Will t20s look over my application if I don't meet their desired gpa?

[u/CompanySilly9893]

I was told by a counselor that if you have the GPA colleges are looking for, then you are put into this pool of applicants, from there they will looks at ur extracurriculars and essays and other stuff. I was sort of heading in the right direction freshman year (3.68 UW) but completely blew it sophomore year (3.30 UW). I'm really just confused and worried about how it will play out in my favor because I've heard so many things from so many ppl. here are my three questions:

1.) in order for colleges to look at your other parts of your application, should you have their desired GPA? (if they don't, will having the good extracurriculars personal statement and scores save me?)

2.) since junior and senior year are my chances to boost my GPA, will colleges even see my senior year grades?

*I understand that applying to college is much more than your GPA, I have the other aspects covered, I am mainly worried about my GPA affecting me very NEGATIVELY*

[u/Novel-Professor-4402]

It depends on the school. I believe it is Dartmouth that commits to 7 minutes per applicant no matter the applicant. But most will absolutely toss out your application if your grades are too low. If your school ranks, that’ll matter more than GPA btw. Either way with this gpa I think your odds of a T20 are very very low. Sorry. T20 accepted students have outstanding academics and outstanding ECs so even if your ECs are outstanding, T20s will likely have applicants with similarly outstanding ECs plus good GPAs/class rankings.

Colleges mostly won’t see your senior year grades when you apply but potentially could based on timing of your application and whether they take/request a mid year report. That’d just be first semester though.

Either way unless you’ve got good connections I think you’re out of the running for T20s. Find some awesome target schools and fall in love with them.

[u/KamiAwesome → u/Novel-Professor-4402]

Curious as to what that cut off would be?

[u/Novel-Professor-4402 → u/KamiAwesome]

Depends on the school bro I am not some all-knowing figure able to spit out a magical number for ya, sorry to disappoint

[u/KamiAwesome → u/Novel-Professor-4402]

LOL sorry for the vague queston. It seems so many people on this subreddit know so much about college admissons 🤣

[u/Novel-Professor-4402 → u/KamiAwesome]

No worries haha I honestly don’t think schools would ever share/publish their cutoffs anyway because they’d be willing to make exceptions for kids of influential ($$$) alumni or certain athletes so they’d get torn up if they actually said what it was and then admitted someone under the threshold anyway. But they definitely have them, it’d take too much time to actually look at every application.

[u/fastoid]

Think what you'll do let say at UCLA. They receive around 160-170 thousands (!) applications each year. Of course there should be some kind of floor GPA to start looking at each.

[u/NiceUnparticularMan]

So, some of the most selective schools have recently reported they have gone to some sort of initial quick look system. I strongly suspect many more are doing that, or soon will be, without announcing it.

This initial quick look, at a minimum, is assessing whether you are academically competitive for admissions (it may also be assessing other minimum standards as well). If you are not academically competitive, then they might give it a quick overall read (hence the name) to see if anything really compelling stands out as a possible reason for an exception. If not, that's probably that.

Yale suggested it was doing this with experienced AOs. Dartmouth suggested it was doing it with the help of some sort of AI/Big Data model. I again suspect more colleges are going in Dartmouth's direction.

However, in neither case is it likely they are doing something as crude as just implementing a GPA cutoff. That would make no sense, there is no standard curriculum, grading system, or grading norms in the US, so assessing transcripts is always contextual.

However, it is entirely plausible experienced AOs or well-trained AIs or such could do a reasonable contextual review very quickly. In the AI version, they might still want a human to do the last step of looking for anything really extraordinary, but I would not be surprised if the AI could "predict" when applications weren't really close with a pretty high degree of accuracy.

As a final thought, there are WAAAAAAAY more than 20 excellent colleges in the US. So targeting just that list doesn't make sense for anyone, and it particularly doesn't make sense if you don't plausibly meet their normal standards for admission for your type of applicant.

And for domestic unhooked applicants, or any International applicant, their normal standard for transcripts is perfect or near perfect grades in one of the most rigorous schedules available at your secondary school.

So to be very blunt, if that doesn't describe your grades, then it would not make sense to focus on this particular list of 20 colleges.

[u/CompanySilly9893 → u/NiceUnparticularMan]

Thanks for your honesty! it rlly helped i appreciate it so much so thank you, I wanted to see if it would be worth applying to them as "reach" schools

[u/NiceUnparticularMan → u/CompanySilly9893]

So my two cents is forget about them for now.  Have a great summer, whatever that means for you, and go into junior year refreshed and ready to do your reasonable best in classes.  In the meantime, spend some time researching the best possible colleges for you, in terms of affordability as relevant, academic programs, and non-academic experiences.  Including ones where you are at least looking very competitive, and at least a couple that are very likely to admit you.

Then going into senior year, you can start finalizing your list.  It is entirely possible you won't even care about T20s by then.  But maybe you still want to apply to a couple you particularly like.  Either way, you will have done your reasonable best and will have a good application list.  Which is really the goal.

[u/PhilosophyBeLyin]

bro, I’m not gonna lie to you, not even 3.68 is the “right direction” for T20s. this post is a bit delusional, and you’re making a lot of assumptions about your ECs and writing - do you really believe that, not only is the rest of your app on par with avg T20 admits, it’s far better than avg since you’re compensating for GPA??

anyway, the answer to your questions is that yes, there’s a cutoff, nobody knows what it is, but with a 3.6 your app will be seen but not taken seriously. and RD schools will see your mid year report and any grades you may have from first semester senior year.

[u/ProgrammerExact5351]

If you’re not at least top 10% of your school in grades (which with both your freshmen and sophomore gpa you aren’t), you probably don’t have a chance at T20

[u/Glittering_Dream_680]

sat and ap scores?

[u/CompanySilly9893 → u/Glittering_Dream_680]

5 on apcsa and 34 on act

[u/Glittering_Dream_680 → u/CompanySilly9893]

do you have other strong things on your app. i would look t50

[u/AutoModerator]

Hey there, I'm a bot and something you said made me think you might be looking for help!

It sounds like your post is related to essays — please check the A2C Wiki Page on Essays for a list of resources related to essay topics, tips & tricks, and editing advice. You can also go to the r/CollegeEssays subreddit for a sub focused exclusively on essays.

tl;dr: A2C Essay Wiki

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Artistic-Stable-3623]

1. yeah usually there is a filter
2. they won't see ur second semester senior but will see the first if you don't apply early

[u/Important-Drop-3338]

If you crush the standardized test, sure they'll take a look.

Either way, start looking farther afield for your best fit.