<p>Bclintonk, I don’t think we disagree at all. I will concede that I should have added “except for the most coveted recruited athletes.” I certainly agree that, despite all the dithering and hair-splitting about standardized tests that you’ll see on College Confidential (and all the worry about a 3.95 UW vs. a 3.97 UW), grades and test scores are a kind of initial hurdle that must be cleared, and that once that hurdle has been cleared, rarely if ever does anyone look back to see whether Candidate A cleared it by a couple more millimeters than Candidate B did.</p>
<p>Chromakey, I have to echo Rain’s question: how low is low? Because now you may be introducing a new problem. A 36 or a 2400 coupled with low GPA/rank raises the question of whether the applicant may be a slacker. A perfect test score, a low GPA and remarkable extracurricular activities can mean one of two things: either an applicant spends an unusual amount of time on an extraordinary activity (which is fine if you’re an Olympic-caliber swimmer or you’re in a national tour of Wicked), or he spends too much time on activities and not enough time studying.</p>
<p>I think 36 and a 3.5 GPA is a non-starter unless a 3.5 makes you one of the top few students in your class. But a 3.6 and a 3.75 may make you a viable applicant. Class rank, despite what it may say in the common data sets, can be a problem: if you’re not clearly one of the top students in your class, your chances at universities of this caliber are virtually non-existent if you’re not a recruitable athlete or a celebrity.</p>