<p>I have been taught that only students with perfect SATs and perfect GPAs get admitted. Recently, I found that this notion was wrong, and that imperfection was actually more widespread in Harvard admissions. Harvard admits, I beseech you to inform me of how many A-/B+/B's you received throughout your HS career (excluding senior year) so I get a grasp at how farspread the imperfection truly is.</p>
<p>It’s not completely wrong, but grades are probably the single most important factor in admissions to any top school - not just Harvard - and more than a few Bs will hurt your chances. Even one C will probably sink you.</p>
<p>Luckily my school only showed final grades, so I didn’t have to show them all of the semester B’s and the B- that I had managed to average up to A-'s and A’s. In terms of final grades, I had one B+ and several A-'s, but my final weighted GPA was in the 4.3-4.4 range due to AP’s counting as +1.</p>
<p>An unlimited supply of A-'s and two B+'s got me into Yale.</p>
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<p>My older son got B’s and B+'s every year in English except his senior year when he decided to take an English elective that was neither honors or AP. The rest of his grades were great and he was in the top 1% of his class. (And even though he hated English classes he got an 800 on the SAT Critical Reading section twice.)</p>
<p>I think I got a few A-'s.</p>
<p>0, but the other admits from my school got 7-10+ A-/B+/B’s</p>
<p>My school didn’t calculate +/-. My school reported grades for each semester but used year end grades to calculate GPA. So Harvard saw that I had one semester B but my GPA was a 4.0. </p>
<p>To be perfectly honest, you really shouldn’t obsess over this. Tons of students with 4.0s get rejected (two from my town alone did) as do several students with perfect SAT/ACT scores. (Again, I saw this just in my own town.) I would probably say that unless you are recruited or have a major hook/explanation, I’d watch out for anything below a 3.6/3.7 GPA. (That’s not to say that people haven’t been accepted with similar GPAs but that it is simply not the norm.) If you want more specifics on this check out the Class of 2015 results threads where several applicants, accepted, rejected, and waitlisted, have posted GPAs and other stats which you may find helpful.</p>
<p>gaheris: your question points to the fact that you may be lacking in knowledge of what is evaluated by Harvard admissions. Do some more research on what “holistic” evaluations mean in the context of selective school admissions. GPA is one part of many.</p>