<p>Are there examples of non URM and non athlete students with less than 3.6 GPA getting accepted to the top 20 colleges? Please give as much details as you can in your example. Thanks!</p>
<p>Kid I know got into MIT, Princeton, and some other ones with around a 3.6 or 3.7. He’s white. Sorry, I don’t know that much other detail about him except that he’s won a ton of math awards.</p>
<p>I got into Harvard with about a 3.5 (just graduated from UChicago, so pardon me for not really remembering my high school grades - may have even been a little lower). I’m just a skinny white girl who likes math… they take all kinds.</p>
<p>Really, though, I think it’s a lot more important to find a school that fits your personality than a top whatever. There are far more than 20 very good schools in this country/the world, and the one of those that is going to give you the best education is not the one that is the highest on every list, but the one at which you’ll be happiest to work and live for the next four years. If you’re miserable at a top 20, you aren’t going to learn a thing.</p>
<p>I know this chinese girl with a 3.6ish GPA, but she made harvard Stanford and Princeton because she got intel semis in math, and basically talked about her passion for math in essays.</p>
<p>This happens all the time at elite schools. GPA isn’t really a determinant in college admissions as much as class rank and school rigor are.</p>
<p>The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong … but that’s the way to bet.</p>
<p>A friend of a friend got a 3.2 GPA but 2400 SAT and crazy ECs, recs, etc and got into HYPS and WL @ Columbia and UPenn</p>
<p>It’s not about GPA, it’s about rank whether the school officially ranks or not. A 3.6 could be val or it could put him in the bottom half. Chance of a kid getting into most top 20 colleges who is not at the very least in the top 10% are slim without a hook.</p>
<p>It is encouraging to hear students with low GPA being accepted to HYPSMC, but if you look at the various “profile” sites, you rarely see <3.6 GPA gaining acceptance to top schools. I don’t recall a single <3.5 GPA acceptance to HYPSMC at these profile sites. It is because only students with high GPA tend to care more about these profile sites?</p>
<p>I was accepted to Chicago last year with somewhere between a 3.4-3.5, a 2100 SAT and ECs that were good and showed leadership, but nothing extraordinary. I’m a white girl from New England, so I’m not sure what exactly it was that got me in.</p>
<p>NatalieW - What did you major in? Did you take a lot of tough classes?</p>
<p>You know what probably got you in, Natalie? Your statistics. People act as if you need to have 2300+ SATs and lots of leadership to make decent schools, but when you’re talking top 20 schools and not just HYPSM, there are a lot of slots that need to be filled and they will take quite a few seemingly “average” candidates like yourself.</p>
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<p>Of the schools that do list student GPA on the common data set:</p>
<p>[Princeton</a> Common Data Set](<a href=“http://registrar.princeton.edu/university_enrollment_sta/common_cds2008.pdf]Princeton”>http://registrar.princeton.edu/university_enrollment_sta/common_cds2008.pdf)</p>
<p>Percent who had GPA between 3.50-3.75: 11%
Percent who had GPA between 3.25-3.49: 6%
Percent who had GPA between 3.00-3.24: 2%</p>
<p>[Stanford</a> Common Data Set](<a href=“Stanford Common Data Set | University Communications”>Stanford Common Data Set | University Communications)</p>
<p>Percent who had GPA between 3.50 and 3.74: 9.1%
Percent who had GPA between 3.25 and 3.49: 2.9%
Percent who had GPA between 3.00 and 3.24: 0.6%
Percent who had GPA between 2.50 and 2.99: 0.1%
Percent who had GPA between 2.00 and 2.49: 0.1%</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“Home - MIT Institutional Research”>Home - MIT Institutional Research]MIT</a> Common Data Set<a href=“2004”>/url</a></p>
<p>Percent who had GPA of 3.0 and higher: 95%
Percent who had GPA between 2.0 and 2.99 4%
Percent who had GPA between 1.0 and 1.99 1%</p>
<p>It’s impossible to know what the minority/athlete breakdown is in those percentages, but there are probably still students who are neither in those percentages.</p>
<p>^ Exactly. Athletes take up some of those lower gpa’s but when you look at say a Stanford where the average student there has crazy statistics there are also some admitted with below-average stats of course. That’s why I always say have no boundaries when applying to schools. I’ll apply to Stanford, Columbia and Brown and while I doubt I get in it’s worth a try. Just make sure you have some more fitting as well as some safety schools. :)</p>
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<p>At these schools there are approximately:</p>
<p>Athletes: 17%
Legacies 10-15%
URMs 15-20%
staff/development/ connected: 2-3%</p>
<p>That’s an awful lot who can have lower stats to believe there are many unhooked that can.</p>
<p>It’s common sense, if you are turning away thousands of applicants who have everything on paper the school is looking for, someone with a sub par ranking/GPA would have to offer something truly compelling.</p>
<p>I think mathgrad said it better than anyone could.</p>
<p>Decide what sort of campus culture you want to be in. I’m a big science nerd. I’ve realized that of the high profile schools I’d probably be most happy at ones like Caltech, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, or Stevens Institute (safety school of mine in my home state, NJ). I would have gotten the education I wanted at Princeton or Harvard, but the campus would have been too dissimilar to me for my tastes.</p>
<p>hmom5 - If I just add up your numbers on the lower end of your range, it is already 44%! You are indeed right - “That’s an awful lot.” So are we promoting a false sense of hope by telling people with low GPA who don’t fall into any of the preferential catagories to apply to these schools and tell them “GPA isn’t everything; if you have a compelling story, you have a shot”? After all a lot of time and money are spent on the application process. Sure there is a chance, just like everyone has a chance at winning the lottery. But I’ll bet that if instead of a dollar or two for a lottery ticket, it costs $60 for a lottery ticket, we probably wouldn’t have a sustainable lottery.</p>
<p>lol its not 44%</p>
<p>You forget that many URMs are athletes, and many legacies are connected</p>
<p>ya you can’t just add up those numbers and get 44% lol</p>
<p>but still, what percentage of an ivy class is neither athlete/URM/legacy/development?</p>
<p>^ ^^ You are both right. My mistake. So it is probably in the 25%+ range.</p>