Are there any fairly selective schools (lower than 30% acceptance) who don’t consider GPA as heavily as they do other parts of the application?
GPA is the single most important factor for every college extant. That being said, your GPA and test scores will get you lots plenty of attention come admissions season if you pick colleges wisely. Congrats on your achievements to date.
Are you doing a humble brag or are you actually interested in genuine feedback. You apparently have a C-in Calc BC but otherwise have strong grades right? That is what schools will see and Ad counselors will probably think that you do well in nearly all academic areas but in calculus. I’m not an admissions counselor at a college but one thing I’d consider is the match between your strengths and your interests. You’ve stated your interest in business. Well, many business/finance/econ majors are very math based. That might lead to scrutiny of your other math grades.
I see you also did relatively poorly in chem. The question then becomes what was happening there. both those classes require the ability to abstract in a way that regular bio and other math classes don’t. If the issue is higher level abstraction, then that could impact. If you just were having a terrible semester for some reason, that would help to know.
Not correct!
Lehigh only considers GPA to be “considered”. It’s not important and it’s not very important. Class rigor is most important. So if it’s a C in BC Calculus that you are worried about, this might be just the ticket.
My read is they like smart students who tend to bite off more than they can chew.
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/lehigh-university
Click apply, and look at the criteria.
It’d help if you posted what GPA (uw, weighted) and test scores we’re talking about.
I have a 3.8 GPA and a 35 on my ACT. I’m either going to apply to a finance major, public policy or international relations (depending what the schools has to offer). I’m trying to find high match low reach schools
@IvyStruck A 3.8 unweighted is great and will be competitive for a lot of selective schools. I wouldn’t worry too much about your GPA at this point and focus on cultivating your essay and supplements. Good luck!
@ClassicRockerDad I wouldn’t trust that information. My DD is looking at Davidson College, for example, and their information from that site is wrong. Davidson doesn’t offer an interview and that site shows interview as “important”. The Davidson admissions rep said that GPA is the most important factor yet that site shows it as “considered”. So I just wanted to share that it would be important for the OP to check with individual schools and not rely on online information.
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/davidson-college
In general, GPA is most important as it shows your cumulative effort in high school, not just a few months of preparation for a test. But GPA itself also does not mean much. It has to be in the context of your school profile and course rigor.
AARGH, I wondered if you meant 3.5, 3.2, or 2.8…
3.8 UW with rigorous classes and a 35ACT is competitive absolutely everywhere.
However if you mean 'where 3.8 is competitive and a 35ACT will give me an edge", then the answer is Vanderbilt, USC, and Washington St Louis
@riverboat here is the Common Data Set from Lehigh’s own web site which states GPA is only considered.
http://www.lehigh.edu/~oir/cds/lucds2014.htm Section C7
http://www.davidson.edu/Documents/Administrative%20Department/Institutional%20Research/CDS_2014-15.pdf
Section C7 says GPA is only considered for Davidson. BTW it says interview is important for Davidson. You may want to call the admissions office and ask some questions.
I don’t want to hijack this thread. I just wanted to share my experience with the OP about checking online information. @“Erin’s Dad” I actually did call the Admission’s Office at Davidson a few weeks ago after seeing the online info on the Collegeboard website. I was told it was wrong and that GPA is very important and that Davidson does not offer an interview for admissions.
This is consistent with what they have on their admissions website but contradicts what is posted online and on their CDS (which is why I was confused). I think the OP should just check with someone at Lehigh (or any other college) being considered to ask about the importance of GPA.
I think @riverboat makes a great point. The CDS info sometimes contains non-sensical or contradictory information. Woe to any student who thinks GPA and course rigor aren’t the most important factors of any college’s admit criteria.
For the OP: I’m also in agreement that a 3.8 GPA, with a rigorous curriculum and a 35 ACT will get many nice choices. Maybe not a shoo-in for Stanford, Columbia or Yale (no one is) – but you’re certainly viable for a wide variety of top schools
Reed, Bryn Mawr, U. Illinois, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western, Wash U, GeorgiaTech, Vanderbilt and Chicago are some which I recall admit quite a few students with modest GPA’s.
I’d recommend looking at scattergrams, ideally from Naviance if your school supports it, possibly at niche.com as well. They will give you a quick idea of which colleges have accepted more students with high tests scores but low GPA’s.
I’d be wary of comparing the average high school GPA’s of the the freshman class at different schools. Different schools and colleges compute these differently. Many colleges do not report the average HS GPA’s of their freshman for this good reason.
GPA is considered in context of rank (3.8 could be top decile at one school and top quarter at another), rigor, etc. our GPA and ACT should put you in the range for most selective schools. However, the rest of your application then becomes important to distinguish you from all the other applicants with numbers in the range–your ECs, leadership, well-rounded or lopsidedness, etc.
I believe the Lehigh information is accurate, but anyone can call them to verify.