<p>hello everyone. I was just curious, which applicant has a better chance at getting into brown. It's possible that both of them probably won't get in but, out of curiousity, who has the better chance...
APPLICANT 1: UW 4.0 gpa and took the most challenging possible courseload at our high school. about 2200 SAT and near 800 SAT II's with few extracurriculars (some service, one or two clubs)
APPLICANT 2: maybe 3.7-3.8 UW who took as challenging of a courseload as #1, minus maybe one AP. Has over 2100 SAT and mid 700 SAT II's. Co-captain of varsity volleyball (played all 4 years), has leadership positions in clubs, some service....</p>
<p>basically are grades enough to get one into brown??</p>
<p>Well applicant 1 and 2 both are great students, but applicant 2 is more than just grades, they are just as involved outside of the classroom as they are inside the classroom. Remember with around 20,000 applicants, Brown has enough students with good grades and good test scores that they can focus on the other aspects of students i.e. EC's, personality, background, etc. and the place that you really illuminate these intangible aspects of your application are the essays and the interview. Also I feel that Brown looks for students who would take advantage of the Open Curriculum i.e. intellectually curious students who want to learn a wide variety of topics outside of their major.</p>
<p>My opinion as an accepted student this year is that you really need to write great essays (even the Why Brown essay needs to be genuine) and make sure to do the interview because it is these incomparable elements that will set you apart in a sea of applicants who are all great students. Also don't forget about your teacher recs!</p>
<p>Brown is fickle. They like personal qualities. Neither applicants show amazing, quirky personal attributes. That is why I say not very competitive.</p>
<p>Well I think to assess the chances of the two applicants the way 1MX proposes we would need to know more about their essays, recs, and interviews but I think given the criteria, and the question of the OP ("Are grades enough??"), the answer is no. Brown, like most top colleges, is looking for something special in its students that can't be defined quantitatively. This is especially why you find many students who are rejected from certain Ivies but accepted to others, ex: I have a friend who was accepted to Harvard but rejected at all the other Ivies she applied to, I have another friend that was accepted to Dartmouth but rejected from Columbia, and I've seen a lot of threads like this on CC post-April 1st (most notably a student posting on the Brown forum after April 1 complaining he was accepted to HYP but not Brown, which shows that each college is different and thus is looking for something different).</p>
<p>Applicant 2's GPA is on the low side... 3.7 isn't going to look too great, unless it's a super competitive high school. I'd say these 2 applicants really are about the same. One has better scores than the other and one has better EC's than the other. It sort of balances it all out. Neither would get in I'm guessing.</p>
<p>The best way to answer these kind of questions is to head on over to the Brown board and find the thread for Class of 2011 decisions. I'll give you a point of reference, though: </p>
<p>I was primarily a grades/test scores applicant. I had a 2290 SAT I, 2320 SAT II (three tests combined), 4 AP scores of 5, 6 additional AP classes, 14/770 rank, 3.82 unw GPA (might seem lowish, but obviously my rank was good, although I wasn't Val/Sal. Also, I had an upward grade trend). I had okay extras, with a couple small leadership positions, but that's all they were--okay. I'm a good writer, I had a good interview, and my recs should have been positive as well. </p>
<p>Decision?</p>
<p>I was waitlisted by Brown, and probably relatively lucky to be so. My extras were truly average or below average for Ivies, and I had no hook factors--no legacy, no minority status, nothing "special" (besides my own personal awesomeness :)). Brown wasn't my first choice school (not sure that I would have chosen to go there over Wellesley, anyway), but I put plenty of effort into my app. So I would say that no, grades aren't enough to get into Brown--you need to be pretty competitive in all aspects of your app. Great grades and test scores might be the primary reason someone gets in (who knows, maybe had I had perfect academic stats I would have snuck in), but there pretty much always has to be something else going on, too.</p>