Hello, I’ve been looking around the Brown section in the website these past weeks. Recently a questioned popped into my mind and I would appreciate if somebody could answer it.
How important is the gpa when applying to Brown? Ik it is important but, lets say that someone applies with a not so good gpa (lets say between 3.4-3.6) but his/her ACT and SAT scores are almost perfect or perfect, his/her grades since freshman to senior drastically increased, he/she has a pretty good amount of service hours, the ECs show that the student likes trying new things but is also committed to those activities he/she loves, and finally, the essays are also amazing. If this were the case, would the low gpa have big or small negative effect on the chance of said student?
Edit: Lets also say the student has a valid reason for his/her low grades at the beginning of HS (for example: moved from a country that doesn’t speak English, or went through depression, or had a family incident, etc…)
Well, I would imagine that if this hypothetical student had every other area of their application really great and only a relatively low GPA, they would still be a very appealing student. Especially if there’s a good reason for the low grades that they somehow get across in the counselor’s letter or something. Admission officers at a place like Brown review applications holistically, so they’re not going to instantly give up on someone because their GPA is on the lower side.
GPA is of prime importance. Your grades are probably the most important part of your application. Yes there are students with 3.4 - 3.6 who get accepted. Some go to schools where those grades put them in the top 10%. Some (probably many) are recruited athletes. If there is something you offer that Brown REALLY wants – it will overlook a weakness. But for 99% of students, a weakness like low GPA usually means rejection.
There are students who apply to Brown who “moved from a country that doesn’t speak English, went through depression, or had a family incident” who have almost perfect GPAs. Given a choice between two students, one with an excuse but who scored great grades anyway, and one with the same excuse who got Cs and Bs – who do you think will get in?
Back in the day when the admissions rate was 30%, Brown took many risks on students like you describe. It rarely does that now.
Multiple admission officers mention that the first thing they read, the most important part of your application, by far, is your academic record: what classes you took, how hard they were, how you did in them, and whether or not they constitute a cohesive and challenging preparation for any course of study you might want to undertake at the demanding academic institution that is Brown.
Brown’s admission process is holistic. That is to say, you will not be immediately disqualified for consideration on the basis of a sole metric or piece of your application. That being said, the vast, vast majority of admitted students come from the top echelons of their graduating class. Where your GPA puts you in your class will make more of a difference than what your actual numerical GPA is.
By all means, apply to Brown if you’d like to, but know that you will face steep, steep competition if you are not in at least the top 20% of your class.
Two things about the GPA - First, if there is a strong increase in GPA moving through high school, that is good. You can calculate your own GPA for, say, the most recent 2 years of grades and discuss that GPA in an essay. Or, there is a place on the Common App to provide an extra explanation and you could mention something there about taking a couple of semesters to “settle in” to high school and then doing so much better and put your calculated GPA here.
Second, making the above explanation is important because otherwise, think of the message one could be sending, inadvertently, by submitting an application with test scores that are much better than the GPA - this suggests a person with great potential who just doesn’t work very hard! You don’t want to send that message and you can help your case by addressing the issue directly.
In general, whenever submitting an application for ANYTHING - your job is to make yourself look as “marketable” as possible and then addressing DIRECTLY any potential “red flags.”
92% of all entering freshmen for the 2016-2017 school year were ranked in the top 10% of their class (and I suspect at least a majority of those were in the top 5%), 99% in the top 25%. While this is limited to students whose schools report ranking, you can be pretty sure the AO’s look at transcripts closely and this is a good range for any student to judge themselves by. Students outside of the top 10% were more likely than not athletic recruits, development cases, celebrities or children of national or world leaders. So where does the 3.4-3.6 put the hypothetical student? If not in the top 10%, it will be a pretty dauntingly steep mountain to climb (its already a pretty steep mountain for the 4.0 student). Think about it, Brown routinely rejects applicants with 4.0 UW gpa; perfect to almost perfect test scores and a decent list of EC’s (on its face). What are the realistic chances that a student not in the top 10% is going to write such compelling essays, have such marvelous LoR’s and amazing EC’s that the student is going to jump ahead of candidates with a proven superior high school record?
Thank you very much, this really helped.
I have another question:
“Some go to schools where those grades put them in the top 10%”
Does this mean that student A (who goes to a high school where people simply don’t care about school making him/her end up in the top 10% with 3.4-3.6 gpa) will have way better chances than student B (who goes to a school with a lot of people who study really hard or are just smart, has a 3.4-3.6 gpa, and yet ends up in the top 25%)?
“Some go to schools where those grades put them in the top 10%” – You misinterpreted this. There are schools without grade inflation, where students care about school and work very hard, where the teachers truly believe that a C is average and an A is exceptional. A B+/A- student at a school like that (usually prep schools) would probably be an A+ student at the typical grade-inflated school, and admissions knows that.
If you go to a very competitive high school – like Stuyvesant or Thomas Jefferson – admissions understands the school culture and knows to look deeper in the class at students who don’t rank in the top decile. Nonetheless, the lower your GPA relative to the rest of your classmates will hurt you in admissions – unless you bring something to the table the school really really wants (every year you’ll see at least one top-ranked student complaining on CC that a lower-ranked student got in).
