<p>I don't know which forum to put this in exactly, but I thought this might be a suitable spot.</p>
<p>I think I have more or less the strongest possible about 3.56 GPA (maybe like 3.68 with all A's from the first quarter of senior year.) I have the most rigor possible (no weighting), a large upward trajectory, and I think my essays/counselor recommendation talk a lot about my learning style and why my grades weren't so fantastic my first two years (and subsequently better in the last two years.)</p>
<p>I know I have test scores such that I won't have to worry about those, and I think my ECs are pretty decent. </p>
<p>However, I worked quite hard on my essays and got, I think, truly wonderful recommendations from a couple of teachers who are as much friends to me as mentors and educators. </p>
<p>So basically, I always thought I might get denied pretty easily at many schools just because of my low GPA. I got into the University of Chicago yesterday, and deferred today from MIT. </p>
<p>Do you guys think this bodes well, overall, for many other hard to get into schools? Does being deferred despite a comparatively weak GPA mean that the committee was probably impressed by my essays? </p>
<p>I know it's hard for you guys to really give me any great advice without seeing a lot of my stuff explicitly, but if you had any general thoughts I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.</p>
<p>If being deferred means you’re competitive, then increasing the number applications to other good schools increases you’re probability of finding another school that likes you as much as chicago and MIT apparently do.
Basically, if MIT thinks you’re competitive, chances are that other schools do too :)</p>
<p>You’re not alone. I have a 3.4 (also with the hardest course rigor) and also happened to get deferred (it’s a miracle I didn’t get rejected; though I understand why they wouldn’t). I know for a fact that my recs were fantastic along with the rest of the material; so I imagine that MIT must have thought the same way about your materials.</p>
<p>What you probably need to show MIT is that you have passion for what the institution stands for and show them that you are able to handle the work they give you. If you can do this in your midyear report (though focus on what they request), then that may boost your application as it currently stands, but like what others are saying, if you got deferred, you are competitive enough for RD.</p>
<p>EDIT: From a series of rough calculations, I suspect that the admissions from deferrals will only be about 350 this year (that’s assuming that MIT is staying with the notion that they strive to only accept 30% of its student body through EA).</p>
<p>If Chicago took you and MIT deferred you, then you’re a highly competitive applicant.</p>
<p>The significance of a low unweighted GPA really varies from school to school.To weight your grade according to Univ. of Calif. Berkeley criteria, drop freshmen grades, omit grades in all non-uc required courses (autoshop, electronics, robotics, p.e, etc.) and allow a score of 4 for an A in a non-honors or regular class and a score of 5 for an honors or AP course. If you Google “University of California undergraduate admissions eligibility” you’ll find the online calculator that does this for you. A score of 4.2 is the average GPA of students admitted to Berkeley.</p>
<p>Each high school is different. At my son’s large public high school, there were 21 valedictorians last year. Of these, a substantial number had taken no – or few – honors or AP courses. The grading in the honors and AP courses is brutal. The school has an open access policy allowing any and all students to take the courses, but one result is demand that exceeds the capacity of the school. The school’s response has been to make a grade of “C” a true average grade in those courses. To defer as many students from taking the courses as possible. However, the University of California system is very familiar with this school, and so the average unweighted GPA of students from this school admitted to Berkeley is 3.57. Of course, according to all the GPA-obsessed posters on Berkeley’s collegeconfidential board, an unweighted gpa this low will doom your admission. </p>
<p>It all depends. In the end, GPA is just one component of the application.</p>