Hi, I have some questions about GPA and the SAT.
I’m wondering whether or not an excellent SAT can completely make up for a GPA that is not excellent in top college admissions. Will top colleges look past a less that amazing GPA if you have a 1550+ SAT?
Also, I heard colleges don’t pay as much attention to an applicants actual GPA as they do their ranking at their school. How does this work at very competitive schools?
I really appreciate you taking the time to read this question. I will appreciate any answers to these general questions.
No, at the top schools, they are looking for everything.
It depends. Let’s say you were a great student in 9th grade. In the fall of sophomore year, you take a horrible hit in football practice, sustain a serious concussion, and the rest of your sophomore year, have mediocre grades, due to the long concussion recovery. Your 11th grade year is good again. You take the SAT or ACT at the end of 11th grade, and it’s fantastic. Your GPA is worse than one would expect, your SAT score indicates you should have done better. But there was a good reason for your lower GPA - the concussion, from which you’ve recovered.
But let’s say your grades are mediocre most of the time. You’re really smart, and you do very well on the SAT, because at the last minute you decided to aggressively prep for it, and as I said, you’re really smart. Now that combination conveys that you’ve been a lazy student - but it’s still much better than a mediocre GPA AND a low SAT score.
Colleges do look at class rank/percentile, in addition to GPA. At the very competitive schools, with “holistic” admissions, they’re looking at everything. The fact is that some schools have grade inflation, some schools give you an A for just showing up and handing in homework (because very few people there do that bare minimum), some schools have a close relationship with top colleges’ admissions offices. Some state schools seem to just plug in the absolute, unweighted GPA and SAT, without considering class rank/percentile.
You can only do your best in your classes and on the SAT/ACT, plus try to excel in extracurriculars and get good letters and write a great essay.
No, the most selective colleges generally want all aspects of the application to be outstanding.
Texas public universities yes. But not generally. Many highly selective colleges consider both GPA and rank.
Thank you for all of the replies.
They are two separate items and they both count. No matter how good one is, the other won’t go away/become less meaningful.
Many high schools have stopped ranking, so it’s not as relevant anymore.
Just grabbing the CDS for the Ivies, for question 10C: “Percent of total first-time, first-year (freshmen) students who submitted high school class rank:”
Brown: 24%
Cornell: 22%
Dartmouth: 49%
Harvard: 33%
Penn: 28%
Princeton: N/A
Yale: 28%
(Columbia - “No CDS. we’re special”)
It’s hard to consider what you don’t have.