<p>Hey everyone! :)</p>
<p>So I've been reading through a few of these posts and I've been hearing people say "If you did bad you can just explain why to the Admission people". I wanted to know: How? If your highschool career has been shadowed by a cloud of misfortunes,throughout, how do you explain to Stanford? Will they call you and ask why your grades were bad or something? I was just kind of curious ...<em>-</em></p>
<p>Stanford turned down 5600 students in REA, many of them with perfect grades and almost perfect scores. They will turn down another 30,000 during RD.</p>
<p>It is a lottery ticket for the best of them at the moment. Outside of having a proven hardship and/or extraordinary ECs, explaining bad grades still does not mean much in terms of an admission.</p>
<p>Stanford is not different from other schools in this regard. No school will inquire during the admissions process why a low grade was received (unless it’s a senior year grade after a student is accepted.) </p>
<p>In the common app there is an optional section called “Additional Information” where the applicant can voluntarily disclose anything additional he or she wants admissions committees to know. That’s the spot where students say things like “I had mono and missed three weeks of school, so my sophomore fall term grades suffered a bit.” </p>
<p>While explanations like that from the student might be taken into consideration, the explanation has more credibility if it comes from an adult such as in the counselor’s school report or a teacher’s evaluation form. </p>
<p>Of course, regardless of the situation bad grades are still bad grades and admissions committees aren’t fond of bad grades.</p>
<p>Stanford? The competitiveness doesn’t start and stop with admissions. They look for kids who can cut it- and I know plenty of brilliant sorts who were/are immensely challenged there. Bad grades + excuses doesn’t show them you can thrive.</p>
<p>Even if you were “shadowed by misfortunes,” they are still looking for evidence of your successes. That’s what portends how you will make it, once there. </p>
<p>Tempted to say, don’t trust other kids who don’t know. And who use poor grammar.</p>
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<p>I would expect that they are looking for more than that. They would look for people who can do very well there. I hope that they are trying to raise the bar with every new class of admits.</p>
<p>Wow! Thanks guys 
It does seem like a lottery draw if you had to ask me. But I guess some will just have to wait and see in April next year ;)</p>