<p>Can SAT scores as high as 2300-2400 make up for less then perfect grades if your applying for top colleges, and ivies (like HYP). For example, lets say your courses are generally honors and ap, however your consecutive high school GPA for each year was something like... 2.8 -> 3.5 -> 4.0 -> 4.0. Its an upward trend from the bad freshmen year. </p>
<p>But then lets say you get a 2300+ on SAT's, can that basically make up for the lower then average Fresh/Soph. grades?</p>
<p>In other words, how do SAT scores weigh up next to your grades, given that was your grade trend?</p>
<p>I would guess no if your gpa started with 2.8 cause then it would lower your overall by a lot. But don't forget the extracurricular and leadership and the personal statements. But you still might get in, cause luck does play a factor too.</p>
<p>Yeah, the freshmen year would bring down overall alot, which would also bring down classrank, which would mean you probably wont be in top 10... </p>
<p>But given the dramatic improvement, would colleges really take that freshmen year so seriously? Even if it affects other factors (like class rank)? Afterall, there's no doubt that most likely, the trend will continue upward with the momentum. Who knows, someone getting perfect scores for all four years and going to college might be worn out maybe? Compared to someone who has just started to pick up and might not stop going up.</p>
<p>What do yuo think?</p>
<p>And yes, ofcourse teacher recs and EC's make a difference, but lets say they were average.</p>
<p>Also, if it makes any difference, not sure if it does though, how would URM status make an effect?</p>
<p>A lot of elite schools (Princeton and Stanford come to mind) don't even look at Frosh grades.</p>
<p>And yes, having high SATs will help to offset poor grades, as long as you show some academic signs of life. You'll still need exceptional extracurriculars to get admitted over someone with a combo of good grades and good SATs.</p>
<p>If you do well in state and nationaly ranked competitions.</p>
<p>Remember, at top schools you have people with 2300+ that also have good grades. You need to give them a reason to pick you over them. And yes, they are generally more forgiving of upward trends.</p>
<p>Another thing to notice is a LOT of students with high grades usually have decent to amazing SAT scores (all around wonderful) because they probably are (1) hard workers, study a lot (2) are just naturally intelligent and have a grasp for academia (3) combination of the above</p>
<p>so yeah. i'm in the same boat as you, high sat scores but low gpa. i'm hoping my involvement in my ECs as well as doing optional essays whenever avalible, my dedication to community work, my good recs and essays, etc etc will be enough to push me over =)</p>
<p>It will be hard but you've got a chance. I know b/c I was in you shoes this year. I had baddd freshman grades I pulled up to 3.5 overall. CR was barely top 10%, 49 out of 549</p>
<p>but my SAT was 2330 and I had awesome EC's.</p>
<p>in the end 3 most selective schools: U Penn, Harvard, Duke. Rejected penn, harvard, accepted Duke.</p>
<p>accepted all others (3 top 20 private schools and UNC Chapel Hill w/ 6000 per year)</p>
<p>haha wooow! I am exactly in the same boat as you!!! but look at my upward trend:
frosh:2.9///3.6
Soph:3.7//4.0
Jun:5.0//5.0</p>
<p>Yeah so from a 2.9 to a 5.0 the thing is I was really lazy freshman year.. these schools dont look at freshman yr graes:
Stanford
Princeton
UMich
CMU
Uc's
Any public School...</p>
<p>I have asked around a lot because this same thing is bothering me as much... However, I don't think I can get a 2300+ lol Kinda hard.. I'll try though... WOW that guy got in duke with a 3.5 and 49 class rank... Gives us motivation and optimism : ) but i'm applying to 14 of the top 25 schools and I will probably, with my predictions, only get in 2-4 of those...</p>
<p>I think my situation is an interesting one and is actually a great case study for this question. I had a weak frosh year and did pretty well my other years. Broken down, it is something like this:</p>
<p>9th: 3.3 UW, 3.3 W
10th: 3.6 UW, 4.0 W
11th: 3.9 UW, 4.5 W
12th: 4.0 UW, 5.0 W</p>
<p>Results at schools that IGNORE freshman year:
Accepted: Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCI
Rejected: Princeton (Princeton app still had the low rank)</p>
<p>Results at schools that INCLUDE freshman year:
Accepted: UChicago
Waitlisted: Amherst
Rejected: HYP, Dartmouth, Brown, Penn, Duke, Northwestern</p>
<p>UChicago and Amherst have a reputation for looking beyond the numbers (numbers incl. GPA), so I think it is very clear at the rest of the schools that a 3.6UW GPA is clearly unacceptable whereas a 3.8UW might be acceptable.</p>
<p>My SAT was high (2330) and my extracurriculars/recs/essays were quite strong. But it still wasn't enough with low GPA/rank - except for Stanford where my lowest grades were ignored. I think upward trends used to be acceptable in some cases but given the surge of students that have done well all four years a mere upward trend isn't cutting it any more.</p>
<p>hmm o man... My stats are similar to urs except my g.p.a is a bit higher... but still u got rejected from HYP! Northwestern! Brown! wow!!! i have no hope... those were rd? so princeton g.p.a was that included in freshman year? ahhhh freshman yEAR!!! why didn't i try!!! aim me or e-mail please or just respond:</p>
<p>There are people accepted to those schools w/ my GPA, but they are few and far between (except perhaps if you are a URM). All of those were RD. I was denied - not deferred - ED at Penn-Wharton.</p>
<p>While Princeton ignores freshman year, my point was that my rank and GPA listed was for grades 9-12 and hence on paper looks very, very low. Princeton is so selective it is hard to interpret too much from a rejection, but I think it is possible things would have went somewhat differently if the appropriate GPA/rank were directly on my application.</p>
<p>your senior year grades are counted??? if you apply rd? Well it can raise your g.p.a then.. so everyone should apply RD! Unless they have like 4.0 uw all throughout high school.. right?</p>
<p>So 12 grade 1st semester grades are counted in your g.p.a for every school?</p>
<p>Not for every school. For example, in the UC system, senior grades are not taken into account when making an admission decision.</p>
<p>Also, schools look at first semester senior grades less than you think. I believe someone posted on CC that he called Cornell about his secondary school report, as it was missing, and the office said that they take a look at it, but don't really use it in making a decision.</p>