<p>Why do ivies such as Columbia have no minimum GPA or SAT requirement for applicants, knowing that only a certain range of students realistically have a chance of getting accepted?</p>
<p>Some people may have a lower GPA but stellar EC’s and ivies look for much more then just scores. </p>
<p>These schools have not expressed a minimum GPA or SAT because there IS no minimum GPA/SAT to gain admittance to these schools. </p>
<p>If they were to express some minimums standards, and then ultimately accept a student below those minimums, they could be exposing themselves to all sorts of complaints that they violated their own guidelines.</p>
<p>That said, students applying to such schools do so at their own risk. Today, more than ever, there is a wealth of information available from many, many sources regarding the GPAs/scores of “typical” accepted students. If you are convinced that you can be competitive at one of these schools as an “atypical” applicant, then go for it, but you have only yourself to blame if you are denied admission.</p>
<p>Perhaps I’m being cynical, but colleges <em>want</em> to have lower acceptance rates, and can do so by easily rejecting completely unqualified applicants. It makes them look better. The schools with the lowest rates, e.g Harvard and Stanford, are right now considered the “best/hardest” schools to get into. </p>
<p>There have been a number of articles written suggesting that top tier schools try to lower admission rates by encouraging under-qualified students to apply. I would be happy to link some if you wish~</p>
European and Canadian schools frequency have minimal requirements. US schools generally do not. The number one reason is as above to have artificially low admit rates. But on the other hand, ivies want a diverse student body and have to fill all departments, all majors, all sports teams, with a diversified student body. etc. Sometimes someone is a world class dancer or Olympic athlete, but may not have the greatest SAT scores. Ivies do not want to deny that applicant.