@lonerism - I think these schools are “holistic” in looking at students so they may be more forgiving of an imperfect academic record. Most people dislike that word (I’m also not too fond of it). My daughter created a good overall package of herself between her ECs, both schoolbased and outside, and her CA essay. Her final ACT score put her at the 75th percentile for most schools, offsetting her unweighted GPA. Her high school classes meshed very well with her summer programs. In other words, she came across as an interesting, quirky, bright but maybe slightly underachieving student. But to be honest, we both viewed Willamette as a high match and we never considered Whitman or Reed (both would have been reaches, again due to her GPA) because the estimated cost was just too high. We would have been full-pay and we can’t afford $64,000-$70,000 a year.