“@CaliDad2020 I am talking about gpa of 3.5 - 3.7 w/ SAT of 1570
This is an an applicant that has very strong teacher recs, highest course rigor offered, leadership roles, research grant, some national awards, and the student took extra classes in addition to what was required each term. For such a student, is ivy/ivy equivalent realistic? Also, had 4.0 gpa all of 11th grade, but 9th and 10th grade not as strong. Is their a highly selective university that would admit a student w/ an unweighted gpa of 3.6? You may ask, why the less than stellar gpa? … intense commitment to extracurriculars took its toll. It is actually stated on college confidential in past thread that Princeton does not count 9th grade year grades, I wonder if this is true?”
@oak2maple As I’m sure you know, no one on this site, no matter how experienced they are, can tell you if X higly competitve school will take Y talented student. There is simply no way to know until the comittee reads. I’ve talked with too many GC’s with years of experience and who know the competition from inside their school who will still tell you they can’t predict which school will admit which “near perfect” applicant these days.
The reality is If a student has a 3.6 UW GPA without some very strong (ie. recruited and “walked in” athletic ability) or other amazing EC, they face longer odds, even with strong board scores. But obviously some kids with those numbers get into “Top” schools every year, just not nearly as many as kids with 3.8+/1500. For many schools at some point the SAT no longer matters. I don’t know the number for each school, but aside from engineering and some business programs as well as highly technical schools (CIT, MIT perhaps), once a student is over 750+/- (and sometimes less) in SAT catagories they are on to the next metric.
But things like upward trend, strong ECs, strong LORs, uniqueness of any kind can, of course, mitigate against a lower GPA to a certain extent, but does start the applicant further back in the pack. That’s just reality.
From what I have seen over the years, really strong applications with those stats tend to get into at least one “top” school, but they rarely have much luxury of choice. As the Harvard-Westlake acceptance chart or the 3.5-3.8 GPA 33-35 ACT thread on CC shows, it can be done, but it’s long odd and the rest of the application needs to be stellar.
That said, a kid with those stats will get into an amazing college situation, especially if they are more creative and open to other opportunities than “just” top 10/Ivies.
If anything my advice would be to make sure the applicant has some true safties they would be excited about attending, as with those stats they should get into some really great schools, I just have no idea which one it will be.