I’m currently a junior in high school, so far my accumulative GPA is a 2.6 or 2.7. So far this school year For every quarter besides the second I had a 3.2 for 1st & 3rd quarter and second quarter I received a 2.9 and now I’m in the 4th quarter and so far my end of the GPA is looking like I’m going to have between a 3.4-3.7. I wish to attend any Ivy League school (mainly Yale & Columbia) however I do not feel as though I’m going to have the GPA to get in. As far as my extracurriculars go I am the Captain of the Debate team, I started and am president of the Gay Straight Alliance at my school, and I’m was in photography club until it ended and with photography I helped publish a book so I am also a published author and curator. I recently took the SAT 2 weeks ago and won’t get my scores until middle of June. I also take the ACT June 11th. So what I want to know is what do I need to help boost my chances for acceptance into an Ivy League school. Thank You.
@RaymondR. With that GPA, your chances are slim to none, especially if you need any sort of financial aid. Yale’s acceptance rate last year was 6.3%, and the vast majority of applicants had higher GPAs (e.g. 3.5 or above). You should be looking at less selective schools.
I want to stress the above point: you have virtually no chance at getting into Yale or Columbia. I hate to be harsh but you need to be realistic. Even if you scored perfectly on your tests, your ECs are weak for highly selective schools and your GPA is extremely low. I guarantee you that you could count the number of students accepted to Yale and Columbia with below a 3.0 with two hands. You should start searching for less selective schools and be realistic with yourself. Best of luck.
You’re mis-informed about the competition of schools like Yale and Columbia. Please talk to your favorite teacher or advisor or guidance counselor who can recommend a viable list of target colleges.
I’m a volunteer interviewer/recruiter for Yale. When I give presentations, I tell students/families this: “IF you happen to be one of the top five scholars in your school at this moment, where the principal and faculty all know you and you’re likely one of the strongest students in recent history, then you might be a viable candidate for schools with such low admit rates as Yale”
plz. 0 chance.
Several years ago, a poster asked about the standards and rigor required for ivy league admissions. In response, I posted my daughter’s transcript and noted that even with an unweighted 97.8 average she was REJECTED at Yale and WAITLISTED at Princeton (accepted to Harvard). That’s the kind of competition you will have applying to any ivy league school. With your GPA, your application will be overshadowed by students with a much better GPA: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1619966-ivy-standards-for-rigor-of-highschool-curriculum-p1.html
@RoundGenius wait hold on - I get how the gpa is weak, but ECs? This guy published a book and was the president/founder of numerous clubs. What would strong ECs for selective schools be?
A book of photography, sounds like…not super hard. We don’t know if it’s any good. Anybody can publish anything – ask the girl from my HS who can barely string a sentence together and yet is a “published author.”
And did they do anything with the clubs? Do the clubs have any members? Are the clubs active enough that they’ll continue after OP graduates, or will they wither away into obscurity because all they were was resume padding in the first place?
Not all ECs are created equal. Too many variables that we just don’t know.
So with these ECs, what kind of college (prestige/acceptance rate) would they best match assuming their stats were higher?
Selective colleges, especially those at the top of the food chain such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, UPenn and Cornell, are first and foremost academic institutions. They are NOT extracurricular camps. As such, Admissions is seeking the best-of-the-best classroom scholars who have it all – a tippy-top GPA, stellar test scores, wonderful EC’s, thought provoking essays, raves from their teachers and a great interview report.
Although this article is from ten years ago, the college application process has become much more competitive: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2006/05/keys-to-the-kingdom/
No matter how wonderful a student’s EC’s, if they don’t have a competitive GPA (meaning 3.8+ unweighted), and teacher recommendations that rave that the student is one of the best scholars to come down the pike in years, that student will most likely be ranked at an ivy league school as having LESS than a 1 in academics – which usually torpedoes an application.
Stop worrying about Ivy League schools. There are hundreds of great colleges out there. Many of which would welcome you. Most of which you will probably be happier going to. So, if this is a serious post and you really are thinking about Ivy League schools I’m guessing you have not spent much time on a college campus and you don’t know much about college. Now is a good time to learn about all the wonderful colleges out there. Good luck.
