<p>My d was rejected and so upset, she had her heart set on attending GWU! She was on a steady upward climb through high school, weak 9th grade record but it got stronger every year. Her weighted GPA was a 3.8, she had almost all AP's and got high scores, her SAT combined was a 2020, her ACT was a 30, she had numerous long term extra curricular activities, including ones involving leadership positions, and over 200 hours of community service. She was so upset to have been rejected....does she have much company out there? Who ARE they taking if they are rejecting someone with a pretty impressive record? Their standards seem to be approaching ivy league measures! Just curious for anyone else out there who was rejected early decision, what were your stats?
Thanks.....</p>
<p>When I visited GW, they stressed the importance of test scores. Please don't take this the wrong way...your daughter's scores are certainly very good, but they aren't quite exceptional. I think it's unfortunate that a university would put so much bearing on a one-time sitting for a test. It's not an accurate reflection on how good of a student/person your child is. Take this from a high school senior that is also receiving college decisions within this week...take every decision, whether it is acception or rejection, with a grain of salt. There are people with lesser stats that will be accepted and people with superb stats that will be rejected. By the looks of your daughter, I'm sure she will get in somewhere fabulous!</p>
<p>saxophonegirl- I strongly disagree with your belief re: GW's emphasis on test scores. It was my experience as well as many of my fellow students that GW was one of the schools who actually looked at the whole package. In fact, there are students who were admitted with lower SAT scores then the average. The deciding factor in many cases seems to be the Why GW question? It's not just about EC's, SAT's and GPA, although they are competitive.
kaywarn203 your daughter's stats are good and I'm sure she will find the right school for her. Good luck!</p>
<p>MsBC, it's interesting that you got the entirely opposite impression. The admissions officer who spoke to us made test scores seem like an overwhelming portion of the admissions process.</p>
<p>saxongirl:</p>
<p>The OP's daughters ACT score is ABOVE GWU's 75th percentile, so plenty high enough. Moreover, ED usually gives a boost to test scores, i.e., a college will generally go a little lower in ED (again, dunno about GW specifically). </p>
<p>Kay: your D's gpa must not have been strong enuf in the view of the adcoms. Perhaps your D might have had a better shot by waiting for senior grades and applying RD. For context of that gpa, what is your D's rank? </p>
<p>fwiw: 66% of the GW matriculants were in the top decile. 90% were in top 25%.</p>
<p>kaywarn when did your daughter find out she was not accepted?</p>
<p>saxophone I am sorry the Admissions counselor gave you that impression. I am a current student at GW and it's just not the case. If you check out posts from other GW students you can see that most share my belief that GW really does evaluate the "whole student". If anything, bluebayou is more on target as GPA and rigor of coursework seems to be weighted more than SAT/ACT scores.</p>
<p>Her weighted GPA was a 3.8, she had almost all AP's and got high scores</p>
<p>Colleges care more about UNweighted GPA. And since you said she took almost all APs, this means that the 3.8 is probably significantly higher than her unweighted GPA. I'm guessing it was around a 3.3 UW. This is very low.</p>
<p>GPA and rigor of courseload are perhaps the most important things in college admissions. You can't just get a good GPA taking easy classes, and you can't take hard classes and do only okay in them. You have to take hard classes AND do well in them.</p>
<p>I will say it once again: GW will not look at only one portion of the application, but at the whole package. Maybe her essay "Why GW" didn't reflect why she wanted to attend.
I don't know. Where is going anyway? With thoses stats, I am sure she has been accepted somewhere great. Good luck</p>
<p>kay..my d was accepted to GW EDII BUT rejected at what she thought her first choice school was ED (outright rejection from a school that usually defers most ED candidates - ouch!) Yes, very disappointed but I told her the bright side was that it allowed her to move on.
That was when she went to work on finding out about each of the schools at the top of her list and after contacting departments, reflecting on her visit, the admission interview, and what her plans were, she came to the conclusion that GW/Elliott school would be a perfect fit and made sure this was front and center in her app.
