Horrible GPA -- Chances + question

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
1

<p>Yeah... my GPA is terrible so that'll prob make things difficult T_T Still, what are my chances of getting in? I'll try to keep this brief</p>

<p>Asian male (fml)
East Coast
Income bracket: 250k+
School: Very competitive, full of genius Asian kids, grade deflation galore, sends over a dozen kids to the Ivies every year, Vandy accepted 10/17 applicants from my HS last year
Rank: School doesn't report
GPA: 3.33 UW
3.8 W
Upward trend
SAT: 1540/2290
SAT II: 800 MATH II 790 CHEM
AP: 5s on chem, bio, calc ab, music theory, english lang&comp
Senior sched: AP Econ, AP stat, AP calc bc, AP english lit, rest are electives
ECs:
-Piano 9 years: Played in Carnegie Hall and other well-known halls multiple times, played frequently for local senior centers, did a bunch of recitals per year, tutored some local kids, got some awards (dunno how prestigious)
-Violin 7 years: School orchestra since 4th grade, played in outside ensemble which performed several times a year since 8th grade, also tutored local kids
-Academic league varsity team member
-Breakdancing: Did a bunch of shows for the school
-Scholastic Art and Writing competition Silver Key award
-Helped organize a couple of festivals for local Chinese community
-Volunteering as a teacher's assistant in Chinese school
-Volunteering in an environmental center (sampling/identifying organisms and crap)
-Internship in Credit Suisse (proprietary trading)
-Internship in Rutgers University 2 summers
Essays: Probably the strongest part of my app. I'm pretty damn proud of my common app essay, which is about breakdancing and is written with a unique style. </p>

<p>Now here's my question: Will it be a problem if I didn't really show "interest" in Vandy? I missed the interview deadline back in January, and I didn't send in any extra essays regarding my interest in the school. However, I did update the admissions office about my Scholastic award, but that's pretty much it. The reason I'm kinda worried about this is because out of the 10 kids that were accepted last year, only 3 attended. I looked on my school's Naviance graphs and 3 years ago, 6 people were accepted but only 1 person attended. The year after that, only 1 person was accepted. Am I just being paranoid or would this be a problem?</p>

2

<p>Middle 50% SAT (CR + M): 1470 – 1590
Middle 50% ACT: 33 – 35
Overall admit rate (as of mailing day): 12.02%</p>

<p>Your Ecs are good, and SAT’s however your GPA and ethnicity will hurt you must dearly. My brother works in admissions and he says the kids admitted to vandy with less than 3.5unw are either URMs or Athletes. I would say long shot… 5% chance.</p>

<p>answer to your question: no. Vandy is now becoming more ‘numbers base’ after taking away the Why VU essay? It is showin they are less holistic than they were say 5 years ago. It would only have a very small weight in your app if any.</p>

3

<p>Does your school use Naviance or a like program that can show you what GPAs are still viable for Vandy from there?</p>

4

<p>Yeah I checked Naviance and there were like 5 kids (I’m 99% sure they didn’t have hooks because my school district has maybe 2-3 URMs at most in every grade, rarely gets any athletes recruited, and is rich as hell) who got accepted with <3.4 GPAs in the past but getting in is probably a LOT more competitive now so I’m worried :(</p>

<p>Also, I looked at the RD thread from last year and I remember seeing a bunch of people with 3.4 GPAs getting in. The common data set reports that 15% of last year’s class have GPAs within 3.25-3.5. It seems to me that Vandy really emphasizes SATs and other test scores over GPA. Is there some truth to this?</p>

5

<p>That may be true, but with the volume/quality of of applications they’re receiving now, you should assume they emphasize everything. That being said, because your school is very competitive, your 3.3 looks better than a typical 3.3</p>

<p>Best of luck!</p>