<p>I mean, I know with a lot of things you can essentially write yourself a "Doctor's note" disclaiming any possible blemishes on your application, or a counselor can explain the circumstances by which you received this grade, did not merit that scholarship, etc, etc. But do you think there's a point where they just stop factoring in "extenuating circumstances" and just look at your application for what is. </p>
<p>Example: I have a 3.7 GPA in junior year right now (so yes, I've still got time to bring it up, but this is a slight chance as my school tends to beat you down senior year) at a school where 4.0s DON'T exist. Seriously. The valedictorian last year had a 3.895. It's only a public school, not one of these intense feeder schools, but still...so is this the sort of thing they'll take note of when they see my school's profile and consider it with regards to my particular application, or will just see that 3.7 as is, without the context. Kaput. </p>
<p>What are people's experiences? (i.e. this is primarily directed at kids already at Yale, but if anyone else has some legitimate information on the matter I'd be glad to hear that as well)</p>
<p>I don't think this is really "extenuating circumstances"; it's just how your school grades. And colleges certainly take that into account,evaluate you "in the context of your school," and realize that all 3.7's aren't created equal. When your high school sends your transcript and a form to the school's you apply to, there's actually a space for "highest GPA in applicant's class." Don't worry, you won't be rejected because your school grades hard.</p>
<p>(I have no idea what your 3.7 means though. I just know Yale will take your school's grading system into account.)</p>
<p>I don't have anything but my own experience in applying to Yale....</p>
<p>That said, Give'em SOME credit!</p>
<p>They know you don't go to an inner city (read, poor/minority majority) school where your efforts have to go into sustenance and not just school....</p>
<p>And they know you don't go to a Philips academy or a g20 school where you had a counselor start crafting your profile right from when you 'enrolled'!</p>
<p>Your transcript has the guidance counselor provide input just for that reason.</p>
<p>Admissions committees aren't rejections committees; they're trying to advocate EACH student.</p>
<p>^ The Ideal</p>
<p>V The real</p>
<p>Don't freak out about this, none of us know what the adcoms do, and we don't have any input.</p>
<p>Go do something you love!</p>
<p>Or, failing that, check out Kings of Leon/The Strokes on youtube.</p>
<p>Collegehopeful! So funny :) Love the Strokes AND Kings of Leon, so I sort of do that now anyways (guilty!)</p>
<p>I appreciate both of your responses! I was really afraid that in posting this the "OH MY GOD STOP FREAKING OUT ABOUT YALE YOU IDIOT!" posts would flood in even though I really did want to know just for curiosities sake. </p>
<p>But most of all, I actually REALLY like the fact that you said "go do something you love!" because that is THE most important thing to me. I didn't ask about the GPA thing because I want to do something about it if they won't like me because of it, because I'm of the feeling that I take all the classes I do just because i LOVE learning (yeah, I have got a red nerd stamp on my forehead...don't even worry about it), and I don't do ANY extracurriculars because they're good for college, and I don't campaign for leadership positions because colleges love leadership. I just do everything for myself and because I get SO much out of it.
So if it turns out that Yale doesn't think I'm good enough, in the end I'm better off because I've had a really fulfilling high school experience so far! I HOPE Yale sees that because it is my dream school, but if they don't then I probably wasn't meant to be there in the first place. </p>
<p>So sorry about that rant, but sometimes you just need to say something about yourself, you know? </p>
<p>Anyhow, thanks for you helpful responses guys! Really appreciate it :)</p>
<p>Oh and by the way, findis my 3.7 means that 6 out of 8 of my classes were honors classes, but I have some B+s to my name from that year (they only factor in sophomore grades and since I'm not done with junior year my GPA is only based on one year's worth of grades)...that's about it. </p>
<p>I think there's a lot more to me than my GPA and I hope they see that, and I hope to convey it through my extracurriculars that I've been doing for ages, and through my essays which I already have vague ideas about. So we'll see what happens!</p>
<p>I'd ask your guidance counselor to see the school profile your high school sends to colleges. It should contain info about grade distribution, etc. Yale absolutely looks at context, but you want to make sure that info your school sends presents the context properly. From reading the parents forum, it seems like numerous public high schools don't update their school reports regularly (or even have them?). Because GPA varies so much from school to school, I've always felt class rank is a more important metric.</p>
<p>Well they don't have class rank at my school because the suicide rate was alarmingly high due to the rigor and stress of my school. They eliminated things like ranking, percentiles, and valedictorian to try and keep the competitive nature and stress level down (I referred to a val earlier, but we do something else under a different name that gets confusing to explain so I usually just say val even though we don't actually have one..)</p>
<p>I saw the school profile, it's the most recent they CAN have. About the class that graduated last year. I suppose that's enough...and it also explains how because our classes are so hard people aren't allowed to take APs outside of senior year except for APUSH and maybe AP Bio (I'm in APUSH) and also in one year it's almost unheard of for a student to carry more than 2 or 3 APs and honors combined...</p>