Low SAT w/ High GPA *VS.* High SAT w/ Low GPA

[Hamurtle]

@Data10

The particular college and program within the college is also important. Among test required colleges, some highly selective colleges appear to favor having top scores more than others. In general colleges that have SAT/ACT scores above what you’d expect based on selectivity and hooks tend to favor high scoring applicants more than you’d expect. For example, a list of 75th percentile scores is below by college. WUSTL and Vanderbilt seems to have higher scores than one would expect based on selectivity, and scattegrams, suggesting a decent chance of admission for students with high SAT/relatively low GPA.

WUSTL – 35, 770/800
Stanford/Yale/Princeton – 35, 770/800
Vanderbilt – 35, 760/800
Columbia – 35, 760/800
Brown/Penn – 35, 760/790

I would agree that WashU and Vandy (as well as Rice to a certain extent) do look at SAT scores and accept a certain number of relatively low GPA/high test score types. My WashU kid falls in that category (3.67 UW/2300 old SAT plus 7 5’s on AP tests-got a 5 on the BC test/800 Math 2 even though he barely got a B- both semesters).

If he had a do-over, he probably would have prioritized GPA.