Will my 3.6 GPA screw me over?

Applying to College
1

<p>I plan on applying to highly ranked, very selective schools. Maybe not HYPSM, but Vanderbilt, Emory, JHU, and Brown top my list. </p>

<p>My main concern is my GPA. </p>

<p>I have a 3.6 unweighted GPA (actually 3.592). </p>

<p>My school, as well as all public schools in South Carolina, does not use the 4.0 GPA scale, but a variation of it (basic on numerical grade in the class, not letter grade) boosting it +0.5 for honors and +1.0 for AP and IB classes. </p>

<p>I have a weighted GPA of 4.550, one of the highest in my class. Despite the unfavorable combination of of As and Bs I’ve received, I’ve taken, by far, the most challenging courseload available in my school. </p>

<p>9 honors classes
15 AP and IB classes</p>

<p>I’m also ranked 8/325ish in my class, placing me within the top 2.5% of students at my school. </p>

<p>Yet my transcript will still say 3.592. </p>

<p>I’ve noticed that these top schools generally accept candidates with 3.8+ GPAs (because their rigor, rank, and other stats generally correspond with this high GPA) or higher and it’s almost unheard of someone with <3.5 getting in. </p>

<p>Is this because of the GPA itself?
Will my application with a 3.6 be tossed immediately?
Will my rank show schools that my GPA means more than the number itself suggests?</p>

2

<p>You’re totally fine. When colleges boast about GPAs, they tend to be weighted on the college’s scale. And every top school reviews holistically (read: nobody’s application is tossed out because of numbers before the rest of the application is read. And even if they did, they would be tossing out GPAs <3.0, not a 3.6).</p>

<p>Just be sure to fill in your class rank if you can, and unless they specifically ask for your unweighted GPA, if they ask for GPA enter in your weighted score.</p>

3

<p>im applying to wharton… with a 3.6 with a 2370… would i be screwed?</p>

4

<p>Thank you very much, that was very reassuring. </p>

<p>Will I still be slightly disadvantaged in admissions because of the (possibly excessive number of) B’s I have or are there so few students with classes of this rigor that I should do well?</p>

5

<p>What are your test scores and do you have any hooks? I think the schools you listed are “reach” at best.</p>

6

<p>Make geographic diversity your friend. Apply to the schools you are applying to, but realize that you have a lot of schools in the Southeast on your list, and they will get a lot of applicants from your region. You will compete with those applicants, who may look better than you.</p>

<p>Try looking for equivalent (or slightly better) schools where they don’t get many applicants from SC. (Many schools list how many in the freshman class they have from each state. There is often a deficit from the South.) You might sneak in, especially if they’re trying to get a nationally diverse class. You might very well be the best applicant from SC at some elite but obscure (for SC) school in the Pacific Northwest or upstate New York. Not that you’re looking at LACs, but SC applicants to Colby or Middlebury are probably few and far between.</p>

<p>Not saying you won’t get in on your list, you sound like a solid candidate, but sometimes you need to look at the competition. Applying where it’s weaker for you can often work in your favor.</p>

7

<p>I never thought of using my state residency to my advantage even though most of the schools I plan to apply to are up north. </p>

<p>I wasn’t really considering LACs, but small to medium size research universities. Which few would consider being from my state an advantage?</p>

8

<p>There are really four factors involved in the geographic diversity game:</p>

<ol>
<li>How far away from your state is it? The further, the better. Most people like to go to college close to home.</li>
<li>What is the size of the school. The smaller the better in this case, for a couple of reasons. The smaller it is, the less likely that people will have heard of it and the fewer slots available for people from your state to attend.</li>
<li>Temperature differential. The colder it is than your home state, the better. Wimpy students like warm.</li>
</ol>

<p>These three add up to the Undesirablity Factor. The more undesirable a school is for students from your state, the better the chances for geographic diversity in your favor, because the competition from your state will be reduced. But…</p>

