<p>While you had a death in the family, most of these top colleges have 90% of people at the top 10% of their class, including athletes, legacies, VIPs, etc… So I would look that number up for these colleges. My guess is that the death explanation won’t help too much. Your GPA is pretty low. Too low for at least Berkeley, Cornell, JHU, Wellesley, and I think Carleton. I don’t know much about the others.</p>