<p>hypothetically speaking, what if you had a low GPA but a perfect or near perfect SAT. What are your chances at top university?</p>
<p>poor. Like everyone who applies. </p>
<p>Will you be an anomoly? Sure. Maybe a college willing to take a risk? Maybe. But low GPA is a millstone</p>
<p>Define top university. I don’t think someone with a perfect score and a low GPA will get into Ivy Leagues, Stanford, MIT etc, just because a ton of people with high scores apply but also have high GPAs. Like T26E4 said, maybe some top colleges will be content with taking a risk if you do well in other aspects of your application, like essays, recommendations, and ECs.</p>
<p>I suppose that would depend on how low the GPA was. The Director of Admissions for the University of Delaware wrote about his experience turning down two perfect SAT scorers due to poor academic performance. But he was talking about of GPAs considerably under 3.0. YMMV of course. But like T25E4 says, everyone’s a long shot for admission to elite schools. Low GPA simply makes the poor odds even worse.</p>
<p>A perfect score on standardized testing tells admissions that they have one extremely bright kid applying. A low gpa tells the adcom that the kid doesn’t apply him/herself, attends one heck of a HARD HS, and/or has other issues (family, personal, whatever). If the latter two, the applicant still has a shot at a top school. If the former, no-shot.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure a 2400 isn’t considered much above, say a 2380. It’ll be impressive, but in the “oh, that’s cool” way, not in the “damn we’d better admit this kid immediately” way. So no, I’d say you wouldn’t even be competitive with the other high-GPA high-SAT applicants.</p>
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<p>DE - Do you have more info on these two cases? I’ve yet to see any 2400 kids with lower than 3.2 GPA.</p>
<p>Two threads: </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/377882-how-do-top-scorers-tests-fail-gain-admission-top-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/377882-how-do-top-scorers-tests-fail-gain-admission-top-schools.html</a> </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/413821-sat-score-frequencies-freshman-class-sizes.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/413821-sat-score-frequencies-freshman-class-sizes.html</a></p>
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The high 2300s essentially serve as equivalents to the 2400 IMO. There is essentially no difference in aptitude and intelligence between someone with 780-790 on each section and someone with 800 on each section. </p>
<p>With that said, I’m glad you haven’t expressed the reigning attitude on this board that anything above a 2100-2200 is essentially as valuable as a perfect score. Believe it or not, many people will try to express this notion and before someone tries to do so on this thread, I would like to make the point that the scores are indeed not even close in equivalence and admissions chances.</p>
<p>And answering the main question of this thread - No, grades are the most important part of the application. A perfect score will never compensate for low grades.</p>
<p>^^^PaperChaserPop - I couldn’t find the article. And I didn’t bookmark it either. It was in Louis Hirsch’s remarks concerning his twenty(?) years in admissions at the University of Delaware.</p>
<p>This topic has been done many times here. A link to a relevant current thread:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/767118-under-3-6-gpa-applying-top-20-parents-thread.htmlhttp://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/767118-under-3-6-gpa-applying-top-20-parents-thread.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/767118-under-3-6-gpa-applying-top-20-parents-thread.htmlhttp://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/767118-under-3-6-gpa-applying-top-20-parents-thread.html</a></p>
<p>^Hmom5, your link doesn’t work!</p>
<p>Maybe this is an unpopular opinion on CC, but if you was an admissions officer I would see a low GPA and a perfect SAT and think, “Wow, this kid must be rich to afford all that SAT prep.”</p>
<p>^ Even the best SAT prep will only slightly budge scores. You can’t buy a 2400. Low GPA and high SAT indicate are pretty lucid in indicating either a lack of work ethic or a rigorous HS.</p>
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<p>I agree with monstor344. You can’t buy a 2400. In general, the limited increase due to private prep work is of no use to the T20s. However, these prep’d kids with increased SAT scores may be displacing kids who can’t afford the prep in the sub T20 schools.</p>
<p>Yes. There are always exceptions. There are students that had 300+ points increase after prep work. Some of them even landed in the 2300+ range! But fortunately for the rest of us mortals, they are few and far in between.</p>
<p>Let’s try that again:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/767118-under-3-6-gpa-applying-top-20-parents-thread.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/767118-under-3-6-gpa-applying-top-20-parents-thread.html</a></p>
<p>I agree even the best test prep will never get a kid who just doesn’t have the goods a prefect score or anywhere near it. And the irony is that the kid who is brilliant but slacked in school is not the kid likely to study heavily for a test.</p>
<p>i know a girl who had a 2400 but was suspended from her school for stealing money…
so yea…you could guess what happened…rejected from all her schools.</p>
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<p>Yup, a neighbor kid was one of those. 1560 on the old test, cold, and got out of HS without ever cracking a book. Not one honors/AP course and just cruised thru life with low B’s.</p>
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<p>This is true. But there also comes a point where the score really is “good enough” when you factor in the time investment and effort to bring it up another 100 points or so. You’ll never find me arguing that your 2200 puts you on equal footing with a 2400 but I’m definitely going to recommend that you don’t spend the next 3 months in intensive study hoping to bring your score up by 150 points just because you think that will make or break your application. If you spent those 3 months on, say, your essay, you’d be helping your application much more and have far less stress. A 2200 really is “good enough” when you look at it that way.</p>
<p>But what you say is true and it does irk me a little bit when people imply that a 2100 gives someone equal chances as the other kid’s perfect score. I mean that’s just giving false hope.</p>
<p>EDIT: Spelling</p>