<p>Also, does being a underrepresented minority stengthen your application?</p>
<p>that depends on a lot of things. it depends on the rigor of your courseload, the opportunities available to you, how your school calculates gpa, where you rank amongst your classmates, and any adversity you may have had to face during your high school years.
i wouldn’t say that being a URM is necessarily the “magic key”, but it might help you.
a kid from my school made princeton last year with an 83 average, but he was a URM, had two lesbian mothers, and was the fastest runner in our whole state.
so its not impossible, it just depends on the circumstances.</p>
<p>if you are not a urm… then a 3.5 is almost always an automatic reject for Harvard. but then again, maybe you will cure cancer this summer… then you might have a chance. =)</p>
<p>You can, but it’s very unlikely. Being a URM will definitely help your chances, but a 3.5 GPA is low (for an Ivy League) regardless of the URM status.</p>