Help compare Brown applicants??? Are grades enough??

advantagious
Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:33:56 +0000

The best way to answer these kind of questions is to head on over to the Brown board and find the thread for Class of 2011 decisions. I’ll give you a point of reference, though:

I was primarily a grades/test scores applicant. I had a 2290 SAT I, 2320 SAT II (three tests combined), 4 AP scores of 5, 6 additional AP classes, 14/770 rank, 3.82 unw GPA (might seem lowish, but obviously my rank was good, although I wasn’t Val/Sal. Also, I had an upward grade trend). I had okay extras, with a couple small leadership positions, but that’s all they were–okay. I’m a good writer, I had a good interview, and my recs should have been positive as well.

Decision?

I was waitlisted by Brown, and probably relatively lucky to be so. My extras were truly average or below average for Ivies, and I had no hook factors–no legacy, no minority status, nothing “special” (besides my own personal awesomeness :)). Brown wasn’t my first choice school (not sure that I would have chosen to go there over Wellesley, anyway), but I put plenty of effort into my app. So I would say that no, grades aren’t enough to get into Brown–you need to be pretty competitive in all aspects of your app. Great grades and test scores might be the primary reason someone gets in (who knows, maybe had I had perfect academic stats I would have snuck in), but there pretty much always has to be something else going on, too.