<p>is a 3.88 unweighted GPA a little low?</p>
<p>I wouldn't think so. The average at a lot of these schools is about a 3.8 or a 3.7.</p>
<p>eek! i'm average. but i dont have any hooks. this sucks</p>
<p>Well how far are you in high school? Is there still time for you to develop something interesting for your intended schools? Help us help you.</p>
<p>I was hookless and I had a 3.875 I got into Yale, don't worry about it, just work hard and the rest will take care of itself :-).</p>
<p>yah dont worry about it. your gpa isnt low. but it isnt 4.0. its good and like most applicants. but it def isnt low.</p>
<p>
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eek! i'm average. but i dont have any hooks. this sucks
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Contrary to popular belief, most people who get into these schools are hookless. People have such ridiculous ideas about what constitutes a hook at these schools.</p>
<p>In MIT's LARPing group for (which I am also in, as an alum), there's a guy who published two major math papers in leading journals when he was 16, one of which was improving upon a result from a <em>very</em> famous mathematician. <em>That</em> might qualify as a hook at MIT. Your race, gender, socioeconomic status, home state, membership in the local youth orchestra, captaincy of the state champion math team, student council presidency, even probably your ISEF award, are not. <em>Some</em> of them are definite plusses, but none of them are going to make the adcom say "We have to have this person!"</p>
<p>Most people who get in have a lot of little (by the standards of these schools) things that add up. That was what I did.</p>
<p>The GPA itself, I wouldn't worry about. It's about what mine was.</p>
<p>when you talk about ur unweighted, that's just core classes right?</p>
<p>What kind of classes are you talking about?</p>
<p>me? i'm talkking about like core classes as in math, science, social studies, english, and language. NOT like orchestra, gym, photography, etc right?</p>
<p>because my GPA is about 3.9ish and i think thats a bit low as well =P apparently everyone on the Harvard Decisions thread has a 4.0 how does that happen??? I'm assuming A-s and weighted lower than As...which i think is the case</p>
<p>I'm asking the OP what courses he is taking.</p>
<p>I don't think most schools weight an "A-" differently than an "A". My school didn't calculate GPA so I don't know personally.</p>
<p>Anyway, assuming you take 4 real classes a semester (i.e., not P.E. or orchestra,) you would have 28 classes by the end of the junior year. A 3.9 GPA implies you had maybe 3 B's. From friend's results for HYPM at one of the public elite magnet schools, if you got up to two B's HYP didn't care. However, these were in humanities classes and we were all science majors. The ivies were somewhat more lax than HYPM. Stanford didn't care at all. I knew people who had straight B's and got in. (I also knew many people who had 4.0 GPAs who didn't get in.) </p>
<p>However, this was more than 10 years ago and admissions is more competitive. Also, they might expect more GPA-wise if you are coming from a regular public school than from a magnet school. MIT admissions has changed too so that they don't care about blemishes on your academic record the way they used too. Anyway, I wouldn't freak out about a 3.9 GPA.</p>
<p>hmm thanks for the info--for the record tho i don't have any Bs just a couple A-s</p>
<p>I'm taking the hardest courses my school has to offer, of course. And i skipped a level in some classes so i'm taking AP while everyone else is taking honors or something like that</p>
<p>If you're taking exceptionally hard classes this is less of a worry than for a student taking the usual kind of classes. I was just at Exploring College Options last night in my town, and Harvard and Stanford are NOT looking for perfect G.P.A.s so much as students who have a desire to challenge themselves and accomplish something.</p>
<p>"less of a worry" sounds like--eh, its bad but they won't reject you for it. Hopefully you have a hook!</p>
<p>asdjfkl;</p>
<p>Zetar, that's about average for ADMITTED students. Seriously, don't worry about it. You're fine.</p>