<p>Is a 3.79 UW GPA, 4.2ish weighted after junior year good enough for an Ivy? I just want to see if I can make it past the initial grade screening.</p>
<p>They don’t immediately screen students out. At Harvard, for example, every application goes through committee. </p>
<p>No GPA is “good enough for an Ivy” if not accompanied by high test scores, unusual or exceptional extracurricular activities, compelling essays, glowing recommendations, and sheer luck. If you are talented and accomplished, your GPA would not eliminate you from consideration. Nobody can really give you any more assurance than that.</p>
<p>@woogzmama Yeah, looking back that phrasing sounds pretty stupid, it’s not like I’m applying to every Ivy in a last-ditch effort to get in somewhere or anything anyway…I was just a bit overly worried for a moment. Also, that’s all the assurance I need, thanks 
</p>
<p>OK but these forums are read by lots of students and come up in searches etc, so to be clear, there is no such thing as ‘the initial grade screening’ for Ivies (and likely all colleges with holistic review.) Brown also takes all applications to committee.</p>
<p>You won’t be screened out, but that gpa gives you a very slim shot at all the Ivies except maybe cornell.</p>
<p>Oh…I was understand the impression that unless you had a previously established hook of some kind, like athletic recruitment, a certain GPA could bump you from admissions in and of itself, but as I’m thinking about it that wouldn’t make much sense, especially if you had a circumstance in which a lowGPA would be acceptable or explainable. Thanks.</p>
<p>Why is it so important to you to attend one of the Ivy League schools? </p>
<p>This is Harvard information for those students who chose to enroll in last year’s freshman class. I think it’s fair to say their numbers are probably on par or higher than other Ivy League schools. As you can see in the first scatterplot, there are many students at or below the 3.8 GPA level, with a variety of SAT scores. </p>
<p>You can play with this scatterplot and see how your total statistics compare.</p>
<p><a href=“The Harvard Crimson | Class of 2017”>http://features.thecrimson.com/2013/frosh-survey/admissions.html</a></p>
<p>But for those GPAs on the left of the plot we don’t know if they are the star baseball pitcher, speak 6 languages, are a cello virtuoso…if you don’t have some special “hook” then things look dimmer.</p>
<p>
Looking at only the number of admitted students gives you no idea about the admit rate. For example, suppose 3x as many 3.9-4.0 students applied as 3.7-3.8 students. If both GPA groups had an equal admit rate, then there would be 3x as may 3.9+ students in the scatterplot, so the scatterplot would give a misleading conclusion.</p>
<p>Princeton publishes admit rate by UW GPA:
4.0 – 9.9%
3.9* - 9.8%
3.8* - 6.8%
3.7* - 5.9%
3.6* - 4.9%
3.5* - 3.1%</p>
<p>It looks 3.79 GPA applicants had a 2-3% lower overall admit rate than 4.0 GPA applicants. However, much of the difference in admit rate likely relates to correlations with other sections of the application, rather than the GPA itself. For example, the applicants with a 4.0 GPA are likely to also have higher class rank, greater course rigor, higher test scores, better LORs, better essays, more impressive academic awards, etc. I suspect that if you compared applicants with a similar rest of the application, the difference in admit rate would be less than the 2-3% suggested above. </p>
<p>^keep in mind a lot of the 3.7ers may be recruited athletes, URMs, top notch musicians, etc. </p>
<p>^keep in mind a lot of the 3.9+ers may be in the same categories</p>
<p>Among Parchment members with a 3.9+ GPA and 2200-2300 SAT, the admit rate for non-URMs applicants to Princeton with a 3.9+ UW was 1.3x the admit rate for applicants with the same SAT and a 3.75-3.85… … almost the same ratio that occurs in the stats published by Princeton. The Parchment results suggest that non-URM applicants with a ~3.8 GPA and SAT in this range had a bit lower chances than 4.0, but not tremendously lower… certainly nothing to suggest the vast majority of admits in one category are hooks, but not the other.</p>
<p>One might instead wonder why perfect 4.0 UW GPA applicants only have a single digit admit rate. Whatever combination of unique characteristics the few 4.0 applicants who were admitted had (including the categories you listed – athlete, URM, musician, …) might also have be enough to get them admitted, had their GPA been 3.8 instead of 4.0.</p>