"A" in Robotics = Lower GPA?

[mathking]

Colleges really don't care much about your GPA per se. I have done enough alumni admissions rep work (and talked to friends who do admissions work) to have learned this lesson. This is particularly true for the top tier colleges and universities. They care in that they want students who have taken some of the most challenging classes available. But they are well aware of how weighted grades can make a GPA a more fuzzy measure of academic quality. Admissions counselors are also good at spotting the students who strategically take the "easiest" weighted courses and a little lighter load in order to have the best possible GPA. A friend who is in admissions at a very good school said to me "Tell them to take enough of the most challenging courses to show they can succeed, not so many that they start to get overwhelmed, and after that take the classes that interest them." She said they routinely get inquiries from people who say something like "I had a higher GPA and as good/better test scores than X, but he got in and I didn't. Why?" They obviously can't discuss other students, but she said in many such cases she wants to tell them "Your transcript reads like someone trying to get the best possible GPA and not like someone interested in learning as much as possible."