<p>Hi I was curious to know what most Ivys deem to be on-par GPAs for admission. If someone could tell me the unweighted and weighted averages, preferably on the 100-point scale, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!</p>
<p>From what I am aware of, generally, a 4.3-4.7 range is more than enough to pass the “GPA” requirement, an unfitting but applicable namesake.</p>
<p>That’s for weighted though; I’m unsure about unweighted. I would assume between 3.7-4.0.</p>
<p>Emoy, I’ll start by saying that I don’t know the answer to your question.</p>
<p>But I’m not sure that it’s very helpful to know this information. The average GPA of successful applicants to the Ivies is about the same as the average GPA of the top–I don’t know, 2/3 or 3/4?–of unsuccessful Ivy applicants.</p>
<p>Grades and test scores are a hurdle to clear. You have to have high enough grades and high enough test scores to make you competitive with other applicants. But after that, it’s essays, recommendations, extracurricular involvement, etc., that make you stand out from the huge crowd of applicants with equally good academic credentials.</p>
<p>I had a 4.5 weighted and a 3.95 unweighted</p>
<p>This number will not be meaningful as an average across all accepted students, because the lower end of the range of GPAs are most likely disproportionately occupied by “hooked” applicants, such as recruited athletes, URMs, legacies, etc.</p>
<p>I really think it’s only in extremely rare instances that the “lower end” of admitted students’ GPAs is actually at all low–hookedness notwithstanding. I certainly know impressive legacies who did not get in.</p>
<p>Think of Harvard’s situation. With 35,000 applicants, you don’t have to compromise your standards much at all to create a class of 1600 with any traits the College and the Admissions Office may want to select for.</p>
<p>By “low” I mean something like an unweighted 3.7.</p>
<p>The small-picture view of the situation is that most people who get into Harvard have really, really high GPAs.</p>
<p>The bigger-picture view is that lots of people get rejected from Ivies with 4.0s and lots get in with 3.8s (just for example), because there’s a lot more to your application than your GPA. If you can create a compelling argument for why they should accept you and you have a strong GPA, even if it’s not a 4.0, you have a better chance for admission than if you have perfect grades but fail to stand out otherwise.</p>
<p>The biggest-picture view is that it doesn’t matter. Get the best grades you can; there’s no reason not to do your best, regardless of where you’d like to go. Once you get to the application season, apply to the Ivies if you want, regardless of how high or low your GPA is. You shouldn’t let your GPA define where you apply, anyway. If you’re a strong all-around applicant, you have as good a shot of getting in as anyone.</p>
<p>The Harvard sports recruit from my school has a 3.4</p>
<p>You can’t go by your own gpa, really. The colleges all recalc gpa so it is on a 4.0 scale and they give their own “weight” depending on your curriculum and the overall strength of the high school you attended.</p>
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This demonstrates my point that it doesn’t help to look at the average GPA of admits.</p>
<p>average accepted GPA of Ivy applicants ~ average rejected GPA of Ivy applicants</p>
<p>example: Brown rejects ~80% of Valedictorians and 85% of Salutatorians</p>
<p>Actually, the average GPA of accepted applicants may be lower than the GPA of rejected applicants–it may be that athletes with lower GPAs only apply if they are actively recruited.</p>
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<p>Not all. Some do, and some don’t. About a year ago, for example, I heard the Dean at Dartmouth say they choose not to spend their effort that way. They take the GPA that schools report, however they report it, and use it as one element of their holistic review of applicants’ credentials. They don’t think they’d get any more precise a picture of an applicant by recalculating than they do by simply looking at his or her GPA and school profile.</p>
<p>80-90% of ivy admittees were ranked in the top 10% of their class according to US News from what I recall. I think this is the only info that is published. My guess is that the average may be two B’s, or at least the median is that, which isn’t affected by the statistical tail of hooked applicants. Weighted GPA doesn’t mean a lot because schools calculate it differently, but probably admittees take the hardest curriculum available or pretty close to that.</p>
<p>Ok thanks everyone!</p>
<p>I got into two Ivys with a 4.0 UW GPA.</p>
<p>I’d suggest you google each schools “Common Data Set” which includes a table with the GPAs of the accepted students (it’s either accepted or matricualted)</p>
<p>“This number will not be meaningful as an average across all accepted students, because the lower end of the range of GPAs are most likely disproportionately occupied by “hooked” applicants, such as recruited athletes, URMs, legacies, etc.”</p>
<p>My URM D has a gpa of 4.4 W /3.9 UW.</p>
<p>gpa, IMHO, is not the issue, but rather rank. If a kid is able to pull a 3.8 UW gpa from a school where no one gets a 4.0 UW, then that is very good. On the other hand, a 4.0 from a school that churns out 4.0s is practically worthless. Another question is how highly ranked the high school is. Is it a feeder school for the college you want to attend? If so, you have a much better shot if your gpa falls within the range of other kids from your school who have gone on to be accepted to and attend this college.</p>