<p>...without being a recruited athlete! Because with me, everything looks great, except my GPA which is a gut-wrenching 3.59 UW as a junior. My weighted is 4.53 though, so how would that play in? I am also an international student.</p>
<p>thanks for the help!</p>
<p>It really annoys me when threads like this go up. "What is the lowest.... at [Insert Ivy/MIT/Stanford/Duke]". </p>
<p>As any college will tell you, it's a HOLISTIC admissions process. They will not toss you out for a 3.59 GPA. Stanford, being a relatively athletic oriented school, I'm sure let's people in with GPA's in the mid 2's if they're good enough in a sport. Princeton let in football players in the 1800's SAT, which is about 400 points away from their median. </p>
<p>That being said, as an international without any major hooks (i.e. not a recruited athlete), the 3.59 will probably hurt your chances somewhat significantly. PLus you really didn't say much about any other of your stats (SAT"s? EC's?).</p>
<p>From Stanford website</p>
<p>
[quote]
How important is high school rank and GPA?
We will look at your choice of coursework and your performance in 10th and 11th grades in the core academic subjects of Math, English, Social Studies, Science, and Foreign Language. We want to see that you have challenged yourself by taking some of the accelerated, honors, Advanced Placement, or International Baccalaureate courses, if they are offered at your school. </p>
<p>We also take into consideration differences in school environments. Through experience and research, we know that a lower GPA at one school may be stronger than the highest GPA at another school. We look to see how you have done within your unique school environment, how you have taken advantage of what was available to you in your school and community. Typically our admitted students have unweighted GPAs in the range of 3.6-4.0 and are within the top 10% of their high school classes, for those schools that rank.</p>
<p>Please see the Profile of our most recently admitted freshman class, but remember that statistics cannot possibly predict your chances of admission. Our admission process goes beyond any numerical formula. Keep in mind that we have no cut-offs or targets.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My favorite story is a guy on my school's hockey team wanted to play at Harvard and they said if he got a 1200 on his SATs, he'd be in. He got an 1180...</p>
<p>I know students admitted last year to 7 of the 8 Ivies and to Stanford, all different students from elite boarding schools, who were non-legacies and non-athletes, with GPAs below 3.0. All were outstanding candidates worthy of being admitted to these schools based upon a holistic admissions review process.</p>
<p>Okay iccy9ff8, how?
I can see it if you are a Gold Medalist to be, Barack's daughter or Warren Buffet's or Bill Gate's kid. Otherwise, I don't believe you. Maybe an up from the streets URM.</p>
<p>It's true. Although each case is different, these were unweighted GPAs from some of the most academically demanding schools in the country. There are two ways to somewhat verify my above post. One is to speak with admissions officers from those schools, and the other is to check the websites of the top 15-20 prep schools in the U.S. You will be surprised at the detailed info. at least two of the schools post, including name, GPA, SAT/ACT scores, colleges accepted to, and where matriculated. And neither of these two top 20 schools involves any of the students about whom I posted earlier. I am not going to share these websites publicly as I need them for ongoing projects and don't want these schools removing the info. from these public sites. I strongly encourage you to communicate with admissions folks from these universities; if they speak openly with you, you'll get your eyes opened. Good Luck! P.S. If that isn't good enough for you, then I won't be able to help you. The info. is out there and , currently, publicly available.</p>
<p>Another source that may be available to you to verify my claims in an above post, would be college guidance counselors at the academically most elite 20 or so prep schools. I am often surprised on this website by the seeming majority of posters who think elite Ivy type schools admit almost solely on GPA and SAT/ACT scores. If this were the case, then there would be little need for admissions personnel; a simple computer program could do the task. And the elite schools would probably be very boring places at which to spend four years.</p>
<p>Whenever I look at what I can improve on (in terms of being prepared for cutthroat college admissions that is), I think with this mindset: "What GPA/SAT/Essay/Whatever is going to make an admission officer choose ME over the other 7 people that won't get admitted to Stanford?" Achieving that will give you the best shot. :)</p>
<p>lowest gpa ever is probably like a 3.0 or even below like 50 yearsa ago or something.....</p>
<p>I know for sure that recruited athletes do not get into Stanford with under a 3.0. when my son was beign recruited there, they called ALL OF THE TIME to remind him to get straight A's, and he had a 3.8 at the time with SAT scores well within their accepted range. Several years ago, there was a kid who got in with a 3.2 that I know of who was a recruited athlete.</p>
<p>I read that Charles Schwab (yes, that one) was recruited to play golf for Stanford. He was a "D" student. He was a smart guy apparently but had dyslexia. </p>
<p>The amusing part is that the dyslexia was diagnosed <em>after</em> he got into Stanford.</p>
<p>Of course, that was 50 years ago. I'm sure the standards have risen somewhat since then.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm sure let's people in with GPA's in the mid 2's if they're good enough in a sport.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This would be a huge rarity for Stanford. I know about a very talented state champion in some field events who was heavily recruited by a wide swath of schools. He was known to be a decent student and had a 3.5+ GPA and the coach said he really wanted him but that his GPA called for him looking elsewhere. He received several full rides elsewhere. There was an article about how the recent admissions director doesn't accomodate the athletic dept. all that much now.</p>