"holistic" college admissions

intparent
Sat, 21 Apr 2018 13:44:34 +0000

You can Google the Common Data Set for many colleges and see the % of students with various GPA ranges. Know that the bottom 25% of students stat-wise are probably hooked — athletes, legacies, URMs, etc.

A student with low stats (and a 3.5 is low by Ivy standards) needs something outstanding elsewhere in their application to get accepted. Like a win in a national or international competition, for example. But the first question a college has to answer is whether the student has the academic chops to succeed in their environment. If grades and test scores are low compared to the rest of the pool, that makes the school a very high research.

The good news is that Ivies are only 8 out of thousands of colleges in the US. There are tons of good schools that will accept a student with a 3.5. Stop thinking about prestige. Take your ego out of the process. Look for schools strong in your area of interest where your stats are at the 50% mark or better and are affordable. Don’t worry about where anyone else is applying.