apparently, competitive schools will toss your application if you don’t meet the gpa and sat/act requirements first. but recently on the upenn and UChicago scattergrams on my naviance, i saw quite a few points around 3.1-3.4ish uw gpas and 1400ish SAT scores. can anyone explain these points? does anybody have an idea as to what this “GPA threshold” is for some competitive schools? does this mean that apps don’t get tossed out because 3.1 seems rather low for a school like Penn.
Those low GPA points could be athletes or legacies. If a student doesn’t have the median GPA, the odds are strongly against admission.
That’s what I thought too but from my school at least, there are very few athletic recruits. and the naviance scattergram contains pts exclusively from my school. so i doubt that all those points are recruits or legacies. but idk
Also, Naviance is self reported at some schools.
true. does anybody have an idea as to what the threshold is for gpa (at what point will ur app be tossed)? is it rlly the median gpa? cause ik several ppl who have gotten into Stanford with 3.6 uw gpas even tho the median for Stanford is like 3.95 uw
(and they weren’t legacy or athletic recruits)
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How do you know? Perhaps some were legacy, URM, first gen, low SES, or had a hook you just don’t know about. Maybe an athletic recruit who had soft support from the coach.
I don’t know any holistic school that has a hard gpa or test score cutoff resulting in the app not getting reviewed.
Many former admissions officers state that they use gpa and scores as base case for the student to be successful.
If below this threshold, they will continue to read your application looking for the remarkable or particularly unique.
They won’t throw out your application.
It’s in absence of a compelling situation or institutional need, you will be simply moved into the category that won’t warrant further review.
This is hard to define because each reader has a different set of values and interests. It’s not easy to predict.
Also, if you do pass the first read with lower grades and scores, it doesn’t mean admission. It will be difficult for your AO to sell you to the senior team or committee.
It will be rare.
This doesn’t make sense. By definition, half of the admits have a GPA below the median.
@dadof2d
It does make sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution
We are talking about the median GPA. This would be an appropriate reference, not the one posted:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median
Median:Middle value separating the greater and lesser halves of a data set.
That’s not what I was referring to.
Of course, half of the people admitted have GPA below the median, per definition. But if you factor in athletes, legacies, etc., there is much less “room” below the median for those who are outside these groups. And the further down they are from the median, the lesser the chances, regardless of other factors. Simplification, I’m sure, but the fact is that the privileged groups skew the median.
However OP asked
Which clearly doesn’t make sense.
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FYI I have a friend on an adcom at a HYP. He told us the ivies don’t all look at applications the same way (surprise!) but at his, they will properly examine any application with a B average or higher. And while most of the admits at that range might be hooked, not all of the admittances below the median are, at least not in traditional ways. There are many ways to put a class together, and if an athlete with a B average in high school can get by academically at an ivy, so can anyone else they find particularly interesting. Is it common? Of course not. Does it happen? Yes.