<p>Rokb322, I don't think you're going to find any random people who got into an ivy with low stats. You'll find people who overcame real hardship, those with amazing talent on a national level, children of million dollar givers and so on, but no real mysteries.</p>
<p>What do you define as low stats? Low stats mean: 500s range. Believe it or not, there are many acceptances with kids who have 600s SAT II scores!</p>
<p>Yeah, CC is not your average group of kids who get admitted to Ivies. Believe it or not, we're the cream of the crop!</p>
<p>i got into penn with an 1150, but i guess i had first generation, low income, and overcoming hardships going for me.</p>
<p>I'm no expert, but it all depends on your situation. If you are a URM benefitting from affirmative action, then with 600s scores and a <3.5 you may have a chance. Other than that, unless you are an unusual situation, you pretty much need all 700+ scores with probably >3.5 unweighted or >4.0 weighted. Also need strong EC's.</p>
<p>I'll give you an example of an unusual circumstance. This is a true story, not a lie/joke like suze's. My second cousin lives in Queens, NY. He is a Korean-American, whose family has been categorized by the gov't as low income. His parents both passed away, so he lived with his grandparents in a small 1 bedroom apartment. He went to a public school (obviously), and it is one of those city slum schools. He worked at a grocery store for minimum wage since he was 14 years old to help support his family. He also worked hard at his academics, but in his situation there is no way he could have done as well as us spoiled ppl (in comparison) at CC. His school didn't offer any AP courses. He self-studied and scored a 3 on the economics I believe. He also got a 1320 on the old SAT (700M 620V). His SATII scores were 690 Math IC, 650 biology, and 710 writing (back in the day). He let the colleges know about his situation. The teachers also mentioned his hard work and dedication to overcome his obstacles in their recomendations, and he wrote about his tough life in his essay. He was accepted into 2 reach level schools: Columbia and Carnegie Mellon. He attended Carnegie Mellon, and recently graduated. He is currently working to pay back his student loans.</p>
<p>So yes, certain ppl have these "unusual circumstances". All of us ppl here on CC should really get a life and realize that you can't judge a person based on a bunch of numbers only.</p>
<p>Would you mind telling us about your circumstances, mcjaammin?</p>
<p>i wrote my essay about living in a house of spousal abuse. umm...i'm filipino...i don't know if that helped me at all. and i'm really really poor!</p>
<p>I don't see how that would/should get you into college</p>
<p>I'm sure you were qualified</p>
<p>One of my firends got into Yale. He didnt super-good stats; I think its like a 4.3 GPA, 25%, and 1300 on the SAT. He got in because he was invloved in a LOT of other stuff; like starting his own newspaper at our school...etc, and his essay was amazing......</p>
<p>Realize, however, that they can take a very limited number of kids without a major hook that have below average stats or their ranking will go down, which schools will kill to not let happen. Take Dartmouth, a mid range ivy with average SATs at 1470. First there's a huge number of athletes, another 20% of every class are URMs, anpther 8% legacies, that's almost half the class. Everyone else needs well over a 1470 to balance those with hooks!</p>
<p>I think suze has it exactly right....and good that she came back to point out the joke. All these selective colleges and especially HYP are lotteries except for the very talented, exceptional students.</p>
<p>Living near Yale, I know of a few kids that got in with low score, (one was even homeless,lliving in a motel that they wrote about in their paper) but most have high scores,hooks, money, or know people there. I remember in the Gatekeeper book, about Wesleyan, the adcom was so happy when he got by the high scorers for the rankings, and could pick kids he really liked. He said something about needing scores over 1400 to help them keep those "precious rankings" and play the game, but he loved looking beyond the scores. I'm sure it is much more interesting doing that.</p>
<p>Well, I've got a band and can rip up the guitar like no other, and my family had virtually no money during freshman and sophomore years. It put a pretty big dent into my will to do anything when we didn't have enough for food some nights, but, hopefully I can integrate that into a damn good essay.</p>
<p>Forgive me, I'm not american, but where are these great schools located? (Andova, Deerfel, etc)</p>
<p>Andover, Deerfield, Groton = Massachusetts
Exeter, St. Pauls = New Hampshire
Choate, Hotchkiss = Connecticut</p>
<p>ok, thanks, so they're close to the ivies</p>
<p>Harvard-Westlake is the only decent prep school in the west (California)</p>
<p>Polytechnic is pretty good, too</p>
<p>iwantfood, the Harker school in California has an average SAT score (old) of 1410, and as I quote, "A College Board report that examined Advanced Placement scores at thousands of high schools found that the Harker School in San Jose did a better job preparing students for chemistry and computer science than any other school its size."
It also had the only sophomore in America who took nine AP exams and scored a 5 on all of them.
And it just had its first graduating class in 2002. Pretty impressive for a new school...too bad no one's heard of it...</p>
<p>SORRY I KNOW THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT IM ABOUT TO POST BUT IM NERVOUS AND ANXIOUS AND FEEL LIKE CRAP.... adn im scared so this is what i have to say</p>
<p>ok i dont know how to work this thing.. and i have a question along the lines of fake out. so
my gpa's:
freshmen:3.4
sophmore:3.3
junior:2.43 ( iknow its horrible)
what are my chances of any college like pennstate (college park)? umd (collge park or umbc) or any state college</p>
<p>my s.a.t scores are much better i got a 1450 the old version?!?! does that mean anything.. do i have a chance at any college?</p>
<p>i got to an above average school</p>