Hi, all.
I have earned as many A’s as B’s in HS, so my GPA is a 3.5 with an upward trend. Basically: middle school grades that counted toward HS (4 courses) were all B’s. Freshman year, mostly B’s. Sophomore year, mostly A’s, but a spattering of B’s. Junior year, all A’s but for one B in one semester. Because I have taken the most rigorous courseload offered at my school, I am still comfortably in the top 10% (6ish). I have (from what I’ve heard) very solid and focused ECs and a 34 ACT. But are my grades going to keep me out of the running from top schools? I am looking at (in order of perceived difficulty): Universities of Florida and Miami, Wake Forest, Davidson, Emory, Vandy, Duke, and MAYBE Harvard where by brother is a PhD student (would that at all help???). Because I know that it may help (though I don’t necessarily think that it should in my case), I am a URM.
Thanks!
You’re sort of like me, low GPA but high class rank. Colleges know some highschools have inflated or deflated GPAs, that’s why class rank is so important.
You probably don’t have a chance at Harvard or Duke. What’s your SAT/ACT?
I mentioned it: 34 ACT. Yeah, I would be happy at any of the schools above, but am really aiming for Emory and Davidson as my semi-realistic dream schools. I think they are High match/low reach given my grades, but hoping those aren’t completely out of reach. I thought I’d throw in 2-3 crazy reaches just in case my EC’s and essays tip the scale or in case they are looking for high-scoring URMs.
Good luck, Levi, to us both! 
@LeviAckermen Why do you not say that he has a chance at Harvard/Duke? Although he has not the best GPA, a top 6% class rank basically means that his school grades tough and that his peers will have a similar GPA to him.
Colleges wouldn’t be impressed if you had a 4.0 if half your school also has it, the same way colleges wouldn’t be impressed by 5 AP’s if half your school took 11.
Also OP, your brother doing a PhD wouldn’t help too much. Legacy means more that your sibling/parent went to Harvard as an undergrad student.
^^ Depends on the school. At some it will help, at Columbia it will not. Depends what Harvard counts as legacy.
Colleges want to say 90% of our students have a GPA over X. They also want to say they are in the top 10%. Both are better than one.
The 8th grade grades are not important, even if the high school has them on your transcript. Obviiously As would be preferred but Bs are fine. Stanford does not count anything before sophomore year I believe. Some others as well, you need to figure out which those are. The upward trend is good. Junior year grades would have been better without the B (are they final, can you talk to that teacher?Were you close to an A? Nothing to lose by asking. Is it in a proposed major or core or is it in a unrelated elective?) Senior year all As on the midyear report would be important. Emory likes rigior. If you think you can get close to 800s on SAT2s that might help, only if you really can.
How was your 34 broken out?
Colleges are impressed if you have a 4.0 even if everyone else does as long as your rank is high and everything else is excellent (Acts, EC, Recs).
Plenty of people at my school who were not going into STEM took a BS science class at my school senior year and got into great schools.