<p>Basically, can a really really good essay get a kid with below-average stats into a great school? *By below-average stats I'm thinking about 3.2-3.5 UW GPA and/or 1900-2100 SAT. Also, I'm not really talking about HYP-caliber schools here, since 99% of people who get in have probably have perfect stats AND great essays. Instead, I'm thinking about schools that are a little less selective, such as NYU, UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, maybe Cornell, Berkeley, etc. *</p>
<p>The reason I'm asking this question is that I have a low GPA, but I also have high test scores, great ECs, recs, etc. I've heard that some kids can get into great schools despite below-average academics. How much truth do you think there is to this? I got two of my teachers (one is also an English professor at Princeton and the other is an alum interviewer for HYP) to read my essay, and both of them said that it's amazing and that they've never read anything like it before. Sorry if that sounded smug =/ I really hope my essays can make me stand out despite my bad GPA</p>
<p>Well thin kabout the definition of average. There are people both below and above the average. Thus, below average academics does not immediately disqualify you, instead it implies that some other part of your application must be amazing. And, well, why not have it be your essays?</p>
<p>Underwhelming SAT score could be the result of underperforming on a Saturday or two. Underwhelming GPA is the result of underperforming for much longer.</p>
<p>But, to be completely honest, I should note that I’m really basing my answer on no empirical data or outside information of any kind. (Then again, I think there’s a lot of that going on in certain areas of College Confidential.)</p>
<p>Really, how would anybody know? You might hear of a case in which a kid gets into a really improbable reach school, but no adcom is going to explain why.</p>
<p>Be careful though, in my experience there are plenty of teachers who won’t give you 100% honest feedback on college essays. They don’t want to strike you down, make you feel bad, etc. etc. Even my current AP Lit teacher who is famous for handing out D’s like candy barely made a scratch on my friend’s essays =/</p>
<p>The saving grace is if your hs has a rep for being competitive - and the courses you took were rigorous. A great essay will definitely get attention- but adcoms have many tough decisions to make. Bottom line is they need to know you can master the academics there. Most kids who fall at or below “average” or median gpa have some other compelling factor- legacy, sports, faculty kid, some great outside accomplishment. So, do you have the ECs or? Do you offer them geographic diversity? Your LoRs will need to be super, too.</p>
<p>^I go to a very competitive school, and I took a rigorous courseload. Pretty much everything in my app should be great (ECs, test scores, LoRs, essays), but my GPA just sticks out like crazy (3.3-3.4 UW). While I do have an upward trend, I don’t think it’s enough to make up for my lousy GPA. To make things even worse, my school doesn’t rank, and if it did, I’d be screwed too since my school weights honors and AP courses the same so people who stack honors courses only have uber high weighted GPAs. The reason I made this thread in the first place was that I heard from some people that top schools will be more lenient on people with unsatisfactory stats if they show great passion and personality through their essays. I’m striving my best to do so, and I’m wondering if that can make a difference.</p>
<p>I think that girl was big into track. maybe she was a probable for the Stanford track team.
“… just cross country in the fall and track in the spring, but in the off season such as the summer and winter, I would run close to 50 miles per week and basically ran almost every day (out of a month, I would maybe not run 1-2 of those days).”</p>
<p>Basically if your gpa /sat is low…you better be really interesting in some other way.</p>
<p>A fantastic essay that reveals compelling reasons to admit you? Yes. If your essay talks about your national-level recognition at playing the piano and makes you sound like the kind of amazing kid a top school is going to want, it could happen.</p>
<p>Your essay is the chance to tell them what your academic record doesn’t. If you have real content in your essays, they can influence a decision. If you just have an essay that’s very well written but doesn’t give them anything new to work with, it’s not going to matter.</p>