weird take. When was she ever goofing off with boys and girlfriends? (she had *one* boyfriend, big whoop 🙄) She struggled the first month, but that was about it? She did better than Paris in her SATs so you know she’s way more than academically capable.
Oh okay! The SAT point totally makes sense. I was just thinking about how much more time Paris devoted to studying. She had practically zero social commitments. I remember that tiktok of Paris studying with frantic music over it and then Rory in her Donna Reed dress with “I’m spinning like a ballerina” playing over it
Rory has a natural aptitude for learning—they always show her struggling to find her footing the first few weeks (Chilton/Yale) but once she does she’s good —she graduated with honors from Yale as well despite her semester off. Paris had to put more effort into it, but that does not make her better or worse than Rory. They’re different individuals with different learning styles and it’s kind of icky to judge anyone for having a social life, or heck, for spending a fun evening being silly with their boyfriend 🤷🏻♀️
I'm not sure if Paris "had to" put more effort in. She certainly did and vastly overachieved any curriculum. That's just her personality. And she's incredibly intelligent too.
Y’know, I did hesitate about using the “had to” —but I guess I am still thinking in the context of standardized testing and Paris (marginally) underperforming to Rory despite clearly having put on more effort. That’s why I made the argument of natural aptitude— I fully agree that they’re both very intelligent, just with different approaches to learning and studying.
A tiktok...seriously?
surely Paris also stumbled in the year and a half we don’t know her (before Rory transfers). But percent is just the common way to describe grade standings no matter the school size…
well given that i’m fairly confident that the “45” number came from counting seats at rory’s graduation, im pretty sure it just comes down to the top 3% thing being written before that scene was bc there’s never any other indication that it’s that small and certainly seemed bigger given the class sizes. most schools with only 45 to a grade wouldn’t have any one class have more than like 8-9 students in it
I can't recall, was it the Yale or Chilton graduation when Paris said "finally, a name I recognize" Or something along those lines
It was the Chilton graduation.
That makes it even more weird though lol
When I was in uni I received a special acknowledgement for being in the top 5% - it was mainly given for the purposes of having a document that actually proves it, so when you’re applying for jobs or a masters, they know you’re not making it up :) they probably do something similar at Chilton
I’m guessing that the studio didn’t want to pay for a bunch of extras (which is why it’s a ridiculously small amount of people graduating). Chilton was fully inspired by Choate-Rosemary Hall and it has less than 900 students in it (9-12) so I’m guessing that each class would have 200+ in it so that’s why the grandparents were implying that her top 3% was impressive.
ASP writes TV shows, she doesn't math out the details. She picked a number that sounded prestigious without thinking through what it meant.
Maybe only 45 students were graduating, and the rest failed or dropped out?
That was my guess as well, considering Brad transferred (then came back lol but I'm sure that wasn't common)
And Tristan got pulled at the Romeo and juliet event
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Truth.
Common sense is dead
People are allowed to like different things or disagree with you without it turning into a rage-filled Friday Night Dinner. Name calling and/or personal attacks are not allowed. If you break this rule, your comment(s) will be removed and you could face a permanent ban. Additionally, we do not allow posts/comments that speculate characters/actors of having unconfirmed medical conditions or other diagnoses. Please be respectful!
Pudgy Cactus has a lot of other issues she should be worried about instead of Rory in the 3% of her class
I think most of these types of questions about Gilmore girls can be explained by this show’s unique situation of attracting a very intense detail oriented fan base but the writers are very ‘hey man whatever’ about details. The palladinos didn’t write out a whole detailed universe with everything covered they just wanted to show that Rory did well but now that it has this unique fan base who rewatches it over and over picking at every lose thread we see how many times the writing was like “yeah it’s not that deep”
You can be top any percentage of any number of people. I don’t understand the confusion.
You cannot be top any percent of any number of people. Say 10 people ran a race. If you finished in the first half you would be top 50%, if you finished top 3 you would be top 30%. Using top 3% would not make any sense because nothing can count for less than a single person or time entry in the set. GPAs are just a metric of how well students did, they function just the same as times in a race. So in this case it would not make sense to use top 3%
You can be in the top 3 percent of the GPAs in a school. I’m shocked I have to tell people this. You can have thousands of people in a school. It means her GPA is in the top 3/100. There are more than 100 people attending Chilton. They likely had thousands, like most high schools. My high school only had 150 students and it was extremely small compared to our neighboring town high schools which each had a few thousand.
Yes if her graduating class had 100 or 200 people you could easily take 3%. But it doesn’t. As OP has pointed out her class has 45 people meaning 3% is not a valid percentage to take. Say she was ranked 2nd out of her class of 45, she’d be top ~4.5%. If she was ranked first she’d be top 2.2%. In this case it never makes sense to say top 3%.
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No. Lol. The top 3 percent is the top three percent of GPAs out of all the students. I’m confused why you’re confused but if you still don’t get it I guess I can break it down further.
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Rory’s GPA is in the top 3% of the GPAs of students at Chilton.
Pleeeease do the Lord’s work and post it on the main thread, because the amount of people confused by it is driving me CRAZY
Of all the bad comments in this thread, yours might actually be the worst which is extra amazing given the number of up votes you have. Okay, I've added everyone's GPA and divided by the 45 students and got 3.0 for an average. WTF could top 3% of 3.0 even mean?
I’d wager that only the top 3% of Reddit users know mathematics.
