Chances, do great awards make up for weak grades?

Colleges & Universities Yale University
1

<p>Hello,
I’m a sophomore in Illinois. (a fairly competitive school). How am I doing if I want to get in to Stanford or similar schools? I love computers and business. I know my first semester GPA is horrendous, but I’m definitely on an upward trend. Hopefully my extracurriculars will make up for the lower grades. </p>

<p>GPA sem 1 = 3.9
GPA sem 2 = 4.25
GPA sem 3 = 4.25
GPA sem 4 = 4.35
Between 10th and 5th percentile class rank, probably about 7th.
By graduation, I will have taken 7 or 8 AP classes.
ACT: 30 composite, but that was last year and I know I can easily do better.</p>

<p>Founder & President of Stock Market Club
V.P. of Business Professionals of America club
JV Tennis 2 years, won’t play on varsity or play my junior and senior years.
Student Council Member
First in regionals and top 5 in state for web design competitions, two years in a row.
4th in state for an entrepreneurship contest
Adobe certified associate in web design and rich media (photoshop).
Will have interned at dayawaycareers.com for 4 years during summers
National qualifier in web applications contest
I have built two android apps, both available on Google Play. I plan on making more.
I have made multiple computer games.
Next year I will participate in a startup incubator sponsored by my school in which I will found a company.</p>

<p>I know my grades are on the weak side. Do I still have a chance? Also, I tend to focus on my own projects (that I truly enjoy) instead of school work. Should I drop some extracurriculars and study more? Other thoughts?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>MIT has some great advice in this blog, which can also apply to Yale or to any selective college: [Applying</a> Sideways | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways]Applying”>Applying Sideways | MIT Admissions)</p>

3

<p>Are these GPAs weighted? Or out of 5?
Because I don’t understand how they’re horrendous</p>

4

<p>Yeah they’re out of 5. (4 is regular, 4.5 is honors, 5 is AP). 4.15 is the 10th percentile at my school. And I mean the 3.9 is horrendous because the schools I’m going for expect top notch.</p>

5

<p><a href=“https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:mykMBbtquQIJ:admissions.yale.edu/node/2040/attachment+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjXr-Jqk8GIh14UrKT_fAQmS_ubh94vSNFt3RdsURBSjeqttQPb_zCqPsE3pXJFE3V1ij-DrLViA88txeHl5NrTNlPsfA7DD4apxfNtCDpcUGI-znUcnzUInTCex6GueninctHy&sig=AHIEtbSHFHwKbI8w25tOVUQk48ER41nUkg[/url]”>https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:mykMBbtquQIJ:admissions.yale.edu/node/2040/attachment+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjXr-Jqk8GIh14UrKT_fAQmS_ubh94vSNFt3RdsURBSjeqttQPb_zCqPsE3pXJFE3V1ij-DrLViA88txeHl5NrTNlPsfA7DD4apxfNtCDpcUGI-znUcnzUInTCex6GueninctHy&sig=AHIEtbSHFHwKbI8w25tOVUQk48ER41nUkg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>According to the above Google Doc of Yale statistics for the class of 2016, 95 percent of admits were in the top 10% of their class. So, based on just those numbers, statistically you’re fine. However, as the MIT blog points out, there isn’t any one thing you can do to be admitted – it’s a combination of little things adding up to a fat envelope.</p>

6

<p>You may wish to show your non-weighted GPA. Weighted GPAs are calcualted differently in many schools so there is no basis for comparison. Unweighted gives a lot more information.</p>

7

<p>Unweighted is about 3.8. Thats in all honors/AP except for one or two regular classes.</p>

8

<p>^
Well, that sounds good to me.
So long as you’ve had really challenging courseloads, you should be fine on that note.</p>