Hi, I’m a student that goes to public school and sails at the national level (ranked 3rd in the country), and is interested in going to either Harvard or Yale. Both sailing coaches at these schools want to recruit me for my sailing, but I’m not sure if my grades are Ivy League caliber. My GPA is a 3.86 unweighted, and a 5.3971 weighted. I am an IB student, but I also have taken 4 AP classes. I made excellent averages freshman and sophomore year, but the IB classes have hurt my grades a lot (I made a B+ in chemistry and physics). At my school, the rank system is somewhat misleading because the IB classes are significantly harder than AP classes, but they are weighted the same. My rank is 11/1066. My SAT score is a 1490, and I’m in national honor society. However, I don’t have any other extra curriculars. So what do you guys think?
Wow - 3rd in the country? I’m assuming that’s in Lasers, not 420s? That’s fantastic! I race Vipers and Escows now but since I learned as an adult, I suspect I’ll never be as good as the people who learned when they were youth. Nobody other than Harvard and Yale AOs can tell you if those grades and scores are high enough, but they appear to be within the range of the accepted students, so there’s no reason you should assume they’re not OK.
Have you looked at the Princeton and Stanford sailing teams? Princeton usually has an active program and since they come to our area to do some winter training, I’ve met the teams over the years and they’re nice people. Stanford also seems to like sailors from our area, as the last two Stanford admits I knew were top ranked sailors.
Anecdotal but I know a girl who got recruited to Yale soccer with a 3.8 and a similar SAT as you. It does happen I wouldn’t let that discourage you.
Your grades are fine, a little bit low but honestly nothing bad. My GPA isn’t much higher than yours, and even got a C in a class, yet I was still accepted to an Ivy without being recruited or having any amazing accomplishments. Your class rank is excellent as well. If you are recruited for sailing, you’d have a very, very good shot at getting into either. Good luck!
Yeah the sailing coaches want me and will try to get me a likely letter. I’m most worried about the grades, since they have gotten worse every year (also has to do with course difficulty). I put too much on my plate this year with school, which has made it harder to find time to sail. However, my results were still excellent. By the way, I sail both i420s and lasers (used to do c420 too).
Princeton doesn’t do likely letters for sailing, and I don’t want to go west coast (nothing against Stanford).
Don’t be so hard on yourself. “Worse” grades are relative and a few Bs are not - or should not be - fatal. Sailing isn’t just a huge time commitment, but being competitive at the level you’re competitive shows that you have an inherent understanding of some incredibly complex subjects including hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, hydrology (tide/current impact) and likely meteorology or thermodynamics as well. You may not know the technical terms for how you utilize the principles, but you must understand them or you wouldn’t be achieving the results you are achieving.
Good luck and sail fast.