<p>I have an unwieghted (4.0 scale) GPA: 4.0
Weighted GPA: 4.41
Rank: 2/207
(Public High School)</p>
<p>Senior Year (8 total courses):
7 AP courses
1 Honors course (only because all 8 AP courses could not be organized to fit)</p>
<p>My SAT scores were not so good: Math(710), Reading(610), Writing(680).</p>
<p>It seems to me that SAT scores play a larger part in college decisions they they are portrayed to. Is this true? Will I have trouble getting into upper-level universities because my SAT scores are below those of the average applicant?</p>
<p>(Given I have above average ECs, and my essays were fantastic)</p>
<p>I’m not sure where you heard scores don’t play a big role. While most colleges that take a holistic approach take kids with a range of scores, being an unhooked applicant with a key score bellow the 25th percentile unfortunately makes getting in pretty tough.</p>
<p>As your CR is below the 25th percentile for all of these schools, you’d be wise to add some schools where all of your scores are solidly within or above the 50th percentile. Good luck!</p>
<p>Yes, I pretty much figured that would be the case. I was hoping my GPA would overpower my test scores, but I’ll just have to deal with it. I’ve also applied to U Maryland, Drexel, Chapel Hill, Cal Berkeley, and Cal LA.</p>
<p>I heard one admissions rep say they’d rather have a student with very high grades and mediocre SAT scores than someone with really high SAT scores and mediocre grades. That is because the second type of student is someone who has the ability but is lazy.</p>
<p>In any case, your SAT scores are great, but may not be best suited for acceptance at an extremely selective college (such as Duke or Northwestern) where most of the unhooked accepted students have near perfect scores. You probably would have been accepted at Duke 10 or 15 years ago, but the odds much more difficult today. </p>
<p>Also, you will probably have a little better chance at a college that also considers the SAT writing score, vs. colleges that only consider math and reading.</p>
<p>^^Don’t forget, though, that GPA has to be judged in the context of the school you attend and the courses you take. At my son’s prep school it is not uncommon to have a mediocre gpa and relatively high sat’s (my son, for example…3.3 and 2130). At publics in our area it is more common to see gpa’s in the 3.7+ range with sat’s in the 1600-1800 range.</p>