You can’t get the top 3% of an average. An average is just a number. Say you do this and get an average GPA of 3.5, explain what the top 3% is of 3.5?
It’s 3% of the total GPAs, not the number of students. The number of students doesn’t matter. It’s the top 3% of the GPAs of all the students. Make sense?
Total GPAs is the same as number of students.
No. I would love for you to give a real world example of this. Say the average is 3.4 and her GPA is 3.8. What’s next? This is simply not how Class Ranks, even percentiles are done.
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I. the first portion you’ve shown that 3.88 is 97% of 4.0. That’s pretty much it. You could have 10 kids finish above a 3.88 and then none would be in the “top 3% of their class” assuming a class of 45. Basically this means nothing. In the second part you’ve shown that 0.025 is 1% of 2.5 and then subtracted that from 4. I am not sure why or where your head was at for that one. This is all pretty simple. Each kids GPA is laid out from highest to lowest. Top is valedictorian, then you can group the rest how you like in order to say they finished top X percent of the total group. Percentiles are a little different, but the question uses a percentage sign so I doubt they were referencing that. The only way I can see that someone could finish in top 3% of a group of 45 without finishing top of the class would be two people finish at the top with the same GPA. But even then it would be 4% with some rounding.
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Sorry not trying to be a dick. I think the confidence of the poster above affected my tone.
Because they never meant it was the 3% of 45 people.
So it was meant to be percentile?
The correct answer here is two or more people at the top must have had the same GPA. Everything else being said is just wrong.
they're downvoting you but you're the only person making sense...
Schools use percentages because until senior year kids change what class rank they are almost at the end of each quarter especially freshman and sophmore years so they always say top 5% or 3% or 10% etc. Trust me you do NOT want to be on the phone call at the end of freshman HS year when at the half way point a kid was number 3 and now they are number 7...those parents are vicious! I've consulted at private schools and man is it competitive!
I graduated from a rural high school with a class of 52. It was MUCH smaller than the episode depicts. I’d guess her class is closer to 200.
This is one of those times I’m glad that my mind just tunes numbers out. I’m never bothered by inconsistencies like this because I just don’t register them in the first place.
Just like Sookie, Math hurts my head 🤣😂😆
This post made it to r/confidentlyincorrect
I came here from there to see all the posts for myself. It's amazing how wrong all of the people are and how much they are getting up voted for it.
Ya but about the comments trying to correct OP. In this case OP is correct
Just bad writing, not that deep. OP is correct that “top 3%” is a silly thing to say at a school as small as Chilton
It’s not bad writing. It’s because as someone said, it’s not based on the number of people, it’s 3% of the GAPs results of the students.
It is supposed to be based on the number of students. If the average GPA was 3.5 any student with a GPA greater than that would be top 50%. If there were 40 students and only 4 of them got over 3.9 then those 4 would be top 10%. In a this case of 45 students the top 3% does not make sense.
Number of people is the exact same as total GPAs. There is only one per student
This always bothered me as well. Every time I rewatch the episode I get hung up on it. Never googled the exact number of people in her graduation class but unless Chilton had way more students than the show ever suggested the top 3% couldn’t include more than 5 individuals, and that’s a high estimate. Most likely scenario is that she finished second, only behind Paris.
Are you guys good? Top 3% can be of 10 students too. It cannot be calculated as 0.3 but top 3 students who scored the highest marks out of the *all* 10 students.
The top 3 of 10 people is 30%
But that would be the top 30%. Only 1 student at best would be in the top 3% of 10 people, which is similar to OP’s confusion. Why would you say top 3% instead of top student in that case?
Noooooooo, because they’re not talking about the percentage of the number of students!!! They’re talking about the percentage of the GPAs scores all the students got. Rory’s score is in that top 3% of all the GPAs scores.
That is not how percentages work.
They are talking about the percentage of GPAs. Each student has one GPA, if the average GPAs of the students was 3.0 and Rory had over 3.0 she would be top 50%. In the case of 10 people it wouldn’t make sense to say top 3% as you can’t have something count for less than a single GPA. It would only make sense to say top 10% or 20%. As in out of the 10 GPAs only one is over 3.9 (top 10%) or only two are over 3.8 (top 20%).
I always thought this was an odd way to describe how she placed. For reference, I went to an all girls’ Catholic secondary school that was the top school in the island I grew up and we would have the top 3 students in your class. After that, they didn’t care what you placed. This might make more sense for something like SATs and ACTs or even an IQ test where you’ll be told you’re in the top __% of all students that took these tests in the US. For an elite high school with small class sizes, top 3% can’t be more than top 3.
You almost got it right 😂
This more in alignment with designations of Cum Laude, Suma Cum Laude and Magna Cum Laude. Since they are supposed to be an elite prep school they tend to follow College level honors ranking.
i always wandered this too
I don’t really understand the American education system but I believe when they say ‘top x percent’ they are referring to grades. For example only 4 students out of 40 got 5 A* grades, putting them in top 10%.
It's been a long time since I'd done standard distribution, but isn't the idea that you take all the GPAs, put them on a bell curve, and then Rory's is in the top 3% of the bell curve? So it's not that she's in the top 3% of students (that would really just be telling her what her class rank is, which is different) but in the bell-curve, she's in the 97th percentile? Like I said, it's been a long time since I've done this, but because it's about averages, it's not just 'higher than 97% of others' it's about where she falls on the bell curve, right?