<p>I wouldn’t apply Emory EDII (if the 80s are not As, then the GPA will be a bit two low), at least not this year, especially seeing what happened to some people in the ED1 round (EDII is kind of like RD). Maybe Wake, Oxford, Georgetown, somewhere else (perhaps some public schools. Some which are better than some US top privates, like Michigan, Virginia, etc). If it wasn’t for that person’s GPA, they may have some shot ((below 50%, but maybe not like 20%) at Vandy because their SAT would maybe put them near the 25% of the admitted class and there is always a 25%. In fact, this person, if admitted, would actually be a little better than the 25% of the enrolled students. I don’t think the chances are all that great, but an app. can’t hurt them. </p>
<p>Also, don’t call the people “super smart” (indeed many are), just say that they often have much better stats. A bunch of mid/high income kids with high SATs have hardly proven themselves to be that smart beyond that test (and other cookie cutter standardized tests like the AP, which some teachers specifically tailor every bit of their class to in order get 4s or 5s, thus showing that it’s gameable in some cases) and their cookie cutter HS coursework (I would imagine many schools in Canada being harder to be blunt). Some of those 22-2300s could walk up in a selective school’s rigorous math and science courses and flounder just as likely as “less smart people”, which is not uncommon among the more difficult elite schools (where, if the average math SAT is is around 700+, you’ll probably stop seeing the strong correlation between it and the outcome). I just stick with “above average until proven brilliant”. I mean, course ratings at some of the schools with very high scores makes me wonder sometimes…(they’ll rate certain people at high difficulty rating and then you find out that the course is actually much simpler than those at other places). All you would hope is that the people with high stats prove to “well-calibrated”. I’m banking on that for Emory since it seems to be somehow picking up a more unusual than normal number of students in the ED rounds with scores like that this year. It’s just annoying to see those types of students come and then do things like forfeit all their AP credit, or take easy instructors (which usually have lower caliber students) and then point at students and other instructors and say “glad I didn’t take that, I heard they’re super hard” (basically, this person refuses to compete at the highest levels). What type of 22-2300+ student is that? Well-calibrated, sure, but “super smart”, obviously not willing to prove it. Having some of these folks is totally over-rated when you take their effect on rankings out of consideration. This explains why many of the very top schools in admission (including Vanderbilt) still seem to take a solid amount of students in the 2100s for their bottom quartile. And it’s not like Vanderbilt is near as tough as places like Harvard, Princteon, Chicago, etc to the point that the 2100 (and maybe slightly lower) student will definitely perform worse than the others (okay, that probably won’t even happen at those places, let’s be real).</p>