https://admission.princeton.edu/how-apply/admission-statistics
Am I right in assuming that GPA mentioned on this list are unweighted?
By the way, who are these lucky ones getting accepted with 2.3 GPA and how do they survive there?
It is not a 2.3 GPA but 2.3% of accepted applicants had a GPA below 3.5. Most likely recruited athletes and special hooked applicants. It is unweighted GPA if you look at the scale.
My bad. You are right.
The “lucky” students with low GPAs are, IMO, not that lucky. I am guessing they really struggle. I may be off base, but for a recruited athlete I know who has very humble stats, she is provided with private tutoring for all of her classes. She isn’t at Princeton or even close, but those school probably do the same for some of their low stats students. My understanding is also that even recruited athletes at HYP and the like still have to meet minimum test scores and GPAs.
I suspect also that some students with very low stats are “special” in that their hook is being the child of a Mega-donor and similar.
It’s very misleading to many students because they see that some kids do have low stats, and it makes them think they have a chance. It would be interesting to know just how many applications never get a true first read because of low stats.
No, that’s not what those numbers mean. They mean that of all applicants with GPA’s below 3.5, 2.3% were accepted. (If you add up the total numbers in the “Percent Accepted” column, it is less than 35%, so obviously it doesn’t represent the class distribution).
And while it is safe to assume that the students with lower GPA’s had counter-balancing strengths as applicants, it’s just a convenient myth that they are all athletes and hooked applicants. Some may come from particularly rigorous high schools; some might fit the profile of being very lopsided in terms of academic strengths & weaknesses; some might have GPA’s brought down by a weak first year but a strong upward trend, etc. All you know from that table is that having a GPA of 3.5 or below effectively brings down chances of admission to 2.3 – but that even among those with GPA’s of 4.0, more than 9 out of 10 applicants are turned away
Ivy athletes have to meet an academic index and be within one deviation from the accepted class as a whole. If they have lower scores, they have to have higher gpa, etc. It is much more likely to find a developmental admit or a special case than an athlete bringing the class average down.
It can be the brilliant and accomplished stem kid, who also happens to be nicely active, a great writer and a great kid, who just happened to bomb every foreign language course, lol. Or the gpa came down with lower PE grades. GPA alone just doesn’t tell much.
And without knowing how many applied with less than 3.5, you can’t guess how many actually got admitted. You can’t game this by looking low.
It can also be a military veteran, a professional actor, published writer, or some person who has done something else post high school-graduation that’s impressive enough to overlook a less than impressive high school gpa.
Don’t forget first generation, URM’s who come from North Dakota and play an obscure instrument and devoted 1000 to community service
Gentleman’s B is a real thing. Once you’re into places like that, they don’t intend on failing you out.
Huh- I doubt they give out B’s as the low grade now if they did so decades ago. Those with a low gpa likely had exceptional reasons and more potential/background knowledge than their gpa showed. Those who get in most likely will do the work.
For anyone curious about grade inflation, this is an amazing resource:
http://www.gradeinflation.com/
Princeton
http://www.gradeinflation.com/Princeton.html
Macalester
http://www.gradeinflation.com/Macalester.html
UC Berkeley
http://www.gradeinflation.com/Ucberkeley.html
Alabama
http://www.gradeinflation.com/Alabama.html