<p>If you look at this year’s stats so far, you will see that a good number of those invited to interview have SATs above 2300 and unweighted GPAs above 3.9. There were a few exceptions, such as under-represented minorities or students who must have had very compelling circumstances or unusual ECs, but otherwise that’s approximately where you want to be. That said, I don’t believe that stats alone will guarantee scholarship consideration. S has a 2300+ SAT, 3.9+ GPA from very competitive high school, 700+ Subject SATs, Academic All-American in sports, etc., etc. Yet he hasn’t been invited to interview for any of the two top scholarships. At first, we worried that his recommendations must be the problem, but then he got accepted into a couple of competitive programs and was offered full tuition for one of them. So for reasons that are not obvious to us USC must have thought that he wouldn’t be a good fit for them. But this is their prerogative and, while it’s hard not to feel like you failed, you have to trust them to have made the right decision. So definitely aim to raise your GPA/scores, but view them as just one, albeit important, component of your application.</p>