<p>I was wondering how much SAT Scores matter in Ivy and Top School Admissions (Duke, MIT, JHU, etc.) I know that you obviously need to have high SAT scores and GPA to get a spot in one of those colleges but how many people have gotten in with mediocre/ low SAT Scores in those colleges. By low I mean 1700-1900 range. You are obviously at a really big disadvantage if you are in that range but I know it's not impossible. So how many people have gotten in with those scores and it would be helpful if you post your statistics</p>
<p>Most of the people who get in with low SATs are either development cases (parents donate a ton), recruited athletes (and they might not even get in with scores that low) or people with super hooks. If you’re a regular applicant with those scores, you have a literal zero chance of being accepted.</p>
<p>Some LACs are test optional, some people think they are racist.</p>
<p>(That is to say, some people think the tests are racially biased, not that the LACs are racist)</p>
<p>There are definitely people (with no major hook) in the 1700-1900 range who get into too schools. You don’t have a 0% chance of getting in, contrary to what was stated above.</p>
<p>Last year, my girlfriend got accepted to UPenn CAS with a 28 ACT (~1850 SAT). She was just a normal applicant with a URM hook for being Hispanic, and that’s it. She was ranked 4/~50 and didn’t have any major awards or any real wow factors. Just be passionate about what you do and how you do it because it IS possible to get accepted to top schools with those scores. </p>
<p>By “regular applicant”, I meant no hook. Being a URM is a pretty significant hook. A regular applicant that actually has no hook does have a 0 percent chance with those scores.</p>
<p>One of the 2013 grads got accepted to Boston University, Northeastern, Fordham, Northwestern, Yale, Dartmouth, and Princeton with an 1840 SAT and 4.2 W GPA. She chose Princeton. I don’t know anything about the rest of her profile, but she had the URM hook of being Hispanic. </p>
<p>I know someone who got a 24 on the ACT and a 4.0 UW GPA and is going to Columbia. I don’t know about her Extra-curricular stuff and essays, but it just shows really anything is possible in these crazy admissions.</p>
<p>With some of the scores posted here, I wonder how much they are struggling to keep afloat. Ivys are tough and if your not keeping up then up end up miserable. Colleges use the ACT/SAT scores as a guide since that is the only tangible they can go by. Also, graduating from any college with a low GPA doesn’t do you any good when you’re looking for a job or applying to graduate school.</p>
<p>I think the correlation of high SATs and college success is rough at best. I think 700 in each section should be considered optimal, but that’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of people out there who would excel at Penn even if they didn’t do well on these tests.
We don’t talk about SAT scores in college, but I have heard of a 30 ACT and most likely low to mid 600s verbal SAT getting into Penn.</p>
<p>LOL, I heard nothing about SAT scores while at Penn, but tons and tons about valedictorians and salutatorians.</p>
<p>As for “racially biased”, I still believe that “culturally biased” is more accurate. I don’t think poor white folks are encouraged to read books in their spare time any more than poor black folks. My best friend got into Penn and was dirt poor, he read and read and read as a kid. His parents barely finished HS and he had no incentive to do well in school, he just did. Dean’s List at Penn. Close family members with all sorts of problems, only one cousin and no nieces or nephews in college or planning to go (out of at least 30 people, all white mind you). </p>
<p>Some kids do well on tests, some do well on their GPA. I was high SAT low GPA (not top 10% in HS) and got into Penn, and ended up with a B- average in a very difficult engineering program with some rather crazy electives like organic chemistry and literature. Even now that I’ve been out for a while, the Penn degree has helped me a lot. Big companies did not like a GPA under 3.0 though, and if my parents could have afforded it, I should have retaken a few courses to get a better grade. Once I went to graduate school, I stopped listing my Penn GPA but still listed the degree.</p>
<p>Even with a B- average, I was never in danger of failing out, I just expected better as I was in the B+ range when I started but those junior and senior (and graduate) level courses were killers.</p>
<p>There was my girl from my school that got into WHARTON with like a sub-2000 SAT and a ~30 ACT.</p>
<p>I think that she doesn’t deserve it, but for some reason, Penn takes a girl to Wharton from my school every couple years. The only real thing she has going for her is a high up (but only for the school) position in ROTC, and a bit in DECA. That being said, she isn’t the best at math, and probably shouldn’t be attending such a strong school as Wharton. And it’s not like she’s valedictorian or anything. I think she’s like 12th or something.</p>
<p>* Also, graduating from any college with a low GPA doesn’t do you any good when you’re looking for a job or applying to graduate school.*</p>
