<p>What should my UNWEIGHTED and WEIGHTED GPA be to get into an Ivy?</p>
<p>UW: As close to 4.0 as possible, should be a 4.0 ideally. W: varies with your school’s scale, but very high.</p>
<p>I’d say its irrelevant. From what I’ve seen, competitive students (obviously have good GPA’s), but it isn’t their GPA that get’s them into an Ivy league school. More emphasis on essays, extracurriculars, hooks, etc.</p>
<p>Get them as high as you possibly can. Basically, try your best every single semester, in every single class. Don’t slack off.</p>
<p>i personally think a good rule of thumbs is a minimum of a 3.75. this will put you in good standing. of course though the higher the better.</p>
<p>Many CCers on here will tell you that you need a 4.0 or you don’t have a chance, not true at all. i beat out all of the 4.0 kids last year in my class with my 3.8. Why? Because GPA is only one fraction of the big picture. </p>
<p>I think a 3.6 or lower is really pushing it and would put you in the reach category.</p>
<p>It’s about rank , not Gpa because a 3.9 at one school is a 3.7 at another. There are high schools that have one 4.0 per decade and schools where a 4.0 is barely top 20%.</p>
<p>At ivies most unhooked from a typical high school are top 2.</p>
<p>
At my school, a 4.0 is impossible. Nobody gets a 4.0, and we don’t even weigh grades.
Our valedictorian had a 98.something average. This is usually how it is every year. I have never heard of a 99 or 100 average at my school. To get a 100 average in even a single class is also extremely rare. </p>
<p>Therefore, GPA is usually something that has more to do with your school, and also, your rank.</p>
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<p>Saying it’s “irrelevant” is going too far. The transcript is the most important document in admissions, and your UW GPA shows what grades you got in our challenging classes. It’s very important. </p>
<p>After you have a solid GPA, you can start to worry about the other stuff. Frankly, most kids don’t have the extracurriculars/hooks/essays to balance out a weak or even a decent/good GPA. Most kids have average ECs/essays, so they need the high GPAs.</p>
<p>Like Redroses said, GPA is considered in context with rank. If you have a high GPA but a low rank, they’ll know your school has grade inflation. A lower GPA with a high rank shows you go to a competitive school.</p>
<p>You’re right. But most kids to don’t go Ivy league schools, especially (HYP) with just good grades alone, either. There was actually a kid at our school, ranked in the bottom half that got into Harvard somehow because during all four years he and his family was homeless yet he still managed to get perfect scores on both the SAT and ACT.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have believed him if it weren’t for the fact that he emailed me from his Harvard email o_O. I still don’t believe it even though he confirmed it. It’s ridiculous. I don’t even know how it’s possible to get a perfect score on the ACT AND SAT and be homeless. Its absurd really, he must have been a genius.</p>
<p>Here is something to consider about GPA and the percentages.</p>
<p>Total freshman enrollment of the ivy league is about 15,000
Total HS senior that are college bound is about 1,500,000
1% of college-bound seniors end up at an ivy.</p>
<p>How many HS students have perfect or near-perfect GPAs? This is a hard number to come by, but students self report their GPA on PSAT registration. Let’s suppose their reporting is fairly accurate. Students may estimate a little high, but GPA may also go up in the jr & sr year. For juniors taking the PSAT here are the stats
4.1% A+(97-100)
19.7% A(93-96)
20.2% A-(90-92)</p>
<p>What this means is that GPA alone is not a good indicator of admissions to an ivy. So how do the top schools distinguish between the when so many have great GPAs?</p>
<p>Looking again at the PSAT, here are the percentages for the individual sections
CR - 0.8% (75-80); 2.1% (70-74)
M - 1.6% (75-80); 2.2% (70-74)
W - 0.7% (75-80); 1.7% (70-74)</p>
<p>These percentages are much closer to the overall HS admission rate to an ivy. However, SAT scores are likely to be higher because, 1) students improve, and 2) students can take the SAT multiple times. This is not to say that SAT scores are more important that GPA, but taken together adcoms get a much better picture of an applicants academic ability. Still there are other portions of the application that are equally as important.</p>
<p>Here’s the PSAT link. Click on any state. The first column has numbers for all test takers.
[College-Bound</a> Juniors 2009 - PSAT/NMSQT](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/data-reports-research/psat/cb-jr-soph/juniors]College-Bound”>SAT Suite of Assessments – Reports | College Board)</p>
<p>
A 100 is not a 4.0. In most schools a score of 93 (or even 90) and above for a class is an A. All A’s (meaning all classes with averages above 93) will be a 4.0.</p>
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<p>Wait, seriously? I have been deeply misled for a very long time…wow.</p>
<p>Your homeless classmate beat the odds big time. That is exactly what top colleges want-odds beaters. People who will make things happen in the world. That’s why the 4.0/2350 kids are mostly rejected and those that do make it in have an EC that shows they make things happen.</p>
<p>There approximately 3,000 high schools in the US, so 3,000 Vals, 3,000 Sals, etc.; and of course, that ain’t counting the thousands of international high schools.</p>
<p>At Dartmouth alone, ~40% of matriculants are Vals. Add in the recruited athletes and other hooked candidates, and you can do the math for what an unhooked applicant would need.</p>
<p>Are you hooked?</p>
<p>There is no accurate answer because there is no required GPA. There are tens of thousands of 4.0s, 3.9s, 3.8s, etc. rejected every spring. just do the best you can and work on other parts of the app., as well.</p>
<p>Bluebayou - there are far more than 3,000 hs in the US. (60 per state? Yeah, maybe in RI or DE) More like 30,000.</p>
<p>I recently attending a session where college admission officers from MIT, Yale, and Brown were present. The three gentlemen said that when they review a student’s application, the three main things they look at are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Grades, Course Work and Rigor, and Rank**</li>
<li>SAT/ACT Scores</li>
<li>Recommendation</li>
</ol>
<p>**When they mentioned rank, one man explained how rank is all relative to the school you attend. That’s why recommendations are #3 so that they can get a feel for how teachers look at you and where you are placed when amongst your peers.</p>
<p>You don’t HAVE to have 4.0 GPA. Classes that compose your GPA are more important than the GPA itself. Having said that, 4.0 UW with the toughest course load at your school will maximize your chances at the Ivies.</p>