Impossible to get in with a 3.5 unweighted gpa?

I have a 35 ACT, 780 sat II in math and a 730 in Spanish. I have a stellar essay and very strong supplements. I’ve taken the most rigorous classes across the board at a highly academic NYC prep school. Is this impossible? Would this be a waste of my ED?

Senior here with a 3.6 unweighted GPA and 1500 SAT asking the same question. My counselor says I am in the top bracket of rigor for my class, and I go to a very competitive college prep school in Philadelphia. My school doesn’t weigh GPA or report rank, but I’ve estimated my weighted GPA to be around 3.8/3.9.

If your school is highly rated by Brown, your 3.5 gpa would be looked at more favorably than a 3.5 from another school. Your school must have a good college guidance department and naviance, so I would do a little digging there, and take a look at the gpas accepted from your school to Brown.

spoke to my counselor…they say with a hook it would be possible but without one and b/c of the competition in NYC, it would be a tough sell.

Assuming we are talking about Brearley, Chapin, Collegiate, Dalton, Fieldston, Horace Mann, Nightingale, Riverdale, Spence, Sacred Heart, or Trinity, (and I’m not even 100% that I should put all of those together but I’m definitely not putting Birchwathen, Columbia Prep, Dwight, or York in there) not impossible but still definitely an uphill battle. If your senior spring GPA is going to move the needle you’ll obviously have a better chance in the RD round but I don’t think you’re “hurting” your chances if you get deferred ED.

so yes, it is one of those schools but I would love to know where your insight comes from to make that assessment. Our counselor didn’t think it was likely but at the same time she may be focused on certain kids getting in.

I went to one of those schools. I would agree it’s unlikely but you asked if it was impossible and it’s definitely not impossible for a 3.5 unhooked applicant from one of those schools to get into an ivy. And I don’t mean that in an “anything is possible” sense. I mean it in a “not likely, but wouldn’t be surprising” sense. I certainly wouldn’t call applying there a waste.

It’s not impossible, just extremely unlikely. I wouldn’t put my hopes and dreams in an ivy league anyway. Virtually all of the major flagship schools have surpassed them anyway.

Well, that is kind of a ridiculous statement. It is true that there are many schools where you can get a great education that are not Ivies. And that you should be focusing more on strength in your specific major than anything else. And that the Ivies are really just a sports league. But they are also fairly strong schools academically, and I don’t think a blanket statement that major flagships (eg, UVA, Berkeley, Michigan) have “surpassed them” is actually true. Throwing out cavalier misinformation isn’t very helpful to people asking questions.

Someone obviously got deferred or rejected early

@iwannabe_Brown nah they’re just some parent that has been making comments like that on every thread. though people who are deferred have all the right to be bitter; Brown deferred 2,318. They literally accepted more than they rejected. Lol can you guess I was deferred.

Well they reject very few ED because they only reject the blatantly unacceptable applicants and the pool of acceptable applicants is a lot larger than the pool of accepted applicants.