weighted gpa is 3.91
unweighted is 3.56
SAT 1520
advanced in math, science and language. some community service, sports, etc.
there’s more good things but I don’t want to go on and on about him. Based on those facts alone, does he have a chance at Cornell?
Thanks all
@berrymuffin For this, and other schools, the two best ways to get some idea of your Son’s chances are:
If available at your Son’s school (and if there have been enough applicants to the schools you are interested in in recent years to draw reasonable conclusions) log on to Naviance and take a look at the scattergrams.
google: name of school Common Data Set, where “name of school” is the name of the school you’re interested in.
For example, googling Cornell Common Data Set would bring up http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000569.pdf
going to section C of the CDS you’d find that a 1520 probably puts your son pretty close to the 75th percentile for admitted students. That’s good.
Cornell doesn’t publish a GPA breakdown but does publish a Class rank breakdown showing about 90% of students in the top 10% of their class. Other schools with similar class rank and standardized test score distributions that also publish GPA breakdowns typically show 80 to >90% of students having an unweighted GPA of 3.75 or higher.
So, the unweighted 3.56 GPA won’t help. Does it make admissions impossible? No, but it does make it much less likely than it would be if the unweighted number was 3.91
Thanks for the info. He’s a very bright kid-barely prepared for the SAT’s but had a bad year his jr year due to some personal stuff going on which unfortunately brought his GPA down.
His stat seems to be in an acceptible range. If he gets excellent/ very good recomendation letters from his teachers and can articulate why Cornell is a good fit for him and what he could bring to Cornell in an essay, he has a shot. They just don’t just look at his GPA alone. He won’t know if he does not try.
It also depends on what school/college within the university he is applying to – and how well he can put together his Why Cornell essay. He’s not out of range … good luck, it’s an amazing place!
Downward trends in jr year are risky because it’s just when kids are ramping up rigor. And Ivies can ask for consistent top performance because the 4 years of college there are challenging. Some does depend on which program. And which grades dropped. Those related to his major can hurt more.
Also, when using the CDS, New SAT scores are converted to Old, so the real comparison for the75th percentile may be different. And, that includes the less competitive colleges at Cornell.