<p>What is really the meaning of these numbers today? I guess I will find out before too long, as I have a 4.0 unweighted GPA and I scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT. But, unfortunately for me, there are no guarentees of anything these days. What do people think?</p>
<p>Where are you applying?</p>
<p>A 4.0 isn't that great. Being #1 in your class is...</p>
<p>UVA, Columbia, Brown, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Duke, NYU, Cornell, BC, Northwestern, Stanford, Caltech, and Michigan in Regular Action. I have already been deferred from Penn and MIT early. I started a thread earlier to discuss my specific case and I didn't label it with the interesting schools that I am applying to so it got lost in the pack I think. This thread I meant to address the more general question of what a 4.0 and a 1600 means today. And Hoo, probably the majority of applicants to any of the top 25 schools come from schools that don't rank. My school is one of the truly elite day schools in the country, and we have no class rank whatsoever.</p>
<p>a 4.0 doesn't matter. it also depends on the difficulty of your classes and grade inflation. I would say that weighted GPA is much more important COMPARED to unweighted.</p>
<p>right good point kinetic....at least a hundred kids in the country have 4.0s. What I meant this thread to be about is the meaning of a 1600 combined with a 4.0 or whatever the top mark unweighted a given school gives out.</p>
<p>4.0 + 1600 + writing about it = pretension.</p>
<p>"...at least a hundred..."? You're really dancing on the margin there.</p>
<p>I bet at least a thousand people died in the tsunami.</p>
<p>A hundred kids in the country? Many, many thousands of kids in the US have 4.0s that mean very different things at different schools. How "good" the school is means less than how much grade inflation it practices. If you were deferred from 2 schools with these perfect stats, you have probably answered your own question. Stats alone will not get you in.</p>
<p>sorry a hundred thousand is what i meant to say</p>
<p>well did you stay cooped up in your house all day studying?</p>
<p>lol no not at all...sort of the opposite actually.</p>
<p>then assuming you have amazing ec's and an amazinger hook, you don't have to worry about getting in.</p>
<p>These stats will most probably let you pass the academic filter, but just that. They are by no means an academic hook. For HYPSMC in my opinion an academic hook would be considered for someone with 1600, three 800 sat iis, 4.0, valedictorian/salut., numerous ap and ib classes, 5s on APs or 7s on IBs, etc.</p>
<p>I have 12 AP classes and 6 5's on APs so far, 800 SAT II writing, 790 and 780's for the rest of the SAT IIs and my school doesn't rank. But we'll see, hopefully that is enough of a hook. By HYPSMC, do you mean MIT and Caltech for the last two? I hope the scores mean something at those two schools as they are my first choices. I'm hoping MIT and Caltech are all about numbers.</p>
<p>Nice stats. I think you have very good chances provided that you actually do some decent ECs. And no, caltech and mit are not just about numbers. In fact, they care the least about numbers, as most of their applicants do have marvelous stats. For these two schools, you really need some good science ECs.</p>