Stanford Admits...how many B's are too many?

marlgirl
Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:31:57 +0000

I got one B+ 1st semester of BC Calc in junior year.

ilabcurious1423
Is it bad if cass rank is not given?

My school never gives class rank (besides top 10% who can say they were in Cum Laude) and we get about 5 of the 80 students in each senior class in at Stanford.

Do they look more at your grades or at your test scores then?

They probably look at test scores for you and averages for your school to get a sense of what an A means. At my school, I know they have a grade distribution chart (number of As, A-s, B+s, Bs, etc. in each of the 30 or so most popular classes for juniors) so even though they don’t know your exact rank, they can see that a B+ was a top grade in once class whereas anything less than an A- might have been really rare in another class.

Has anyone ever known anyone, who was not an athlete to get into Stanford with like a B average?

I’m sure this happens. At least for really talented musicians… I don’t go around asking people what their grade average is so I can’t really tell you. There might be data for average GPA or GPA distributions somewhere, not sure.

Do summer programs help?

They certainly can. A program like RSI can help a lot, show that you’re at a certain level. I know of the 8 or so of us from Stanford Math Camp who applied early, everyone who I know applied got in. It seemed to make a difference!

If your school has a different grading scale for grades do they redo the percents?

In theory they take this into account. But unless they have your actual percentage in the class (say a 92) there’s no way to know if your B is a 86 or a 92. I suspect that here is where a grade distribution chart would come in. If you’re really worried about this, ask your school what info they give to try to put you in context in your grade/school.

What do they truly look for in an applicant?

They SAY they just want students who are really passionate about something… but my theory is that they want people who will 1) make them look good some day and/or 2) give them a lot of money some day. So if you seem as though you’ll be a great scientist, future president, rich business executive, famous author, top athlete, talented musician, etc. I think that helps. Naturally they have to think you’ll at least be able to graduate as well, that’s just a given I think. It’s a somewhat cynical prospective but whatever. A school is a business even if it gets to count as a non-profit organization when it comes to taxes. It just happens to be a business that’s important for our economy and our nation.