Hi everyone!
I have a question regarding my background, and I placed this in UPENN but it obviously does apply to any of the elite colleges. I currently go to a competitive private prep school, but my GPA is not too hot, and there is a lot of grade inflation. Does this hurt my chances?
GPA: 3.5 from a school like Trinity or Andover etc
THANKS!
The regional admission officers know your school very well. So do not worry about that.
@JaredJones902 it kind of does unless another component of your application is really unique and impressive. The reason it does is that at schools like Andover, Trinity etc most of the kids and especially all those in the top 30-40% of the class are striving for the ivies and ivy-equivalent elites (Stanford, MIT etc). So the competition is really intense. Why would an ivy accept you over the tens of others of your classmates who have applied with better grades? There needs to be a clear reason why. Of course the elite school admissions process is unpredictable so you never know what can happen.
I think you mean grade deflation
A 3.5 from either of those schools would put you in the middle of the class, which will be fine for many top colleges, but without some major hook, probably not a school at the level of Penn. While AO’s will review within the context of the HS, one should assume that many of those with higher GPA’s will also be applying to the same colleges.