<p>I have a pretty low unweighted GPA, 3.2, but I guess my SAT’s are pretty good, 2260. Should I even bother to apply? Would strong EC’s/ hooks even help at all?</p>
<p>(a screwed senior, sadly)</p>
<p>Always bother to apply. (As people will tell you day in and day out) Ivy admissions are a crapshoot. Obviously be realistic about your chances. Given that the high schools transcript is one of the most highly regarded parts of the application, your GPA will hurt your chances. But it never hurts to apply to a reach school. That’s what they’re there for! Just make sure you have plenty of matches and safeties on your list that you would be equally happy attending. Good luck!</p>
<p>(a fellow screwed senior, sadly)</p>
<p>There’s apply to a reach school and then there’s self-delusion, IMHO.</p>
<p>I’ll be blunt with you: take the app fee and take your parents out for a great meal. They deserve it. No one at Brown has that HS GPA without either 1) having a 2 handed slam dunk and male, 2) a one handed dunk and female, 3) starts as a FB or Lax or soccer player or 4) has a relative that has donated tens of millions.</p>
<p>I think collegeluva is giving you contradictory advice. If you take his advice to be “realistic about your chances,” you won’t “always bother to apply.” You’ll actually listen to T26E4’s advice instead.</p>
<p>I’m sure you were hoping for a different answer. Sorry.</p>
<p>I think you should give it a shot if the fee won’t be a problem. After all the Ivy Leagues are a reach for all of us. Your “chances” may be lower if you don’t have any hooks or extra curricular activities backing you up. You can always try though.</p>
<p>Did something terrible happen in your life to explain those grades? Does your school have a grading system where a 3.2 is a solid GPA? In any case, I would ask your guidance counselor because he or she knows the most about where people from your school matriculate.</p>
<p>If the 4.0 kids (or those darned close) with great scores and solid, meaningful activities are getting creamed by the immense competition with other 4.0 kids with great scores and solid meaningful activities, what makes people have this attitude that there is some way lightning is going to strike?</p>
<p>My estimation is that maybe half of the Ivy applications don’t make it past first round. Of the kids who do get past first round, the vast majority will not get an admit.</p>
<p>If you can afford the fee, go for it. You’ll never know unless you try. Do other students from your school get accepted to Brown? What are their stats?</p>
<p>Even a kid with a 2.5 GPA has a chance. In fact everyone has a chance. Is the chance slim? Yes but it is still a chance. You’d think though kids with 5+ Extra Curriculars, 4.0s, Perfect SATs/ACTs and a national award would get into Harvard automatically. I don’t think it works that way though. If the whole class had 4.0s and perfect kids Harvard would not be interesting. You need to stand out. The reason why most kids especially on CC get rejected from these schools, is that a lot of them think perfect scores and a bunch of extra curriculars are going to get them in, when in reality you need an interesting life story, a hook or a few passions that you excel in to really get in. What I am trying to say is you don’t have to be perfect and have the perfect stats to get in, because half of the time a lot of schools will choose kids with a 3.5 or a 3.7 that has dedicated their lives to a few activities than opposed to a kid with a 4.0 who joins 20 clubs and gets 5 awards.</p>
<p>It is highly unlikely. But what is this hook you speak of? Is it a true hook or just something interesting/nice to have? </p>
<p>You might search for threads: colleges for low gpa, high sat; colleges for B students</p>
<p>Those are both long and informative threads, maybe they are in the Parent’s forum</p>
<p>I guess its not really a hook, but its an EC im passionate about, I’m a video game designer and computer animator so thats whats been taking all my school time unfortunately. I have no idea if that’s what Ivy League’s are looking for, or if it’s any special.
But thanks for the helpful information.</p>
<p>A hook is something like an interesting life story that makes you different. Like living in another country, being a minority (Lol this should not play a role at all but sometimes it does…), coming from poverty, having a disability that held you back. That is a hook. A hook is something that makes you different than most of the applicant pool. A legacy can also be considered a hook.</p>
<p>EDIT: That is more of an EC. It is an interesting EC so I think you should put that on there. I think if you love it then you should put it on there. I don’t see any other game designers applying to Brown! I am going to use my HTML Skills, Java Skills as a EC as well. Of course I have more but I’d rather not go through the list because you never know if Adcoms check the forums.</p>
<p>Oh. Well I guess being minority isn’t that great of a hook. Unfortunately I’ve never gotten abducted by aliens so I’ve haven’t had a real interesting life story, haha. But thanks anyways for clarifying what a hook is.</p>
<p>EDIT: Oh, nice, hahahaha true.</p>
<p>This level of college needs to know you can successfully manage the academics, take full advantage. The lookback at the hs record can be an issue. I don’t see Brown publishing average gpa of freshmen, but some sources say it’s higher than 3.8. And that includes plenty with rigorous, packed schedules and records of achievement. </p>
<p>Grover: Living in another country is not a hook, nor is an interesting life story. And, they have plenty of game designers applying to Brown.</p>
<p>“Grover: Living in another country is not a hook, nor is an interesting life story. And, they have plenty of game designers applying to Brown.”</p>
<p>I beg to differ, I remember someone saying what helped get them into Yale was living in Belgium and being able to talk about it. A hook isn’t a definition, it is whatever makes you different from the other applicants. Do you have a statistic showing me plenty of Game Designers are applying to Brown? Probably not.</p>
<p>EDIT: <a href=“Freshmen at Yale Give Advice to Prospective Applicants - YouTube”>Freshmen at Yale Give Advice to Prospective Applicants - YouTube;
<p>Watch how the guy on the right talks about living in another country. Stop saying its not a hook, a hook is different for everyone even Yalies.</p>
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<p>“Someone” may have said that, but let’s be quite clear: “someone” actually has no idea what is was that prompted the admissions committee in New Haven to favor him with the thick envelope. He may have a hypothesis, but he has no idea why they actually selected him.</p>
<p>
By that definition, being a grifter, a stripper or a cannibal could be a hook. But none of them should be grounds for admission to a selective university or college.</p>
<p>If a hook is going to be worth anything to the applicant, it has to be worth something to the college. For this reason, the hooks that matter are ones that meet an institutional need or want of a college or university. Colleges need linebackers and they need weathy donors, so being a recruited athlete or coming from a family that can (and would) make an eight-digit donation is a real hook. Many colleges want racial, ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, so coming from an underrepresented minority group or a disadvantaged background would be a hook at those colleges. A lot of colleges also want to enroll celebrities, so if you’re a movie star or the child of a prominent politician, you’re hooked.</p>
<p>But I don’t for one instant believe that having lived abroad confers anything like that kind of a leg up in admissions–especially not at highly selective institutions.</p>
<p>C’mon. That is a video of 3 freshmen sharing what they wrote about and some tips. It is peer to peer advice. Living in another country is not a hook. Nor is an interesting essay about that. Hooks are generally URM, legacy, athlete; sometimes a long record of fat donations or being from an under-represented state. The kid who lived in Belgium made his experience interesting and relevant. None described gpa or stats, just approach.</p>
<p>You have yet to apply to college, grover. Miles to go. Invest in the actual tips and advice printed by the colleges- Yales has some great guidelines. Look for it.</p>
<p>And now back to regularly scheduled programming?</p>
<p>I was under the impression that these days the ivies were also seeking geographical diversity, unusual zip codes & rural background etc.</p>
<p>No kidding! Based on…well, nothing in particular, to be honest…I was under the impression that that was less true now than a generation ago.</p>
<p>Sikorsky, during a campus tour at Penn about three years ago, an admissions officer told me that in addition to ethnic and racial diversity these factors were of interest too.</p>