<p>I don’t think I’ve posted here yet, but I was accepted to Brown University ED with a 3.49 GPA.</p>
<p>I think there were a few reasons for me getting accepted. First of all, I had a legitimate excuse for my GPA being so low: I had a serious degenerative cornea disease in 9th and part of 10th grade which gave me horrible eyesight, which made it hard to do well in school. Eventually it got corrected by cornea transplants and my 11th grade GPA was like 3.80. I wrote my common app essay about this eyesight experience.</p>
<p>Also, I had really good standardized testing scores (2280SAT, 800/780/780 SAT2s, 5/5/5 on 3 APs), and above average ECs (2 sport varsity captain, piano player, some community service)</p>
<p>But regardless, 3.49 is VERY low on the spectrum of students admitted to Brown, so I consider myself lucky. I can now be proof that GPA is not the end-all-be-all of college admissions, and if you are able to distinguish yourself in other ways, colleges can be forgiving.</p>
<p>My son has a GPA of about 3.6 UW. His only grade below a B was a C+ his junior year in his first semester of AP Eng Language & Comp. He did the summer homework completely wrong and started out with an F! He could have dropped, but insisted on sticking it out and even got a 4 on the AP test. He goes to a very competitive HS and his rank is in the top 10-20%.
However, he’s done very well on his tests:
SAT1 800R/780M/710W (3rd sitting)
ACT 33
SAT2 800 Math2/ 780 Bio E
5 AP tests under his belt with all 4-5, so he’s earned AP Scholar with Distinction
EC’s are weak (a few clubs)
He just got rejected last week for Rice ED (ouch!).
On to the RD apps. Sent out 5 already, another 7 to go… a variety of stretch, match and safety. His winter break is all about essays.
Good luck, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!</p>
<p>Jackpot: Your SAT doesn’t add up (2280SAT, 800/780/780). From an earlier post, you said your math score was 700, so 800/700/780, right?</p>
<p>merryecho, congrats on D’s Santa Clara’s Leavey School of Business! It feels good to have one in the pocket, doesn’t it?</p>
<p>mantori, my son thought his UChicago interview was the worst of the three he had, but he got in. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t give him the warm feeling. His MIT interview, otoh, was a very good one and yet he was deferred.</p>
<p>I think you and oldfort are right about alum interviews not playing a big role in the decision process. Don’t worry about it. Like you said, the interviewer may have walked away thinking it was a good chat. </p>
<p>jackpot, congrats on hitting the Brown ED jackpot! We ought to make you our poster child for this thread :).</p>
<p>AD, sorry about the Rice news. Your son indeed has great test scores! You may want to consider leveraging his strength there and take one or two more subject tests in January if he believes he can do well. Hopefully the high subject test scores may offset his 3.6 GPA somewhat and give him a boost at more reaches.</p>
<p>I agree! Stanford doesn’t interview. I suppose that alumni interviews keep alumni feeling connected to the mother ship and reliving fun times–connectedness equals more donations perhaps.</p>
<p>I was actually talking about my SAT2s for the second set of numbers, although I just noticed I even reported those incorrectly. My SAT was 2280, CR: 800 / M: 700 / W: 780, and I had US History 800 / Physics 800 / Bio 780. I think really good subject tests can go a long way to make up for doing badly in a subject, like I think I only got a B in Biology because of my eyesight issues, but getting the 780 on the SAT2 might have convinced them that I actually did understand the material. I guess you run the risk of looking lazy to admissions officers though, the last thing you want them to think is you slacked off all year and then only decided to study when the SAT2 came around.</p>
<p>Jackpot: Bovertine pointed out my mistake in post #1666 and I appologized in #1667. Again, sorry for the misread. You have a very compelling story. I’m glad Brown recognized your potential.</p>
<p>PaperChaserPop: Thanks. We submitted the Math 2 and Bio E scores because they were his highest. His other SAT 2 scores were 740 Bio M, 700 US History and 680 World History (even though he got a 5 on the AP World History test, both taken in May/June of '08). Hey, The Paper Chase was a great movie!</p>
<p>AD, I’d suggest submitting the 740 Bio and may be even the 700 US History. There is definitely an emphasis shift toward the subject tests for some highly selective colleges. My son submitted all four of his subject test scores including a 700 on World History. </p>
<p>DS1 contacted his MIT interviewer and immediately received specific suggestions on app update. The #1 on the not-so-obvious list is definitely worth a try.</p>
<p>About those alumni interviewers… at least for the LACs, I don’t think it is a way to keep alumni connected. I did this for a top 10 LAC for one year. It is a lot of work, and there are never enough interviewers to go around. You are required to write a very detailed report after each interview and I felt the whole thing was quite a burden. I am not sure how they weight an alumni interview. I would seem possible to have a really crazy alumnus wreak havoc with the process. Perhaps it is a way to confirm other information in the application and also to market the school. My D has had several alumni interviews this fall and has really enjoyed them.</p>
<p>My son pulled a(nother) boner yesterday. After his Rice interview, the interviewer asked him if he could send a resume later the same day. No problem, my son said! The only problem is that my son didn’t have a resume a yet. GRRRR! This is so typical. So last night was yet another dash to get something done at the last minute. I helped him create an outline and fell asleep to the clickety-clackety-click of mad typing. I swear, I swear, I swear, if this kid gets into a top-20, I am going to fall off my chair.</p>
<p>Not that he should go to a top-20 necessarily. Of all the schools my son has applied to, or will apply to, the one that stands out most by far is Ole Miss, because of their Chinese Language Flagship Program and the Croft Institute for International Studies. The only question mark is their strength in scientific research, but I’ve told him not to worry about that too much, since as an undergraduate he might actually get more research opportunities at a lesser school with less competition for spots in the labs.</p>
<p>This is pre-visit, of course. Visits could change everything, certainly.</p>
<p>Next task: Finish Pitt Chancellor’s Scholarship essays and mail by end of tomorrow!</p>
<p>We resolved the resume problem early when S1 decided to upload it to the additional information part of the common app. I still have doubt whether he could have used that space for something else – even though I have no clue what that something else may be. But, I must admit, he has cut-and-pasted stuff out of that resume many times already.</p>
<p>I had a feeling that my son would not keep track of anything he had done in high school, so I’ve been keeping a log of his ECs, awards, etc. It came in very handy for slapping a resume together in record time. Fortunately he had already found a format he liked, so it all came together reasonably well in the end.</p>
<p>mantori, my son sounds just like you. He kept a 5 page list of almost every activities and awards. I had to work with him to trim it down to 2 pages. It was a painful exercise for him as he had grown quite fond of his list.</p>