<p>I’ve been looking at colleges, like any good student at the end of their junior year, and I’m becoming more and more disheartened. How badly has my GPA screwed me? What can I do to show that I’m a good student? Brown is my top choice, top shelf, shooting star reach school. What are my chances? I realize that no one on the forum can have an accurate idea, and no one is an admissions officer, but I’d like to check anyway.
High School: Private
High School Type: sends many grads to top schools
Will apply for financial aid: Yes</p>
<p>Academics:</p>
<p>GPA - Unweighted: 3.2 (I know it’s absolutely awful)
GPA - Weighted: 3.8
My school does not rank its students.</p>
<p>Scores:
SAT I: I’m expecting between 2250 and 2350, based on practice exams.</p>
<p>SAT II U.S. History: 700 (I may retake this one)
SAT II Biology - E: 790</p>
<p>Extracurriculars:</p>
<p>Speech and debate: Member for four years. Freshman year at my first school I founded the speech and debate team there. It has grown to be a nationally recognized team. For sophomore year, I transferred to a different, more rigorous high school, and began more actively competing in debate. That year, I placed 18th at CA state championships in LD, Junior year I placed 11th at CA State Championships and 2nd place Stanford invitational in Policy Debate.
I spend upwards of 15 hours per week on debate, and I’m truly passionate about it. My essays will reflect that. </p>
<p>Freshman year I was an active member of the school newspaper. </p>
<p>Leadership positions: Speech and Debate team: Lincoln Douglas Chair, 2 years (Soph-Junior)
Policy Chair, 2 years (Junior-Senior), Captain of Debate Division (Senior)</p>
<p>Any chance you could tell me my chances? And if I’ve got no chances at all at Ivies, what schools should I be looking at?</p>
<p>Although your school doesn’t rank, do you have a sense of where your GPA puts you? Since your school has sent many grads to top schools, these top schools will have seen applicants from your school and will understand your application in that context. The GPA does look low, but it’s hard to day what it means at your school.</p>
<p>One thing that’s really important to your application is your fit for Brown. Why do you want to go to Brown, and what can you bring to it?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, my GPA does not put me at the top of my school. I’m certainly in the top quarter, but almost definitely not in the top 10%. I’ve had a very rigorous record for my school (taking as many AP classes as permitted at a time) but my grades are not stellar.</p>
If Brown is your first choice, go ahead and apply. You never know. You have excellent test scores and extracurricular activities. If you can combine that with great essays and references, you may have a shot.</p>
<p>2) You don’t say where you are from, but if you are from the East Coast, you may get turned down by other Ivys and top East Coast schools due to your relatively low GPA. Therefore, you should try and think outside the box a bit and check out the schools that make the US News’ top 50 for national universities and liberal arts colleges but happen to be located in the South, Midwest, Southwest and West Coast.</p>
<p>3) What are you likely to major in at university? Check out the top programs in your major and apply to the non-East Coast schools on that list also.</p>
<p>JackUK: Thank you so much for your input. I plan on applying to Brown as a reach school regardless, I’m just wondering if I actually have a shot. </p>
<p>Also, I apologize for not putting it in my original post, but I hail from California. Thank you</p>
<p>Being from California could help you. Also, don’t forget to also apply to other top East Coast schools, such as Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Boston College, Tufts, etc, as well as some top publics such as UVa and William and Mary. If you love the atmosphere and setting of Brown, chances are that you will also love Georgetown.</p>
<p>I will be totally honest with you. Do not ask college confidential people. They will always say no. They are not the admissions officers. Remember, that most people do not post their data on college confidential. I am also applying to Brown. It’s my top choice and a definite early decision. People here will lampoon your statistics and do not compare yourself to those on the RD/ED acceptance threads. You’re not getting all the statistics and for all we know, someone could’ve gotten in with a 2.0. Good luck with your application, make sure you stand out and express why Brown is made for you.</p>
<p>adam: I know you’re asking your relative chances. I’m was admitted to Brown but matriculated at another Ivy. I’ve recruited for them for 20+ years. Here’s what I tell families and students at college fairs: Save some “hook”, if you happen to be among the handful of top scholars in your senior class, known as such by the staff and principal, then you might be a viable candidate.</p>
<p>By implication, if one isn’t clearly in this recognized upper strata, then I would say one is not a viable candidate.</p>
<p>The competition these days is just gi-normous. Sorry but best of luck to you.</p>
<p>At this point, I would say your odds of getting in to Brown or almost any Ivy out of high school are near zero. You might have marginally better luck at Cornell, but even that would be a stretch. If you’re willing to look to some of the Ivy League’s peer institutions, you might have a small chance at The University of Chicago or Swarthmore (these would however still be very long shots ). I will say that it sounds like your a California state resident; if you are, then you might also have a small chance at UC Berkeley. On the other hand, there are several less outstanding but still fairly good liberal arts colleges and universities you would probably have a decent chance at. </p>
<p>This is crucial because while you’re currently not good enough to get into the Ivy League or one of its peers straight out of high school, I could easily see you transferring into the Ivy League or one of its peers if you got a very high GPA during your Freshman year at college. This is because I had pretty similar stats to you. I’m not quite sure what my unweighted GPA was , but my weighted GPA at the time I graduated from high school was 3.8, and I had a 2240 on my SAT I with an 800, a 790, and a 680 on the U.S. History, World History, and Math II SAT II’s respectively. The trick is that you have to get a very high GPA at college and excellent letters of recommendation. Still, if you can go to a good school and pull of both of those things, then you would have a good shot at transferring to the Ivy League or one its peers. </p>
<p>For the record though, I’m not advocating that you should go to college planning to transfer (unless you go to a two year school or something similar). People who do that tend to have rather miserable college experiences, particularly if they fail to transfer out and are stuck with a school they never liked much in the first place. You should go to a college that you truly like and would feel comfortable graduating from. What I’m saying is just that if you go off to college and still find yourself unsatisfied or intellectually unfulfilled, then you would stand a decent chance of transferring to the Ivy League or one of its peers. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, being from California will not help you at all. I don’t remember the exact statistics, but Brown gets a huge number of applicants from California, and I even think that this year’s incoming freshmen class has more California residents than residents of any other state. IOW, there is no geographic advantage to coming from California.</p>
<p>Adam, you attend a private school that, in your own words, “sends many grads to top schools.” Your parents are paying a lot of money for the services of what is probably an excellent guidance department. Your guidance counselor has a much better idea of your chances than a bunch of anonymous strangers on a website. I suggest you ask him or her, and follow the advice. GPAs at many private schools are judged differently by college admissions officers than GPAs at public schools, and only your guidance counselor can put your GPA in context with college admissions from your school.</p>