<p>as i've stated in previous posts, I had a pretty bad freshman year with a couple of Bs and even a B- in honors bio and a C in health (there was a problem but it never got corrected). anyway, i just got my transcript so im wondering if this trend will keep me in the range of lower ivies/otherh top schools im interested in</p>
<p>Freshman Year:
Geometry A
Health C
Hon Debate A-
Hon English I B+
Hon Bio B-
Gym A-
Programming B
Spanish 2 B
World History A-</p>
<p>GPA: 3.5547</p>
<p>Sophmore Year:
AP US Hist A
Algebra 2 A+
Hon Robotics A+
Health A+
Hon Excel A+
Hon English II A-
Hon Chem A-
Personal Finance A+
Gym A+
Spanish A</p>
<p>GPA: 4.3938</p>
<p>Junior Year (probably):
AP Physics B A-
Gym A+
Health A+
Hon Government B+
Entrepreneurship A
Vietnam A
Hon Contemp History A
Precalc A+
AP Euro B+
Hon English III B+
Spanish 4 A</p>
<p>GPA: ~4.2</p>
<p>Senior Year (guesses):
AP Art History A+
AP Statistics A
AP Calc AB A
AP Chem B+
AP English B+
Spanish 5 A-
Hon Intl Business A
Hon Economics A-</p>
<p>GPA: ~4.5</p>
<p>So thats something like what my final grades will be in high school. As of end of junior year, my GPA is only about 4.05 because of freshman year. will my other years make up for it? Schools im considering (for reaches) include georgetown, columbia, swarthmore, cornell, etc.</p>
<p>i dont remember exaclty what happened but we tried to get it fixed and then the teacher left the school and i never was able to. something with her loosing something i handed in</p>
<p>If you mean ivy and other top 10, too many Bs unless your school is VERY to (30% plus to ivies) and even then....For most top schools 20 and below it's fine.</p>
<p>many top schools dont even look at frosh grades, so youll be fine there and most colleges dont even weight freshmen year with any importance anyways. You may not get into Harvard or Yale, but your a good candidate for top 5-10 schools. </p>
<p>if your extremely good everywhere else you could even get into Harvard. Ive seen and known people with around 3.7/8 GPA who have gotten into HYP.</p>
<p>thats good to know jason. i know princeton and stanford dont count frosh grades, but with a 1420/2110 SAT and only average ECs, thats a pretty big reach for me it would seem. i hope the schools i listed about are as you described</p>
<p>Yea, don't worry about Suze, she has a very skewed view of college admissions. It's extremely clear from your transcript that the student you are now has nothing to do with the student that you were Freshman year. I doubt it will hurt too bad. The only way I could see it hurting you is with class rank. Good luck!</p>
<p>So let's all make a bet. I'll eat my hat if those stats get into a top 15 school. Check back on my predictions for this year's admits. The only people who think you get into a top school with all those Bs are people hoping to get into top schools with their own bs!! And now we threow in a 1420. Way below average for a top 10. Why are you people encouraging this? So he can not consider good matches and be one of the really unhappy poasters next year? Better to deal now.</p>
<p>I think u'll be fine. My gpa showed a distinctive downward curve throughout hs.. from A+'s frosh yr to A-'s, B+'s, and even a C+ in precalc honors junior year. However, I still got into rice, berkeley oos, ucla, tufts, and various other schools despite being a middle-class, asian girl from massachusetts. My advice to you is to compensate for your weaknesses and play up your strengths. For example, I made up for my crappy precalc grade by scoring 780 on sat math IIc, and I sent in a creative story I wrote to compensate for my bad sat I writing score. Also, remember, alot of college admissions is based on luck, not so much luck of the draw, but if ur lucky in say writing 10 very different essays but choosing the one that would most appeal to the adcom of ur dream school. So just apply to a range of colleges, and don't give up on ur top choice. If I'd had listened to my extremely asian parents, who had no faith in my abilities, I'd probably be at state school next year.</p>
<p>may i ask, what is your GPA and SAT? I have a feeling you have a high GPA and low SAT and this is why youre always saying that high GPA/low SAT is so much better than the reverse and youre always saying kids with highGPA/low SAT will not get into top schools. </p>
<p>and i didnt say he would get into HYPS, I just said ive seen and know people who have average test scores, average EC's, and a below-average GPA and have gotten into these schools.</p>
<p>first of all suze, you seem extremely pessimistic, even for CC. you do realizr that while 1420 isnt amazing, its in the middle 50% of every top school. so it surely isnt way below average or whatever you said. anyway, your opinion is welcome but from other comments im starting to think you arent completely corrent. thanks for the advice dvie! more comments welcome from all :)</p>
<p>also, im in top 10% and thats all i know. we dont rank</p>
<p>My stats are in the archieves.I am in the top 5% at argueably the toughest high school in the Country (we send 35% or so to ivies), I was accepted to Dartmouth, Yale, Princeton and every school I applied to. I see myself as a realist. I know who gets in from my school and who gets in from the really average public some of my sibs attend. I did an indp. study on elite college admission last term that involved research with many experts in the field and 2 ivy adcoms among others. As for the 50%, it is highly unlikely that an unhooked candidate with a 1420 will get into any ivy save maybe the bottom 2 if their other stats are stellar. Half of the class at any top school is recruited athletes, URMs, legacies, development candidates and prodigies. In gereral these groups bring the average down so the rest of the pool must compensate. There are a lot of 1200 jocks to average out! To the OP, anyone being honest who is knowledgeable would have to tell you that your stats are very unlikely to land you at most top 15 schools and that HYP, without a hook, are virtually impossible. I'm not saying to not try, but I'm saying love your matches. Read the article in recent archieves about how Middlebury adcoms stopped reading when they saw a C. Middlebury! With 401 posts, I'm surprised you haven't seen over and over that multiple Bs don't fly at top schools, even if they're from Andover, ST. Paul's, TJ or Stuy. there are very good schools you can get into but they are more in line with Vandy, Emory, Colby, Trinity. Beware the season of the newbie juniors for whom reality has not set in and the myth of the hollistic admissions approach lives on.</p>
