Difference between a 4.0 and 3.98 GPA

Gryffon5147
Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:52:17 +0000

So very, very much. There are thousands of applicants with perfect GPAs who are number one in their classes. Most people buy into this “I have a shot at a top college without perfect stats” myth that colleges perpetuate so that they can reap millions of dollars from applications fees for subpar applications that they would never consider in the first place. Do you really think a small admissions office really has the time or resources to carefully consider twenty thousand plus applications? Think about your own reading rate. Without a perfect GPA, top class rank (except in certain competitive schools), and scores above that admission year’s 80th percentile curve, (they determine that early on in the ED cycle) all you get is a red mark on the top of your folder that is left in a pile until some unpaid intern takes the time to drag it to the paper recycling area. Even if you somehow made the cut, they start picking the folders that match the “legacy list” and “recruited athlete list” who are given first consideration for admittance. In the end, that leaves a few hundred spots for the regular applicants who are vetted through a refined mathematical/statistical formula to meet racial, regional, and nationality quotas for a given year. They pick the rest, pat themselves on the back for a job well done, and subcontract the IT department to create a “we regret to inform you” website for the 20,000 or so anxious people who never stood a chance. And so a seventeen year old girl from New Jersey with a 3.98 GPA breaks into tears in front of her MacBook Pro at having her lifelong “dream school” dashed away, while her parents try to console her that it’s not her fault (while secretly hoping she’d go to state school to save money).

And that’s why a 3.98 GPA would be hopelessly unacceptable.

lol… jk