<p>I have to disagree with part of gtbguy1’s post.</p>
<p>I have been in technology and have been hiring for close to twenty years. My colleagues and I care about the name of the university. That will get you the interview. I have never asked nor have I met anyone who has hired someone based on their college gpa. There just isn’t any correlation between GPA and suitability to a job.</p>
<p>People who put their GPAs on their resume are unnecessarily inviting rejections. If you have a high GPA, it doesn’t prove you can work in the real world and if you have a low GPA, it only proves that you didn’t learn much. </p>
<p>Entry level jobs in large companies almost never post a minimum gpa for applying. The name of the school will get you in the door. Your interview skills, knowledge and personality will get you the job.</p>
<p>For grad school, however, I agree that it’s crucial.</p>
<p>^ @wherezwallace: This may be true in your experience, but this is not true for nearly all positions that Penn students will be aiming for out of college. I’ve never heard of anybody not putting their GPA on their resume, unless it is absurdly low, in which case you’ll be just as screwed because employers will assume you chose not to put it on there because it was too low.</p>
<p>GPA is extremely important in being competitive for on-campus recruiting for internships/full-time positions at Penn. It is the easiest factor to use in ranking students, and when an employer receives 400 resumes for 28 interview slots, the first thing that is done is to weed out anybody with a low GPA [with exceptions for referrals or special circumstances, of course, but you shouldn’t be aiming to be a “special circumstance”]. The students who get interviews for finance positions typically have 3.6-3.7+ minimum GPAs. 3.5+ is the minimum GPA to apply for most finance job postings, and some firms request 3.6+ with a few even requiring 3.7+ just to apply.</p>
<p>The Penn name on your resume means nothing for the majority of recruiting because the competition you face in applying and in the first-round interview process is solely other Penn students. The advantage is not the name on your resume, but the fact that many great firms recruit on campus at Penn. If you make it past that first round, then you are competing against students from other colleges, but at that stage, as you say, interview skills/knowledge/personality are what will win you the position.</p>
<p>Of course, in the long run having Penn on your resume will be beneficial and at some point in your career you will no longer be expected to list your GPA or asked for it. But for internship positions / your first full-time job, it’s absolutely one of the key factors in getting interviews. Personality and interview skills will matter most once you get the interview, but with a low GPA you’ll never get past the application stage to show off your skills.</p>
<p>We are both correct. The companies I have worked do not recruit on campus. If we did, I would agree that the GPA would be an important differentiator when you are meeting fifty kids from the same school. </p>
<p>At general job fairs, monster, dice, and other events that draw a diverse applicant pool, you would be surprised at how many students and recent college graduates have modest educations. In a large pool, students from top 25 universities stand out and we don’t care about the GPA. A 4.0 from a low ranked state school does not trump a 3.0 from Penn. </p>
<p>Penn has already vetted this candidate for us in some respects and those resumes rise to the top of the pile.</p>
<p>OK, I see what you’re saying then. I think for the typical Penn student, however, on-campus recruiting and hence the importance of GPA is more relevant for internships/jobs out of college. At least in Wharton, most students at least hope to get a job offer from a firm recruiting on campus, and GPA is then the main yardstick for getting interviews. And, for what it’s worth, in finance at least GPA still matters even after having a first job [i.e. going from 2 years in banking out of college -> PE or HF] because again it’s an easy way to differentiate people. And another interesting but kind of sad thing: many of these firms (both recruiting at Penn for junior internships/full-time, and for future opportunities) want your SAT scores as well as GPA! I personally think that’s pathetic but trust me it’s true for a number of firms, albeit it’s probably not the criteria they weight most highly.</p>
<p>wherzwallace, I’ve been working (30 yrs plus) for one of the three weapons national laboratories and I can GUARANTEE you GPA is everything when someone is coming out of school and for the first 5 years of their engineering career. Believe me I’ve recruited for a good 10 years of my career and in fact, its even getting tougher than it was years ago. Less than a GPA of a 3.5 doesn’t even get a look (in most cases).</p>
<p>My son, a Wharton grad, was asked for his transcripts prior to an offer from a private equity firm. This was his second job and after 3 years in a BB investment bank.</p>
<p>A classmate of mines sat’s (superscored) are 1850. His gpa is generously around a 3.4. He got his likely letter about a month ago. He is white but a recruited athlete.</p>