@ultraviolet56 @bodangles
Bodangles outlines my thought process pretty well. Anyone can get published, and contributing some photos to a book of photography isn’t too difficult. Also, most high school clubs don’t do a lot besides weekly meetings, some fundraisers, and a field trip. However, there are a few that take lots of effort and commitment. Really depends. At my school, being president of GSA is very easy. It’s just a title for whoever has been in the club the longest and is the most outgoing. So I maintain my opinion that these aren’t impressive ECs, at least for schools like Columbia. However, they might be viewed better at other less selective schools, which I would advise the OP looking into.
Hello, I was just reading this post and had one question. Does this mean that you have to be ranked 1-5 in your class to be considered for Yale admission? Also, could you tell me what role class rank plays in the Yale admissions process? Thank you!
Despite negative feedback from other people, I would encourage you to never give up! If there is a specific reason for poor academic performance, I would definitely talk about that on your application. Make sure to have your guidance counselor talk about this and your upward trends also. Apparently, upward trends in grades are HUGE. If you could also do something cool with your extracurriculars (like start a community service project, I know Yale is BIG on community service), this might increase your chances for admission. Although the odds may look slim, to be honest, everyone’s chances for Yale are slim. I know it’s easy to not see past the transcript, but recommendations, extracurriculars, and test scores are highly valued-otherwise they would not be an important part of the application. I would also encourage you to apply to the University of Chicago. It is a highly selective school, but I spoke with the Dean of Admissions this past spring, and he said that every applicant is brought to committee (meaning there are no “rounds”), and he really talked a lot about upward grade trends being important. I’ll be applying to Yale for the class of 2021, so maybe we’ll end up being classmates! Good luck! 
No, but according to Yale’s Common Data Set, 96% of Yale admits were in the top 10% of their high school’s graduating class: http://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/cds2014_2015_0.pdf.
Unless the OP’s high school has enormous grade deflation, the top 10% of a student’s graduating class usually means a minimum unweighted GPA of 3.75. At most US high school’s, the top 10% of a graduating class generally has an unweighted 3.9+ GPA. (http://blog.prepscholar.com/whats-an-unweighted-gpa-how-to-calculate-it)
I agree, however unless there is an underlying reason for low academic performance (undiagnosed ADHD, dyslexia, health issues that kept the student out of school), how is a teacher or guidance counselor supposed to address a lackluster transcript even with an upward trend?
@ILoveStanford
While perseverance is an admirable trait, the OP’s chances are virtually none and they should be realistic. Applications are expensive and require a significant time investment. While upward trends do look good, the GPA is VERY low. Sure everyone else’s are too, but most of the applicants have much better GPA, test scores, and ECs. And most of those applicants will be rejected. I appreciate your optimism, but at this point, realism is needed.
It is only other 17 year olds who will raise the OP’s hopes of being admitted to these elite schools.
The reason my accumulative GPA is a 2.7 is because during my freshman year I had an incident and was out of school for a long while with no work given to me to do and when I finally got back into school it was the beginning of the last quarter and some of my grades from my old school(which I wasn’t attending because I couldn’t) transferred over to my new school so I received low grades for that. However my accumulative GPA for my 10th grade was between a 3.4-3.6 I think and so far this year, my 11th grade year I’ve received a 3.2,2.9,3.2 and GPA for this final quarter should be around a 3.65-3.7. But my high school transcript will show amazing growth from 9th-11th. My 9th grade GPA all together was between a 1.4-1.6 because of that time I was out of school.
@RaymondR. While I commend your GPA improvement, you need to be more realistic. Your 11th grade GPA is still somewhat weak compared to most Ivy League applicants - many get rejected with 4.0s!
What are your SAT scores, or at least, what are you anticipating on the June SAT? Standardized tests are only one component, and likely not the most important one, but a low score will pretty much weed you out, no questions asked.
Lastly, why do you want to attend an Ivy League school? From your first post, it’s not at all clear why, and it honestly seems like you’re prestige-hunting.