<p>He's a person, not a bunch of "stats," suze, and as long as Andrassy sufficiently demonstrates that on his application and supplemental materials, he has a shot just like everyone else has a shot.</p>
<p>He also said nothing about Harvard, Yale, or Princeton: congratulations on being accepted to all the schools you applied to, but trust me you are not alone there, at all. I can understand why you would love to boil this college admissions process down into a bunch of statistical distributions and regressions or whatever the hell you might use, but to so many students out there it means whole helluva lot more, so, please, consider that before you tell someone they have no chance.</p>
<p>I''m confused lowofo. Are you trying to say that top colleges ignore Bs and below average SATs to focus on the person. If only this were truw and not a sad myth perpetuated by people yet to get churned by the process. Colleges want as many applications as they can get in order to be able to turn down as many as possible and see their ranking go up. They are, afterall, businesses. Schools like WAshU send multiple mailings to high schoolers that seem personal, telling them the school is so interested that they should immediately apply. HYP adcoms go to schools all over the country and preach their holistic approach. Yet, it's funny, but they seem to by strange coincidence get classes that look the same year after year. Same percentage of kids from publics and privates/ similar numbers of vals and sals/ same percentage of kids ranking in top 10%/ same or inching up average SATs/same percentage of blacks, hispanics, asisns, american indians.........it just goes on. It's a beautiful notion, looking at the whole person and not minding that little Billy was so busy with fabulous (but not nationally recognized ECs) that he let 4 or 5 Bs slip in. But I have found all the adcoms honest on one point--getting into a top school takes taking the hardest courses and getting the best grades in them. So I do answer honestly. I assume if the op had done something exceptional that would make a college take him with below average stats in all key areas, he would have mentioned it. Yes, I'm all wrong if he's on a genome team that just isolated a gene that is essential to saving lives. Otherwise, I'm looking at a candidate with 1 C, 10 Bs and a 1420. He is asking where he'll get in. I feel the need to be honest and believe people shouldn't post if they don't want honesty. College admission CAN be boiled down on the side of who does not get accepted. There are few shocks here for the knowledgeable. The shocks are the kids applying to these colleges with all As, a 1520 and strong ECs who don't get in.</p>
<p>I'm going to have to agree with suze here. I also go to a competitive private school (though not one of those elite New England boarding schools, mine is generally considered the best in Texas). We have this website that allows us to see people's stats and where they got in that I'm looking at right now. Pulling up Harvard I see a kid with a 4.4 and a 1600 get denied. I see a kid with a 4.5 and a 1550 get denied. Et cetera. For us, the average GPA/SAT admit rate for Harvard is 4.12/1534.</p>
<p>Frankly, I'm a bit sick of people thinking that those with mediocre stats can get in just with a great essay or something. People seem to be placing less importance on stats these days. It's true that great stats won't necessarily get you in, but not having them will definitely keep you out. For every "unhooked 3.5 and 1300 getting into Harvard" success story, there are hundreds of "4.0 and 1500 getting rejected" stories.</p>
<p>I only stated this because "statistically" I could be considered an inferior candidate compared to many other students in my school who had applied to the same, arguably "top" school. And, yet, why of all reasons was I selected, not them?</p>
<p>All I am saying is, yes, as you have stated in your post above, there are characteristics of candidates beyond their grades and standardized test scores, and I am keen to believe that you cannot make a conclusion without knowing those characteristics beforehand. To conclude that "you can't get in" based off of a summary of his grades and one SAT score trivializes the candidates' accomplishments and is frankly insulting to Andrassy. Look, I'm not trying to attack you personally, as we are all entitled to our views, but give Andrassy a chance, will you not?</p>
<p>A note on your "shocks": From my experience, these "shocks" are the rule, not the exception. If you want specifics, PM me.</p>
<p>Arti:</p>
<p>Why is that? If you have a 1600 and all As since the beginning of time and did not get into a top school, it is only logical for those considering to ask "How the hell did you screw up your essays/recs, et cetera that bad?" If no fault can be found in one part of the application, then the fault must lie in other parts. Similarly, if your grades and scores are not that spectacular, then you must focus on those "other parts" and make them as perfect as damn near possible.</p>
<p>In summary, yes, consider your statistics when choosing your reaches and your matches, you'd be an idiot not to. But given Andrassy's grades and the possibility that he will retake the SAT I and do better, there is no reason not to consider Cornell a reach (which is the only Ivy league school he mentioned).</p>
<p>That is exactly what I'm saying. You can have great stats but not get in, but you can't necessarily have poor stats and get in.</p>
<p>I know a senior this year, for example, who got into Yale EA but rejected (not even waitlisted) by Harvard RD. His stats were excellent and his essays/recs/ECs apparently were very good if he could get into Yale. But what makes you think someone like Andrassy with poorer stats could get in over him?</p>