<p>Which one is more important to Harvard admissions? GPA or SAT?
I heard Stanford prefers SAT over GPA.</p>
<p>For all schools, GPA is much more important than SAT.</p>
<p>I would hope no college "prefers" the SAT over GPA. GPA shows how hard you've worked over the years, SAT is a one-shot deal. However, if your SATs are really low, that could indicate that you're just a good grade-getter but haven't really mastered the material. Or it can mean your school doesn't have classes that cover required curriculum. That's why they can be a breaker for people with equally high grades. If you have a low grades in middling classes (not honors courses), it means you're not a competative candidate. Period.</p>
<p>Harvard looks at both, but having a low GPA will kill you faster than a low SAT score.</p>
<p>Harvard has said anything above a 600 on the individual sections of the SAT is satisfactory.</p>
<p>But a transcript laden with B's might be very difficult to recover from.</p>
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Harvard has said anything above a 600 on the individual sections of the SAT is satisfactory.
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<p>Absolute and complete rubbish. For the average applicant who comes from a suburban middle class family, has no legacies, and possesses no dynamite extracurricular, 750+ is the bare minimum that one has to accrue on each section.</p>
<p>No, I disagree about your transcript laden with B's tcomment saxfreq, I don't think Harvard will penalize you if you don't have a 4.0 unweighted GPA but you are taking the hardest curriculum your school offers(like 7-8 AP classes through junior year).</p>
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I don't think Harvard will penalize you if you don't have a 4.0 unweighted GPA
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<p>You've heard wrong.</p>
<p>You're all wrong. Forget about Harvard if you have lower than a 4.3, and lower than a 1450 on your SAT. (old SAT) In fact, forget about any Ivy League for that matter, or UVA or UCLA, or Berkley or Michigan, or any of those. But its true that getting a low GPA will kill u faster than getting a low SAT</p>
<p>wait, actually, lower than a 4.5, and lower than a 1500, and you are completely doomed. </p>
<p>And any garbage about taking "hardest classes or whatever"? forget it, everybody who applies has that stuff. You aren't competing against average people, so above average claims won't work here. you have to have like above above above average stuff here</p>
<p>xerxesAiM: </p>
<p>If your goal was to present yourself as an arrogant idiot 17 year old with no knowledge of colleges, you certainly succeeded.</p>
<p>At no point did I say that having straight Bs in good courses or getting below a 1500 on the old SAT would doom a candidate.</p>
<p>Rather, I objected to the assertion that this is all "fine" and wouldn't be held against a candidate. I was arguing against the mistaken belief that it's perfectly okay, nothing to worry about.</p>
<p>Based on the types of candidates applying to Harvard, this is simply unrealistc. </p>
<p>Straight Bs in any course will hurt big time. </p>
<p>So will sub-1500 old SAT scores.</p>
<p>Certainly, many students have been accepted with both those attributes, but they are the exception and typically had something very big going for them.</p>
<p>harvardalum, you are completely wrong about the SAT scores! haha wow 750+ is absolutely NOT the bare minimum for the typical applicant</p>
<p>Correct. </p>
<p>Since 1500 is, roughly, the SAT midpoint for Harvard admits, this means that half had a higher score and half had a lower score.</p>
<p>That being said, the admit rate is definitely higher for people with higher SAT scores.</p>
<p>Harvard gets it all, high SAT and GPA. The half of the class that is below 1500, is, by and large, athletes, URMs, legacies and development candidates.</p>
<p>What would be the bare minimum/acceptable for the ACTs? 33/34/35?</p>
<p>Don't think of it in terms of "bare minimums." Remember, a story has been posted about a girl admitted with an SAT 1,180 score. </p>
<p>But there is no question that your odds of admission rise as your SAT (or ACT) score rises.</p>
<p>Well, I had no outstanding extracurriculars, no legacy status, family hadn't donated money, not URM, upper-middle class, and I had a sub-750 SAT section. Still managed to get in somehow.</p>
<p>Byerly: Yes, I know that 1495 is the approximate mean, but this supports my last point. The admits with less than 1500 had something very good working in their favor, whether it be a legacy, their being a "URM", coming from a disadvantaged background, doing outstanding high school, research, etc. </p>
<p>For that one girl who was accepted with an 1180 under highly unique circumstances, there were about 4 1570-scoring students admitted, making the mean fall right inside the published range. </p>
<p>I'm fairly certain that the median of the scores is higher than 1495. </p>
<p>Just don't believe that straight Bs and a 610 on each section of the SAT won't count against one's application to Harvard or any other prestigious college.</p>
<p>DUH, HA'98 on your last sentence. . . as for the rest: no.</p>
<p>Suze: you said that sub-1500s are "by and large" minorities, athletes, and wealthy "development" people. . . but that is completely incorrect. You need to change your "by and large" to "partly."</p>
<p>Come on, people, stop scaring the wits out of poor class of 2010 kids who probably think they can't possibly get in now. Harvard is not some ridiculous place that only accepts 1500+ kids, or rich or athletic or minority sub-1500 kids. The SAT is not that big a determining factor. The difference between a 1400 and a 1500 is two or three practice tests.</p>
<p>Granted, Harvard accepts great applicants, but the formula is not that simple.</p>
<p>GPA systems vary from school to school. How does Harvard know? At my school, for example, the highest feasible GPA can be 4.5 (weighted). My school has a bizarre system (4.0=100, 3.9=99, 3.8=98, etc., although it does get more complex as you go down). Other schools, however, may have a system in which a 4.0 is any A. Is Harvard, or any college for that matter, informed in some way of the school's system?</p>
<p>Harvard Alum 98'- why don't you spend some time figuring out where the apostrophe in your year of graduation goes before telling people that its rubbish for them to apply unless they have a 750?</p>
<p>they look for the transcript first.</p>
<p>it's an academic institution, after all.</p>