<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I am a student with… grades (that aren’t as high as I would like). The thing is that a few days before my sophomore year began, I found out that my dad had another family in Japan. The subsequent depression I felt dropped all of my grades into a far lower range than I was okay with. My question is how seriously the holistic process is taken; if I get better grades in my junior year, will holistic admissions “save” me, per say? My top picks right now are MIT and Columbia, and I know both of these schools employ holistic admissions.</p>
<p>tl;dr: How much does the holistic process override bad grades?</p>
<p>Depends on how bad the grades are. The holistic process is pretty serious at MIT and Columbia, but keep in mind that there’s still a trend of higher acceptance rates as scores/grades rise. Your story seems interesting and clearly your circumstances would excuse a small dip, but it all comes down to specifics. Grades/SAT scores aren’t going to distinguish applicants, so just work on them to the extent that you need to/can but don’t forget the important stuff.</p>
<p>First, make sure you get some help and support, that is a horrible situation and your whole family needs help. Make sure you guidance counsellor knows what is going on with you so they can reference it in your letter of recommendation. </p>
<p>If you have high gpa freshman year, low sophomore, high jr, high first semester sr year, and all the rest of things are in place like top 25 percent of class, very good EC/leadership/research/etc, maybe getting to advanced level of coursework, like college math, good letters of recommendation, good essay and entire application is thoughtful you will get consideration for special circumstances. Of course top schools will want to see exceptional promise in all your doings with or without this blip. But you don’t choose schools that way. You look at the spring of Jr year and do some self assessment. You look at what factors are important to you in a college. You find out what your family can afford. You compare your gpa and SAT scores with a variety of colleges. Then you pick schools that fit these criteria. You start with a couple of safeties, research some matches that sounds attractive, finally you select a few reaches.</p>
<p>tl;dr maybe a bit, but very difficult admission schools in any circumstances</p>