<p>Like I heard from every post and everybody that you must have 4.0 unweighted gpa in order to be qualified to get into Ivy league you need to have some award and above 2300 SAT score. I am not sure too what extent this is true. I know that ivy league admission is like random but to what extent is this statement true?</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>elaborate please?</p>
<p>“I know that ivy league admission is like random but to what extent is this statement true?”</p>
<p>They are not random. They select people that they think will do well or have extraordinary talent. Many of those people do have those qualifications, but are certainly not required. Because they are so well known and have a great reputation, they can afford to be extremely selective, which they are. They are reaches for anyone. Many also have extraordinary ECs so it’s not all about grades and test scores, but most students excel in all categories.</p>
<p>GPA isolated by itself doesn’t tell an awful lot as the stringency of grading varies among schools. You will have to do well relative to others in your school and relative to what’s offered to you, though. </p>
<p>If you’re wondering how true it is you need a 4.0, you can peruse the common data sets of the ivies and see what the average high school GPA of enrolled students is. I’ve looked at a few and they’re all around ~3.9-4.0. Obviously, since it’s an average it means some admitted students have lower.</p>
<p>No… but it won’t hurt to have one…</p>
<p>General rule is you need to have an unweighted GPA of 3.8+ with rigor to have a chance.</p>
<p>There is no general rule for Ivy League admissions. You can get in with a 3.6, a 4.0, a 3.8, or a 2.5. It depends on the context of your high school, your hardship, your experiences…</p>
<p>Same thing with the test scores. There is a fallacy to suggest that after a certain point, more is better. Many seem to view the test and gpa results for admits and assume that equates to minimums or something. If that were really the case, all of the HYPS type schools would have ONLY 4.0 types with 2300 scores would get into schools like MIT and Cal-Tech.</p>
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<p>If anyone gets in to HYPSM with a 2.5, it is a fluke that the average student should not depend on. You are spreading misinformation with a stat like that. General rules are general rules for a reason, they apply to most people - of course there are exceptions, but most people can’t count themselves among those that get them.</p>
<p>@MrMom62 No, it isn’t misinformation. There is no cutoff for college admissions anywhere. It depends on the situation. I know of students who have gotten into the Ivies with GPAs and scores that would be considered abysmal by CC standards. So many people on here try to make it seem like the Ivies are just cut and dry with students who only have academic achievement. That is not true. There are cases where schools fall in love with someone’s character. Or, they have amazing singing ability. Or they went through extreme hardship.</p>
<p>OP, so many people on here use their rejections from the Ivies and use it to represent the entire admissions process. This kid got a 2300 on the SAT, got rejected from UPenn, and then went around on every chance me with a test score less than that and said they wouldn’t get in, because he didn’t. The reality is, none of us work in the admissions office.</p>
<p>The 25-50% is just an average. There are 25% of students who don’t have that and NO, it that isn’t just a pool of minorities, athletes, and legacy. There are regular, unhooked students there too.</p>
<p>There are always exceptions when 10,000+ apply. But don’t count on getting in with a 4.0, 2400 let alone a 2.5.</p>
<p>I think the operative word here is “can.” Can someone with a 2.5 get into an Ivy League school? I would say yes, but I would also qualify that by saying that you have to have some truly extraordinary qualities, and even then you are at a severe, severe disadvantage. I would feel ok saying that an unhooked student with a 2.5 does not have a chance at an Ivy League school. </p>
<p>The idea of hardship is that it has to be overcome and that you have to prove you can be successful in spite of that hardship. The thing, in my opinion, that highly selective colleges look for is excellence in relation to your environment. If you live in a wealthy suburb of NYC or Boston, this means you will have to achieve a lot more than someone coming from a rural town or the inner city, but that comparatively, it should be about the same difficulty. The upper-middle class, white Northeasterner has a lot more resources at their disposal than someone living in the ghetto. Just living in the ghetto, however, and doing slightly above average does not mean you have a reasonable chance at a highly selective institution. You still have to apply yourself there and do something noteworthy. </p>
<p>I feel like people exaggerate the occurrence of the rare low gpa or low test scores acceptances - they happen once in a blue moon and if something like that does apply to you, you probably would know without having to ask anyone cc. Honestly having supbar stats is a deal ended for 90% of applicants - I would say like 99% of people on CC. So no you dont have to have a 4.0, but anything less than a 3.8 is probably near impossible.</p>
<p>I agree with most of the posters here that it’s total garbage to cite cases of people getting into Ivys with 2.5 GPA. Yes, there are those people. But they either have parents donating millions, or are nationally ranked atheletes, or children of foreign head of states, etc. If you are one of those, you wouldn’t be posting on CC. For all others with a 2.5 GPA, buying lottery tickets will be a better investment.</p>
<p>Read Cal Newport’s book “How to be a High School Superstar: A Revolutionary Plan to Get Into College By Standing Out (Without Burning Out)”. He makes a very persuasive argument that there is a minimum bar you need to meet to get into the top colleges in terms of grades and test scores, then after that it is mostly about differentiating yourself via ECs that are go against the common tide of high school ECs. </p>
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Last year, I analyzed the Stanford RD decision thread on CC. The posters in the thread had GPAs in the range from ~3.7 to 4.0 and SAT scores in the range ~2000 to 2400, with most on the upper end of those ranges. However, it wasn’t just the top stat students who were getting accepted. Instead both GPA and test scores had a slight negative correlation with acceptance decisions among RD thread posters. That is, as GPA and test scores went down, chance of a RD thread poster being accepted went up. Class rank had an even more noteworthy negative correlation with acceptance decisions. Valedictorians were frequently being rejected, while top ~5% kids were frequently being accepted. Activities outside the classroom had the most notable positive correlation with acceptances, particularly if impressive on a state+ level. I expect these correlations occurred because of a bias among CC posters in who chooses to post and/or who chooses to apply, with many CC posters overestimating what kind of stats are needed and underestimating the importance of activities outside of the classroom.</p>
<p>That said, the overall applicant pool shows a completely different distribution from the RD thread, where GPA has a strong correlation with acceptance decisions, even when test scores are held constant. I expect it’s near impossible for a 2.5 student to get accepted at colleges as selective as HYPSM. Most of their CDSs show no students in the entering class who had below a 3.0. Among non-URM Parchment members who had a 2100+ SAT, there has never been a Stanford acceptance with a GPA below 3.4 in recent years.</p>
<p>Back when I applied, I was accepted to both Stanford and ivies with a HS GPA slightly below 3.5 and SAT slightly below 2000, so I’d appear as an anomalous stat. However, these stats do not tell the full story. I took many college classes and had a 4.0 college GPA that was not included in the HS GPA calc, and my low combined SAT included strong scores in the sections most relevant to my prospective major with a 800 math, 800 SAT II math, and something near 800 in SAT II science. I’d expect most of the other lower scoring students also have a similar explanation or particularly unique background/hook. For example, a few months ago a parent posted in the Stanford forum about her unhooked 1890 SAT daughter whose background included state level future farmers of America awards. While FFA is one of the most common youth organizations in the United States, I’d expect to be quite uncommon among Stanford students, particularly with her level of achievement.</p>