<ol>
<li>The Ivy Factor. Or, what is the Prestige Factor? The Undesirability Factor is DIVIDED by the Prestige Factor. So, Dartmouth and Cornell might have high Undesirability numbers due to their location and weather, but this is substantially reduced by the fact that both have high prestige, they are Ivies after all, though not nearly the prestige of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Some schools get prestige by the fact they have well known sports teams.</li>
</ol>

<p>So, if you want to play the geogrpahic diversity card, you need to be more willing than other people in your state to go to colleges far away, cold, smaller than usual, and unknown to most residents in your state. Obviously this works very well for LACs, but let’s see what could work for your desire, small and medium research universities.</p>

<p>Northwestern - Very cold. Some prestige. Not many SC students.
Carnegie Mellon - Cold, but not unbearable. Too far north for a lot of Southerners, less prestige due to lack of well known sports teams.
Tufts - Everybody’s Ivy backup, it is a Yankee school, therefore not in favor in SC. (Yes, I know I’m playing to stereotype.) Actually way less known than most schools of it’s level due to the fact it has no nationally known sports teams. Has a whopping ONE student from SC in the freshman class. Now we’re talking!
Boston College - Yankee School and Catholic to boot! Wipes out any appeal of it’s sports teams. Has about 2-3 SC students per class.
U of Rochester - Bitterly cold winters, obscure sports teams, not well known outside the northeast. Averages 4 SC students per class. (MS and AL are zero and one total for UG.)
Case Western - It’s in Cleveland! How many people from SC want to go to Cleveland?
Boston U - Attracts most students from within 500 miles.
Lehigh - Small school on a steep hillside in a small PA city that gets snow. Enough said.
RPI - Upstate New York, bitterly cold. Not many SC students.</p>

<p>So those are your best shots in the Top 50. Doesn’t mean you can’t get in elsewhere, but I think SC students get a little boost for admission at these since so few apply/attend.</p>

9

<p>“Cornell might have high Undesirability numbers due to their location and weather”</p>

<p>Not sure if this is true. Ithaca was recently named the #1 college town in America, at least in one poll. It’s a great town, although admittedly the weather can be pretty rough in the winter.</p>

10

<p>Yes, that’s the point. Take Cornell vs. Emory. Cornell loses big time on the weather and city factor. (Ithaca may be a great college town, but on the whole, people tend to like bigger cities.) It’s not that Cornell is a bad school, but rather it has to be as good as it is to overcome the South Carolina Undesirablility Factor (UDF) which is different from the Connecticut UDF. </p>

<p>People from CT are used to the Cornell weather, somewhat, and it’s much closer to home. Emory, for CT people, loses out on the distance factor, but warm weather tends to be a plus or a neutral for the most part. (Atlanta sucks in the summer.) For SC people, Emory is much more desirable than any non-Ivy Northeastern school.</p>

<p>Eliminate the Ivy factor and look what happens. Do Emory vs. Tufts. I can almost guarantee you that there are many more CT people at Emory than there are SC people at Tufts, even when you take population differences and school size into account. The schools are not that different in ranking. (I’ll acknowledge that CT likely has more highly ranked students than SC does, it still doesn’t explain the difference in enrollment unless you take weather into account.)</p>

<p>This is one of those hidden little secrets in searching for a college - students from areas willing to go to “undesirable” colleges FOR THEIR AREA can gain an advantage due to reduced competition from other students from their area. It will be easier for the OP to gain admission to Tufts than a student with identical stats from a New England state simply because few from South Carolina want to go to Tufts, but Tufts wants students from as diverse a geographical area as possible. It’s simple supply and demand.</p>

<p>And, FWIW, CT students wishing to go to Emory will also have an advantage over their Southern counterparts. New England numbers are still low at Emory, even if they aren’t as low as Southern numbers at Tufts.</p>

11

<p>I’m in the exact same boat- top schools are Kenyon and Northwestern and my ACT is a 32 but GPA is a 3.59. However, in NC we do things differently- my weighted is a 4.4 but an A is a 96+ and a 90 is a B, 84 is a C, etc. I’ve never made a C by most standards but at my school I’ve made two. Do schools recalculate GPA in these circumstances? Or will they look and see my lowest grade ever was an 82?</p>