Can I get into Emory with a not great GPA

Hi All. So I was wondering if I should consider Emory. And I was also wondering what ED2 is. Is that binding? Scores and EX’s below.

GPA: 3.4
AP’s (taken senior year; first year taking them): 2, AP Lang and AP Psych
Honors: 4 (French 2 years in a row, english honors junior year, history honors junior year)
I am mainly a B+ student, but I did get a few Cs In honors level classes junior year.

My courses
Freshman Year: Global History (B+), French 2 (A), Algebra I (B+), Biology I (B), English 1 (B)
Sophomore Year: Algebra 2 Advanced (B+), Geometry Advanced (B+), English 2 (B+), U. S. History I (A), Chemistry I (A), French 2 Honors (B+)
Junior Year: Physics (C+), Precalc Advanced (C+), French 4 Honors (C+), English 3 Honors (B+), U.s. history 2 (B+)
Senior year: Calculus, Forensics, French 5, AP LANG, AP PSYCH

EC’s

  • ran track for four years (winter and spring)
  • ran cross country for 3 years
  • raised 12,000 dollars for charity Mary’s meals to build a school in Liberia
  • Director of PR in community service club
  • church ministry leader
  • lifeguard
  • precalc math class/intro to calc class summer 2017

SAT score: 1460 on the 1600 scale

Also US History in junior year should be honors

Also, what schools should I look at with this resume?

ED2 means Early Decision 2. A 3.4 GPA is too low for Emory: the overall acceptance rate for the incoming class of 2020 was 22% with a 3.81 unweighted average. Emory tends to be fall among the top 25 private university rankings.

It is difficult to recommend schools not knowing what your preference for school size and geographical location is, what your interests are, financial aid needs, etc.

@zoe.ggirl
I disagree with the above poster, a 3.4 is not too low. Emory is special as they have admissions at is main campus in Atlanta and another smaller campus in Covington ga. I will say this for the best chance of admissions at any of Emory’s campuses, I would apply ED1 to both Emory and Oxford ( Covington campus). I would also retake the SAT and get close to a 1500 as possible. You have great EC’s with impressive community service and Emory really appreciates applicants with string community service. Good luck and I hope you aren’t discouraged from applying.

@zoe.ggirl

I would consider a subject test or 2 in your areas of interest because you do not have many APs and only 1 of the 2 you are taking are considered particularly challenging. GPA is very context dependent. If you go to a school that is easy/has high grade inflation (as in top ranked students have near or higher than 4.0 unweighted GPAs), a 3.4 will make it very hard unless there were some circumstances that explain it. You need something other than SAT reasoning to show them that you learn and do decently in subject specific situations. Emory and many Ivies and top LACs(with the latter 2 requiring SAT 2s) are very into those who have subject level passions or talent. In Emory’s case, the adcoms can be forgiving in light of evidence that you can and will perform. Also, since you didn’t give your interests and preferences, we cannot recommend other schools (is there even a reason you are interested in Emory. If you could tell us, we have something to go off of at least). Preferences need to be more detailed than “top-ranked” please.

Thank you bernie12 for being both encouraging but realistic and offering suggestions. The OP has some terrific EC’s and Community Service and could be a valuable asset to Emory/Oxford’s student body.

Hi everyone. Thanks for the response. I could possibly take the Math 2 subject test or maybe the English subject test. As for recommendations for schools, I like a school with the following characteristics:

  • undergrad enrollment 2500-7,000
  • research opportunity
  • strong humanities, science, and math programs
  • large involvement in community service
  • I don't care about where it is, as long as it's not in a dangerous neighborhood
  • I like Emory because it's ok a city but has a campus. I like the research opportunities and the academics. I feel like I could fit it.

I appreciate your responses. Any further tips would be good

Also, I am an extremely passionate person about learning, about helping others, and about making a difference in a community. I think my EC’s show that and my essay will too. My grades aren’t great, but my essay talks about how hard I work and how I am resilient and driven. With these qualities, do I have a shot? I AM NOT GONNA WASTE MY SHOT, NOT GONNA WASTE MY SHOTS, JUST LIKE MY COUNTRY I AM YOUNG SCRAPPY AND HOT AND I AM NOT GONNA WASTE MY SHOT! Lol. Also, would inhave a shot at tufts. I love the size and the vibe there.

@zoe.ggirl

Emory has lower stats than Tufts I think, so Tufts may be harder, but the two schools may just look for different things and certainly have different strengths where Emory is on a different level in terms of research prowess. Also, since you are aiming for selective privates (or publics) and say you want to do science, please get ready to perform or study hard, especially if pre-health. I almost do not recommend going to one if you think you will have to almost too carefully craft your course schedule and professor selection to get by. If you have to severely water down your education to succeed, then these places are not worth the money (and yes, people with better stats than you even do this. Why pay 65k if you want or feel the need to dodge the challenge that supposedly makes the degree worth paying so much more than others). These folks may have enjoyed a public (as in a non-“elite”, but competitive public) honors program better (less financial stress, good courses, more lenient grading because honors courses are much smaller on average than counterparts at a top private, more hand-holding as they are standouts at the school, whereas at top publics and privates, an honors level student is a dime a dozen and basically all students are theoretically capable of honors college level work). If you foresee a research type of career or something else with STEM that will allow you to take some risks and be academically challenged, then many selective privates that shine in certain sciences like Emory could be really good for you (you can take courses that challenge you and even introduce imperfections to your transcript without lots of damage to grad. school prospects, get great mentoring, and also get access to cutting edge research with folks at the very top of their fields). The humanities and social sciences are excellent and there are many options for even freshmen who want to hit the ground running. You could start Voluntary Core experience for example. If not, many more ambitious freshman are allowed to ascend to 200 to even some 300 level courses in a discipline early on.

If you really only want privates (which would fall in that population range), consider places like Brandeis! It will not give the same infrastructure but will offer an excellent education and will likely offer research opps in a similar fashion to good and very elite LACs. Liberal Arts Colleges are actually more effective at sending STEM students to STEM graduate programs due to differences in curricula from larger research universities which must run things based upon efficiency in most cases (usually top research universities offer excellent advanced or “take next level class up” options, but you don’t have much AP credit meaning you would need to go through the traditional intro. classes which can be rigorous but are generally a very “meh” experience even at top USNWR ranked national unis).

*The interesting thing is that I have seen students like you that were not perfect performers in all academic aspects in HS (like maybe they had a low SAT or something), but ended up doing very well at Emory and did take the bull by its horns and chose to challenge themselves and ended up doing well, even if there were some bumps in the beginning. One such person was a Millennium Gates award winner and she was concerned her SAT would shut her out but likely all of her EC accomplishments, awards, and GPA and gained her admissions (she was from a rough background as well so character counted to), and she truly did enjoy learning and she joined the Voluntary Core classes and said she really appreciated the challenge, got to improve her writing a lot, met other cool profs., etc Note that she was pre-health so also was doing key pre-health courses like chemistry. More of a renaissance woman she was. Usually most pre-healths who are not double majoring outside of science take humanities and social sciences just for GERs, and will exclusively take those that guarantee GPA protection (believe it or not, there is an English teacher for example, that attracts primarily pre-healths, and is aware that he does, and does end running a soft course, so student expectations can affect behavior of the instruction), but this girl who would typically be considered a “weaker” applicant said “screw it, I would rather get an education”.

Evaluate if you fit that type of bill and what exactly you would do if you went to a place like Emory or Tufts and then figure out where you want to apply and give it a shot.