<p>My perspective is from a CA resident applying to the circus that is UC admissions. If you look at the scatterplots for Berkeley and UCLA you can count on one or two hands the number of kids (out of hundreds) who were admitted with a GPA of under 3.6, and most of those had a weighted GPA well above 4.0. However the SAT scores show a more broad distribution, so at least in the UC system GPA (and class rank) trump SAT scores. I think the same pattern holds true for others ‘top’ colleges, but it is difficult to see given that most kids are rejected regardless of their GPA/scores. The data on the web site (mychances/parchment) I mentioned is consistent with official statistics published by UC, so I have no reason to doubt that most of the information is valid. I’m glad we looked at these scatterplots before the application season, it gave us a realistic understanding of what we should consider a “safety, match and reach”.</p>