The hard part was, like your daughter, she seemed a "match" - same stats but with UW 3.8/W3.9 but when she researched the kids that had been previously accepted from her school, she found the average GPA was W4.05. They also had only accepted 7 out of the 20 applicants over the last 3 years so she knew there was a good chance that she may not be accepted. We were lucky and it worked out, she is very excited to attend in the fall, but the bigger issue is that your d will also find a good fit as she will most likely have a number of schools to choose from. The good news is that if GW is still at the top of her list next year, they do take transfers! I also know that GW rejects some top stats kids (see last years thread) so there really is no sure thing and no way of predicting. Best of luck to your d in her decision.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Her weighted GPA was a 3.8, she had almost all AP's and got high scores</p>
<p>Colleges care more about UNweighted GPA. And since you said she took almost all APs, this means that the 3.8 is probably significantly higher than her unweighted GPA. I'm guessing it was around a 3.3 UW. This is very low.</p>
<p>GPA and rigor of courseload are perhaps the most important things in college admissions. You can't just get a good GPA taking easy classes, and you can't take hard classes and do only okay in them. You have to take hard classes AND do well in them.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>While I agree such a GPA would be below the median accepted any many top schools, I would never consider it "very low." For example, mine is only 3.55 right now; if that's "very low" for GWU then I should probably not worry about checking my admissions status tomorrow night.</p>
<p>Such a GPA, while a hindrance for a school like GPA, can be somewhat compensated for. Excellent extra-curriculars, test scores, recs, essays and interviews can make up for a GPA like 3.3uw. </p>
<p>Ultimately, without knowing much about the OP (and not being an adcom, thank God), I would say she(?) was mostly likely rejected because of many factors, definitely not just her "very low" GPA. This is especially true with a school like GWU, which seems to have a very "holistic" (read: schizophrenic) admissions process.</p>
<p>Hey, redknight, I'm hoping that the schizophrenic admissions process works in my favor lol. My cumulative unweighted is 3.3, weighted 3.5, senior 4.5 weighted/4.0 unweighted- hopefully that has some influence.</p>
<p>Kaywarn -IDK the reasons why, but this seems to happen every year. If you search last year's admissions thread, there were very qualified (more than qualified, actually) who were not accepted. Maybe they took a lot of ED I and II apps this year, and are protecting their yield with RD. IDK- it just happens.</p>
<p>wow, i am surprised the OP's d was rejected...I was accepted ED1 with just a 1790 SAT...but my UW GPA was a 4.0 and my Weighted GPA was 4.0+</p>
<p>
[quote]
Colleges care more about UNweighted GPA.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is actually a very rampant misperception on CC. CCers care a lot about UW GPA so they can compare themselves fairly up against one another. </p>
<p>Colleges care a lot about weighted too - but I think they look at it in a different way. Go read Dan's posts on the Tufts board (he says they prefer to look at the weighted if it's available). Everyone must understand that weighting differs from school to school. Her school might not have much weighting at all, in which case, a 3.8W is very good. Colleges look at the school's profile, and then the student's TRANSCRIPT. Everything doesn't get boiled down to your GPA. It may show an overall trend; it may not. </p>
<p>i.e. a student who has half C's and half A's is the same as a student who has all B's (I think it should average out to the same although both students are irrefutably different).</p>
<p>I do have to agree that emphasis is NOT made on test scores. I got a 29 and was just accepted; I did NOT take ANY subject tests, nor the SAT.</p>
<p>Might I add..I have seen it everyday when ppl boast about how many "hours" of community service they have. I think the colleges want specific details on comm. service, not merely a label of hours. They want to know what you've done and if you didn't convey that (not talking about the original poster--anyone) in your app, then I don't think it looks nearly impressive just spitting out a "x number of hours" for volunteer work</p>
<p>waitlisted
4.4/4.5 unweighted (school doesn't weigh)
1480/2190 sat
34 act
800 math2, 790 world history, 650 eng lit
lotta aps, decent (nothing special) ECs</p>
<p>i was surprised. looking at the stats of people who got in ED1 and ED2, i figured I'd get in. i agree that they emphasize the student as a whole rather than just test scores.</p>
<p>The stats of people who get in EDI and EDII are not at all representative of the the stats necessary for RD admission. Students applying early get a definite "leg up."</p>
<p>DENIED.
4.5 W/3.9 UW
2070/32
660 math, 780 US & Lit
Enough APs and extracurrics/leadership positions + job</p>
<p>-Sigh- My first rejection.</p>
<p>I'm not too heartbroken about it, but now I'm panicking about my other schools.</p>
<p>I am an international student and the emphasis is definitely not on SAT's because mine were crap like barely 1600 (all 3 included)! but I think if you stand out as a person who is original and doesnt try to come off as a 17 year old genius, then they will be able to consider realistically who you are as a person!
I mean in my essay i basically clearly pointed out that my grades were not great but that was because i balanced it with my social life and other extra curricular activities. I guess it worked! and sorry to those who didnt get in.</p>