Should I even consider Brown? Stats WAY below average

Sikorsky
Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:46:02 +0000

Honestly? I am afraid that if you apply to Brown, you’ll get 0 return on the time and money you put into it.

First off, your hooks aren’t hooks. Being Indian isn’t helpful. (I’m assuming you mean that your family originates from India, and not that your family originates from one of the peoples that inhabited the Americas before Europeans got here. Is that right?) Students of Indian extraction are overrepresented at prestigious colleges, not underrepresented. And being the first in your family to attend college in the U.S. isn’t the same as being the first in your family to attend college at all. The second one is sometimes of interest to admissions committees; the first one, not so much.

As for the GPA, I think Brown would need a really compelling reason to take you, with your 3.4 UW, instead of another applicant whose other qualifications are comparable to yours, but whose high school grades have been consistently high. Because, you see, Brown is going to have enough of those applications to fill its entering class several times over. Unless you’ve held something back (“Oh, by the way, I’m also 6’10”, with a killer jump hook!"), I don’t think Brown is going to happen for you.

You have very good standardized test scores, and it seems you’ve really turned your life around academically, too. (You should definitely ask your GC to highlight this fact in the Secondary School Report.) Congratulations on these things. They will probably help you secure admission to some really good colleges or universities, and there’s every reason to expect you’ll do well there. But I’m sorry to say, I think Brown can be so choosy that it will probably choose somebody else instead.