<p>I’ve seen this happen many times and I feel like if I find out why it can help me because my grades are not very good my GPA is around an 80 and I am in my junior year however I go to one of the top 40 high schools in America. I really want to try harder next year but I just want to know how these students get in</p>
<p>Despite what you may have seen, mostly they don’t.</p>
<p>Occasionally, they are seven feet tall, or the children of wealthy donors. But other than that, mostly they don’t.</p>
<p>Many top colleges rely heavily on extracurricular activities. If a straight A student with a good SAT score and only one E.C. applies to a wonderful school against a student who has a mixture of B’s and A’s with one C and have stellar E.C. activities and good a SAT score gets in while the other doesn’t. There’s this one story where this one kid who got all straight A’s throughout high school, and almost received a perfect SAT score applied to Harvard and he didn’t get accepted because he didn’t have any E.C. activities.</p>
<p>They show initiative in some capacity.</p>
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<p>The part of this that I believe the most is, “There’s this one story.” The reality is, the kids who are getting into HYP and their peers actually have the whole package: top grades and top test scores *and *extracurricular activities that demonstrate personal growth or uncommon initiative or genuine leadership.</p>
<p>Yes, top colleges do rely on extracurricular activities. But unless you’re good enough to be a recruited athlete (or you’ve already been on Broadway, or you’ve already danced with City Ballet, or something similar), extracurricular activities won’t make up the difference if you don’t measure up academically. At “top colleges,” they rely on extracurricular activities to select a freshman class from among the abundance of applicants who are highly qualified academically. But it’s a very rare case indeed when they choose a lower academic achiever over a higher one based on the lower achiever’s extracurricular accomplishments.</p>
<p>A lot of them focus on one school and apply ED. You can put more effort on your essays and such.</p>
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<p>This does not happen many times. This happens pretty rarely on the contrary.</p>
<p>I have no idea what the guys above me are talking about. Yes grades are important, but competitive colleges are not looking for that nerd who sits in his house all day and studies. ANYONE can do that and get straight As and a perfect SAT score. Colleges are looking for students with initiative and the ability to CHANGE THE WORLD. They’re on the lookout for the next Zuckerberg or the next Jobs. Straight A and perfect SAT students get rejected ALL THE TIME in favor of students who have lower GPAs, because these students, although not as academically proficient, have some trait that hints at this possibility. The Ivy Leagues don’t want another doctor, another lawyer, another scientist, they want the next cure for cancer, the next president, the next civil rights activist. This is something that cannot be distinguished by two or three bad grades on a transcript. Thats why Ivy Leagues especially look VERY closely at your extracurriculars to see if you have passion for what you’re doing, which could lead to something revolutionary in the future. Grades are just a pass-point, as long as you have the grades to prove that you won’t fail out of college, its all the same to them. A harvard adcom once told me that they look at your transcript for about 30 seconds to see whether or not you would be able to handle the rigor of classes. After that, everyone is on the same playing field, and extracurriculars decide who gets rejected and accepted. This is the reason why the perfect GPA+SAT people get rejected ALL THE TIME. Also, the poster above said something about how students with lower academic profiles rarely get chosen over their high-profile peers. This is completely wrong on two levels. First of all, its not a comparison game, its you’re good enough for X college, or you’re not. They don’t put you side by side and rank you with the other applicants. They see each applicant on an individual basis, so that analysis is completely baseless to begin with. Second of all, as I said, as long as you have the grades to prove to the adcoms that you can handle the rigor, the rest is up to ECs, which is why lower GPAs get accepted over higher GPAs.</p>
<p>Look at your high school naviance. Post #8 sounds great but our high school naviance rarely shows kids got accepted to a certain colleges unless they have certain GPA/SAT scores.</p>
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<p>I pretty much agree with this.</p>
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<p>But I don’t think this qualifies. I think the bar is much higher. I assumed that by “top colleges,” the OP meant HYP and their peers. For those colleges, if you’re not one of the very top students in your graduating class, you’re not getting in. Because these colleges really do have more than enough applicants with stellar grades and test scores and extracurricular activities. They fill their freshman classes long before they have to compromise.</p>
<p>I’ll agree that I didn’t word my thoughts carefully earlier when I said that highly selective colleges won’t take an applicant with lower objective qualifications and great extracurriculars over an applicant with higher stats. I should have said that in the vast majority of cases, they won’t take an applicant who isn’t an academic standout, just because of his or her extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>Right, go search for a scatter plot of the SAT scores and GPAs of students who got accepted and rejected at top schools. All the green marks are near the top yes? But you also have to take into consideration all of those red marks that are above and at the same place as those that got accepted, and observe the comparison between those that got accepted and rejected. If one were to only look at the numbers, it would not make any sense at all, due to the reasons listed in my previous post. Of course, I agree with the “certain” part of your statement, its not like a student with straight Bs throughout his/her whole entire high school career and an 1800 on the SAT is going to make it in. But I was simply pointing out the fact that the posts above me made the selection process look as though it were solely based on numbers.</p>
<p>schlagg, why don’t you take a look at the class of 2016 admissions results on the ivy league boards and tell my why most of the accepted students are the ones at the top of their class with excellent test scores while the rejected ones are the ones with decent grades, I about the top 10% of their class but not stellar grades? GPA and class rank do count. A lot. And you seem to be under the assumption that students with lower gpas are more interesting and have better ECs than those with high gpas. Wrong.</p>
<p>Yes, students with GPAs and class rank below a top school’s median do get in but they are usually either hooked or have outstanding EC’s, and I emphasize outstanding. Applicants at the top of their class and test scores far above the school’s median get in in greater numbers than those with worse stats.</p>
<p>I never said the people that get accepted don’t have stellar scores. I’m saying that people who get rejected ALSO have stellar scores. You said that people with lower GPAs and SAT scores “rarely” get accepted above those with higher scores, unless they are rich or play sports. You are only looking at your side of the equation, I’m telling you to pay attention to the other half of the people with stellar scores that GOT REJECTED, and THEN you compare it with the people with less-than-stellar scores that got accepted. You make it sound as though its a complete number game, when its not nearly as simple as “who has the higher SAT and GPA”</p>
<p>And then what do you get? You get a ton of people with “less-than-stellar” scores that got accepted compared to the many more with “stellar” scores that got rejected.</p>
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<p>And I repeat, applicants with average scores and grades do get in over applicants with stellar scores and grades at the top of their class, but those applicants get in in far less numbers than those with top grades and scores.</p>
<p>You need the grades and scores TO GET YOUR FOOT IN THE DOOR and be a competitive applicant. THEN you need to shine through your essays, recommendation letters and extracurricular activities to get accepted.</p>
<p>That aside, OP, you most likely aren’t going to get in. When I say “less-than-stellar”, I mean like the 10% compared to the 5%. An 80 average is a straight B- average, it wouldn’t cut it even if you were in the #1 school in the US.</p>
<p>@Cortana, Im glad I was able to convince you :)</p>
<p>The title of this thread is low GPA. Nobody with low GPA got into top colleges. How low is low? I think recently somebody with 3.2 uw got into Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>You are not going to get into a top 40 college with an 80 average unless you are “very hooked”.</p>