<p>As for Harvard being “better” than Yale, I mainly go off of College World and News rankings–even if it imperfectly represents the quality of colleges (inevitable, given all the different needs of an increasingly diverse student body), it’s the first thing most people turn to to determine who is at the top. And I wish I emphasized this more in my first comment but the “overqualified” theory was meant by me to apply to only some kids. I personally believe the majority of kids get deferred for other reasons, but I can never know for sure–I’m no admissions officer. Still, there are always the “shocker rejects” or deferrals that always have people scratching their heads. These kinds of rejects, if for the overquailification reason, give kids the wrong impression. And yeah, even though the Princeton Review book is copyrighted for 2009, i recall that it does seem to be out of date as far as facts and statistics are concerned–I apologize for any confusion.</p>
<p>To address the original threshold question, Olivia567, does your school provide a class rank? If so, then don’t worry about your GPA number, worry about how you compare to the other kids in your school–that’s what competitive colleges care about. Your GPA could correspond to all B’s but if you are #1, it won’t matter, you would still be treated as though you had a shiny 5.0 or 4.0 GPA. If your school does not rank but if you would be ranked highly if it did, then definitely ask your guidance counselor to emphasize your academic standing compared to your classmates. Once again, high selective colleges don’t care about absolute number, they care about how much better or worse you are than your fellow classmates. This way of treatment makes sense because not all high schools are equally challenging. If almost everyone only gets a 3.5 GPA, then a 3.7 GPA would be extremely impressive.</p>