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<p>I honestly believe that it’s in the context of your school. It’s pretty rare at my school for people to get 3.7’s and up. We don’t do GPA’s, but when students calculate their own for scholarships, they’re usually on the lower side (closer to 3.3-3.5ish), yet these students get into good schools, including Brown. My school is pretty rigorous though, so I guess it’s all in context. That’s just my two cents.</p>
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Exactly. In my school with over 1000 kids, no one has a 4.0. We maybe have one 3.99. Top 10% starts at 3.7.</p>
<p>“There are people with perfect GPAs and striking, really quite unique ECs. These people most always get in. But in most cases, people with perfect GPAs don’t have the most unique ECs. To get a truly perfect GPA you need to make a lot of sacrifices for academics. If you have a 3.7 and don’t have interesting ECs, passions, or essays then you won’t get in. But if you have a 3.7 because you founded a business or helped organize a political campaign then you are just as successful if not more successful than someone with a 4.0. Most people with 3.5’s and above will do just fine academically at Brown. People with 3.7’s will only get a few more B’s at Brown than people with 4.0’s - especially because they can avoid their weaknesses - so why not admit people that will make a significant contribution outside the classroom?”</p>
<p>This is full of inaccuracies. I’m not sure what you’d like us to elaborate on to show you why.</p>
<p>I don’t know how easy your school was, but at my school the only people with GPAs above 3.9 mortgage their life to schoolwork. Their ECs are bland and solely academic. 3.8 GPAs on the other hand are viewed as quite impressive and most of those people participate in more diverse extracurriculars. As far as avoiding weaknesses goes, my GPA would be about .1 higher if I didn’t get mostly B’s in English. At Brown I do not plan to take a single English or Literature class. This does not mean that I will not explore many new fields at Brown. You can avoid one subject and still take a diverse set of courses. I’m sure a lot more than 5% of Brown students boycott their one weak subject.</p>
<p>The problem, floatingriver, is that you are jumping to conclusions based solely on your personal experiences, or guessing about how things are in the big picture and extrapolating from there which leaves you with bad conclusions.</p>
<p>I think people on this board need to get over their ivy league snobbery and CC na</p>
<p>Getting into Brown was a miracle for me. I thought I had no chance. My GPA was 3.9, I had a rigorous class schedule, lots of extracurriculars, BUT my ACT score sucked and I didn’t take the SAT. But they must of saw something :). Keep on hoping and Good luck!</p>
<p>One more “uplifting” example: I have a friend that got C’s in High school plus a low Test Score. How did she get in? I think her extracurriculars and awards got her through. So GPA is not a huge factor in my opinion as long as you have other things to back it up.</p>
<p>GPA is a huge factor – your transcript is the number one thing that admissions officers look at. And they look at it in context with your high school, so that if 4.0 is rare at your school, they know that. A 3.7 at one school = 4.0 at another school. They know this information because your high school provides it.</p>
<p>However, let’s say you offer something that Brown really wants – you’re a top-notch ice hockey goalie, Intel winner, parents gives millions, foster child who has attended 10 high schools, first-generation college from a farm in North Dakota, computer whiz, a woman who builds robots and will major in engineering. Brown views a 3.7 GPA from these students totally differently than a 3.7 GPA from an upper middle class kid from the suburbs. If Brown really wants that Intel winner with Cs in English, that kid will get in (and has). But if you’re not an Intel winner, then yes, those Bs in English could hurt you and be the reason you don’t get in. (But it depends on your HS – in some high schools, a B in English = A at other high schools.)</p>
<p>floatingriver, perhaps at your school the top academic kids lack strong ECs. That is one high school of thousands. You can’t make a rule from an anecdote. There are many high school where the kids with the tippy top grades also have the strongest ECs.</p>
<p>miracles happen because of idiot admissions officers who mistakenly put you in the “admit” pile.</p>
<p>lots of it is just luck i guess. I applied ED and got deferred. I don’t really think ED helped me at all. I think only the people who actually get in ED think it was easier than RD… but there’s definitely a stronger group of ED applicants than RD applicants. I have a 3.9 gpa, 33 act, take the hardest classes, have leadership and a ton of ecs… but still got deferred sooooo maybe just being lucky helps? lol or… it’s probably just who you’re up against. Brown this year has gotten so many more applicants than ever before!</p>
