<p>My personal opinion: top-tier schools (like Yale) have to SAY that they’ll evaluate your application holistically, but, since they do give weight to certain parts of the application (high school transcript, GPA, etc.) you CAN be rejected on-face for a less-than-impressive application. I don’t know the minimum threshold or anything, but I’m guessing that less than a 3.5 GPA with very few APs would probably lead to a brief glance at the rest of your app, and, if you were unhooked, then you’d just be tossed out.</p>
<p>Schools HAVE to keep their stats high (average GPA, average scores of incoming freshmen, etc) in order to attract people to apply in the next years. Accepting too many people with lower GPA/scores than previous classes endangers the average scores… so ultimately, I think if your HS transcript is bad, then you’re probably not going to be accepted.</p>