Hello everyone. I was wondering whether the Ivy League and other top colleges care about the individual grades or more about the overall GPA. For example, would they care if I got a C in a class or that my GPA is still a 3.855?
Well, they care about both.
They’re not going to ignore a C because your GPA is still high, and they’re not going to ignore your high GPA because you got a C.
As indicated above, BOTH. When most-selective universities deny about nine applicants for each one accepted, they can afford to be extremely particular. “BOTH” results from that selectivity.
If I have a few C’s, would that kill my chances at the Ivy League? How about at a school like WUSTL or Duke?
Rather, if I get. I don’t have a few C’s at the moment.
Yes, unless you have extenuating circumstances it would be nearly impossible to recover from several Cs when trying to get accepted into an Ivy
Don’t plan to get C’s. It isn’t hard to avoid C’s in high school. Just don’t be lazy. Do your work.
Actually, I disagree. Your grades are important, of course. But it depends on the trend in your grades. Really, the most important is class rank…
Both are important. However, C is never desired in any selective schools unless you were in bad situations.
@Lily1985 (re post #8):
Perhaps, I have long-standing misapprehensions:
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Generally, GPA is more important than trend (although trend is certainly considered)
Normally, curricular rigor should accompany GPA (especially for highly- and most-competitive institutions)
Class rank often isn’t even reported (and many secondary schools do not calculate it)
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- Of course the trend in your GPA matters. If it’s on a downward slope, that does not look good.
- Curricular rigor should accompany GPA. That is without a doubt. I did not say anything contrary to that. But it is also a matter of balance.
- Class rank is more important than GPA, because if colleges were just looking for how smart you are, they already have your SAT/ACT scores. It’s a matter of how you perform in your particular situation. It’s about your intellectual commitment. Imagine two students with similar SAT scores. One attends a private school with fantastic teachers but has a mediocre GPA, while the other a school where he had to teach himself most of what he learned and has a high GPA. What matters here is work ethic, and this can only be measured by considering the context of the situation. Accounting for the variations in the quality of education one has been given – or lack of – how well does the applicant perform academically? The student who taught himself the material has more merit, as he has proven his intellectual commitment.
- If your GPA is always good, there is no trend. If your GPA was low, an upward trend may help somewhat.
- Many school do not rank. In that case, they will compare your GPA with your school profile or other applicants from your school. The rank itself is meaningless as it really depends on how competitive your school and class are.
As Lily’s answer reflects, it’s all relative; class rank is important, except that even that varies in its calculation from school to school, as each school calculates GPA differently, some weight, etc. and at this point the majority of high schools don’t report rank but only decile, or nothing. So it’s rank in the context both of your school and your rigor, and GPA in those contexts as well. If that one C were an anomaly in an ocean of As, it might well be overlooked as a teacher problem; a c with a couple of Bs and the rest low As is s different story.
So I know there has been a lot of discussion about the Ivy League. In all honesty, everyone should know that getting into one of those schools is really just a shot in the dark. How 'bout schools that have acceptance rates below 25% such as WUSTL, Duke, Georgetown, etc.
@IvyStruck: The obvious problem is, acceptance rates for several of the Ivies’ non-Ivy League peer institutions are lower than for some of the Ivies, per se. To illustrate, Cornell admits 15.6 percent and Dartmouth 10.4 percent, while Chicago admits 8.8 percent, Duke 12.4 percent, and WU/StL 15.6 percent (and I won’t even mention Stanford, MIT and CalTech). My point is, ALL of the institutions in the most-selective category tend to be “shots in the dark,” and I’m unconvinced that there’s “appreciably more light” when aiming for Northwestern, Hopkins, Geogretown, and so forth.
@TopTier I totally agree that some universities have lower acceptance rates than the Ivies. But do you think that with two C’s I could still get into schools around the 15% mark?
Close to zero.
@IvyStruck (re post #16): I’m not being facetious, but absolutely no one can authoritatively answer your “two Cs” question. Here’s why:
Admission to schools of the sort discussed in this thread is very holistic. Two Cs isn’t at all acceptance-benefical, but first-tier LACs and National Research Universities will frequently attempt to ascertain the underlying reason(s) for those Cs and potentially to view them in context. Therefore, I’d wager that in the next week quite a few, of the many thousands, admitted to the Ivies and their selectivity-peers will have a FEW documented deficiencies (such as two Cs), but they will also have great potential, documented strengths, AND acceptable reasons for those weaknesses.