<p>floatingriver, I think you are really wrong headed that you think Brown students use open cirriculum to avoid weak subjects. That is definately not a Brown-type student. Rather, the grading system and the open cirric allow people to explore. For instance, my daughter always had A’s in Eng and Hist at a demanding prep school, while she had good grades in math, calc B/C only yielded a B 1st semester and a C 2nd semester (the only C in HS.) But she ended up only taking 2 English classes and she hit the math and sciences hard right away. She ended up with a mathematics and computer science ScB, and is in directly related field in a PhD program. She also took some difficult languages for the first time–Mandarin and Russian, and was able to take pass/fail. That is only one person’s story, but it isn’t unusual. I think it is a good example of how the ciric can help you find your passions and study courses of interest without too much penalty if they are difficult and not your area of strength.</p>
<p>BrownParent - Maybe weak subjects is the wrong way to say this; perhaps it would be better to say subjects a student is not passionate about. Brown students with consistent B/B+'s in a subject often (but not always) earned those grades because they were not passionate enough about the subject to work hard. This I think you will agree with. At Brown, students take courses because they are passionate about the subject. Save one or two concentration-level distribution requirements, there is little to motivate students to take classes in areas they are not passionate about. If your argument is that Brown students are unlikely to avoid their weaknesses, then I highly agree. But if you are saying that Brown students value a liberal-arts education to the extent that there is no subject they would not like to avoid courses in then I disagree. Consider this: in high school we are told that GPA-wise a course in English and a course in Mathematics are just as important. It doesn’t matter whether we are a USAMO level mathematician or are a brilliant playwright. GPA weights both equally. In college, English and Mathematics are only two of dozens of different subjects. And contrary to what many would think, a student who hates English class may excel in language class and even place in national speech and essay contests in that language. Likewise, a student who hates math may be a brilliant scientist who places top ten in national science competitions. Dislike of english does not mean dislike of the humanities, nor does dislike of math mean dislike of the sciences. While I do not intend to take a single English literature class at Brown, that does not mean I would not enjoy a creative writing class, nor that I won’t be disappointed if I can’t take foreign language every semester. After suffering through four years of annotation checks, and multiple choice tests about pointless details in the literature we read, I think it’s understandable that some of us (depending on how it is taught at our schools) might emerge from high school resenting traditional English class. The argument that it gets much better in college is probably true. But there are so many other classes such as Economics, Arabic, Organic Chemistry, Egyptology etc. that we have no experience in and would love to try.</p>
<p>I had a 3.71 UW.
great that youre taking a rigorous courseload.
improvement is always good as long as you have an explanation for the rough patch</p>
<p>junior year 2nd semester and senior year 1st semester are always most important grades</p>
<p>i think ed is easier. people say its harder bc there’s a tougher crowd, but there are going to be a lot of top applicants/more top applicants applying rd who are also applying to hyps.</p>
<p>apply ed if it’s your first choice.</p>
<p>I basically applied to see if what everyone says is true about college admissions. I have a weighted 104 average, but that only ranked me in the top 30 out of 121 kids in my graduating class. This years graduating class has been abnormally competitive. I go to a upper-middle class high school on Long Island. The only thing that distinctly separates me from most kids is that I am a dual enrolled student. I have been taking classes at a local community college now for four semesters. I plan to attend college as a second semester freshman student next year. I have ben told that my transcript is unique as well, in addition to multiple AP courses and honors courses, I am currently studying seven foreign languages. Foreign language studies, and international relations are my intended interests for majors. I currently take Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, Sign Language, Chinese, Arabic and of course English…so maybe technically eight languages. My reason for applying to Brown was because it is a perfect fit for me. Although Brown is probably my first choice, I haven’t gotten my hopes up. I think it is nearly impossible for me to get into even after meeting with several of the deans at Brown. I applied after learning how small the classes were and how they needed students with intended majors, simply to fill classes. In fact in the Italian department there are a mere 8 students in some of the classes. A couple of the deans were kind enough to send brief messages to admissions on my behalf. I have low SAT scores, in comparison to what Brown is looking for. I have been working in retail part time for two years now. I have a lot of EC’s and am a member of every honor society that my school currently has. You can let me know what you think my chances are. =]</p>