<p>Looking at the "chances" threads in this forum and the statistics for average freshman classes at Rice, it's obvious that most applicants have high scores, GPAs, and ranks.
If my weighted GPA was low freshman and sophomore year (low to mid A average, with a few B's in some classes), but my junior and senior (so far) GPA's were a lot higher (99 junior year, 100+ senior year), will Rice take my trend into consideration?
Or do you think my weak numbers freshman and sophomore year will hurt me in a major way?
I'm hoping Rice takes into account an applicant's personality and extra-curriculars, giving more weight to those than to statistics and numbers. Is this true?</p>
<p>Yes. Rice tends to do a pretty good job of looking at the entire applicant. I can't verify this, but one of my friends just told me that the university president had told her that Rice admissions actually has a policy of reserving 10-15% of its spots for applicants that don't really have the grades or SAT scores of most students, but something in their application (and not an EC equivalent to curing cancer, but an essay that really speaks to them) just stands out to the adcoms.</p>
<p>I had basically the GPA situation that you describe, and I was admitted.</p>