<p>I know there isn't a set number of "B"s that would make or break your application, but for schools such as HYPM, Duke, JHU, WashU, etc, how many "B"s do you think would be acceptable (considering solid SAT scores, ECs, and everything else)? </p>
<p>At my school, getting about 7 "B"s by the time applications are sent in means a 3.85 UW GPA.</p>
<ol>
<li>Even a single B will ensure that these schools reject you immediately.</li>
</ol>
<p>[depends on course rigor and rank, lol. Many colleges have explicitly stated that there is no minimum GPA requirement, too]</p>
<p>Yeah, rank is most important if it's available. Being #1 with Bs is better than being #30 with straight As. It goes to show the difficulty of your classes and puts the academic performance of an applicant in context.</p>
<p>Rank is important, but 7 B's does seem to be a lot.... I assuming that's at least 7/32 and not 7/16 courses.</p>
<p>Every single one of them.</p>
<p>What if I have 4 B's, and 48 A's?</p>
<p>^You will fail.</p>
<p>Miserably.</p>
<p>depends on where you apply...several Bs can't hurt you much</p>
<p>public universities look more at your GPA than rank, but they are a lot more forgiving than tough privates</p>
<p>you can get in to HPYS with a 3.0. In fact, their acceptance rates for 3.5-3.75 is a pretty sizeable fraction of their acceptance rate for 3.75-4, like 50%. And that increase may be simply because of the GPA, or because students applying in the 4 range tend to do more other EC stuff. Honestly there is no GPA that can't make it work (within reason). Think of the guns and butter princible. If you put all your energy into volunteering and you do amazing stuff, and not much can go into school, then in my mind your as good as a 4.0 who does these phoney little volunteer fancies.</p>
<p>NIck017, 3.0 = 3.5-3.75?!?! Awesome!</p>
<p>^hahaha</p>
<p>yeah with straight B-'s you'll definitely get in to HYPS...yeah</p>
<p>@OP: you're fine. a little low but nothing to worry about.</p>
<p>I can give 2 anecdotal evidence for 3.0 and quite a few for 3.5-3.7. (Not URM or development either.) It goes back to the fact that the transcript is 1 out of 10 things that they care about, and no school wants all valedictorians. A percentage of the great, amazing ECers who have actually gone to Sudan to help out get into HPYS, and a percentage of the Vals who have their 1 toy drive a year to raise awareness and care get in. So, it depends on the quality of the other things that the OP does. If you look at statistics, 97% of HPYS students were in the top tenth, but if you look at the applicant pool, close to 97% are in the top tenth. And 20% of valedictorians get in. Meaning smaller percentages, but percentages none the less, are getting in from every gpa range. There's underlying factors in all of the college statistics and it is impossible to stand out on the transcript or SATs. So while 4.0 students are more prone to stand out in the other areas, it is not because they are 4.0s.</p>
<p>This is sooo much an "it depends" question....many posters have already eluded to that fact.....from personal experience, from a competitive grade deflated HS, my D received acceptances to multiple top 20 schools with a decent amount of B's on her transcript, with a top 7% class rank....on the other hand though, she did not receive (nor did her statistical peers) acceptances from any of the top 3 publics....</p>
<p>It all depends. What school are you coming from? What school are you aiming towards? What classes do you have B's in? How strong are your scores and extracurriculars?</p>
<p>@meadow36 and glassesarechic:</p>
<p>I don't actually have 7 "B"s. I chose that as a hypothetical number because, at my school, 7 "B"s yield a GPA of 3.85 UW, which seems to be sort of an "average" for many top schools.</p>
<p>Here's a more specific question: How would a total of 5 "B"s out of 45 grades look? (My junior year schedule is pretty difficult, so this is sort of a wort-case scenario.)</p>