Is GPA the most important?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think the “letter quality vs academic performance” argument applies to the OP’s case. Her kid likely had a GPA lower than 4.4 at the end of his junior year, which translated into somewhere between top 30% to top 40% of their class at TJ? Unless their letters and/or ECs are spectacular, not getting into an Ivy or T20 is actually not surprising.

LOL. No matter how many people tell you that academic performance is not a ranked system at Ivies, you refuse to believe them. Claim "racism" and move on. ACADEMICS IS A QUALIFIER it is not the determining factor. Listen to the Yale podcast. Listen to the Darmouth Podcast. Listen to the Columbia AO interview. They all say the same thing. Academics and test scores demonstrate you can do the work, after you are qualified you need to have a lot more. The qualifier is ROUGHLY an SAT of 1450 and a GPA (with max rigor) of 3.7ish. Yale, Dartmouth and Columbia all said the same thing, practically verbatim. And no, it isn't about keeping Asians out, or Italians, or Russians. It is about having kids who align with institutional priorities and enhance the community and the long-term standing of the institution.

So, having 100% math robot test takers isn't something they want. They want a certain number of actors/musicians, supreme court litigators, federal judges, olympic gold medalists, NHL superstars, senators, governors, hedge fund managers, high school english teachers, social workers, world bank heads, UN delegates, presidential candidates, novelists, artists, engineers, and tech people. It's just sad to see people tell you how the world is, and you go back to talking about stats stats stats, ranking rankings rankings, discrimination discrimination discrimination, SAT SAT SAT.

It is completely bonkers to me. These parents are ignorant with a chip on their shoulder. Yale isn't the India Institute of Technology. It's not a statistics focused institution, it never has been, and it will never be. If you don't like it, then don't apply there or the other ivies.

I think you’re replying to the wrong post.

The post was long but an appropriate post to the people on this thread insisting that a particular GPA and a particular SAT should gain you admission to a particular school. That's not how it works, which is the gist of this long post.

Understandable that you feel the Ivies should take a kid with low SAT score, as reading comprehension is not your strength. While a very high GPA or SAT score may not get you into a top college, an overall grade away from the top 20-30% at TJ means it’s an uphill battle for getting into an elite college. Also, your 3.7/1450 cutoff is plain wrong. A 3.7 uw GPA might be good at an elite private, but it’s only average in many high schools. A former AO from Yale explicitly said his cutoff for a low SAT is 1520, and he had older colleagues who still gave bonus points to a perfect 1600 score!

You're conflating many posters. In fact, many of us think you are a nasty troll. If being a horrible person here helps you not be a horrible person in real life, I'm happy about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes they take your major preferences into account.

Watch AO webinars where they discuss this as naseum and why they don’t want to tell the public which majors they actually need more of.

Anyone want to make some educated guesses though?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

You would have been 100x better off attending a lower resource school. I am not sure why TJ parents haven't grasped this yet?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

You would have been 100x better off attending a lower resource school. I am not sure why TJ parents haven't grasped this yet?

It's always a balance. Bright students between 14-18 still need a peer group and good teachers to really succeed. Dropping some brainiac into the worst high school in East St. Louis isn't doing them any favors, both in life and for college admissions.

That being said, the TJ catchment area encompasses some perfectly good non-magnet public schools. So choices are being made. At the T20 level, you are always competing against classmates for those spots. And you have to distinguish yourself in some way. But I'm surprised this student was waitlisted at UVA. What are they doing in Charlottesville? I know they need to take students from all over the state and not just NOVA, but c'mon. A 4.4 and and a near 1600 from TJ? Really?

The most conspicuous college admissions penalty from TJ is at UVA.

Bc they can’t admit half the school. This is not news.

I am not sure why not.
Someone asked Dean J if the reason they were limiting their offers to TJ so they wouldn't end up with 100 TJ kids in their entering class and she pointed out there have been years when they made over 100 offers to TJ students.

What does the TJ scatterplot for UVA look like? At our Nova public there is a clear GPA/SAT line above which pretty much everyone is admitted to UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:3.7 in at Harvard here

Must be hooked/ athlete/ FGLI/ URM/ legacy/donor

[Anonymous]

There are only so many spaces in each school. I think the mistake is thinking these are actually the "best" schools, and that others are somehow lesser and not good enough for your kid. That is just absolutley flat out wrong on every level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wasn’t there a cheating scandal at TJ? That lingers on for years.

There cheating scandals everywhere. What are you trying to say? Idiot.

This forum becomes more unhinged every day.

And mean. Pretty sure it is one tj booster (bo current kids at tj, just a tj grad) who insults any poster who says anything negative about tj. Living in the past, in la la land.

It's wild that you think that there is only 1 person that disagrees with you on things.

I think it is one person who is a tj booster and insults others posters/calls them names. Writes the same way in the aap forum.

[Anonymous]

If you apply to the most competitive colleges, shouldn’t you expect a rejection?

No matter what your profile, there are literally thousands like you in those giant applicant pools.

And what was the GPA at the end of 11th? Did they take AP in every subject?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

Ivies hate TJ. Sorry. Don't shot the messenger. It is what it is.

There is some of this too. Reputation for being grinders and cheaters. I assume that teacher recs mean a LOT.

Every kid from our pvt high school that got into Ivy+ were well liked kids who added a lot to the community. Not just "volunteered at xyz", but at their actual high school. Tutors, Peer Counselors, etc. All of them had good personalities and were funny and happy. The recs, I think are huge missing piece. Two hypothetical examples of LORs for to students. Student #1 4.0 UW SAT 1580; Student #2 3.8UW SAT 1520:

"Student #1 is a very good student. They are always well prepared for class. They consistently are among the top performers in the entire school. Grades are very important to them, and they make sure that they always work hard to ensure that their grades are the best in the class. Indeed, they have the highest grades of any student that I have taught, and I have taught this class for 10 years. They are intensely focused on academic succes, and will work tirelessly to achieve their goals"

"Student #2 was one of my favorite students of all time. In addition to being one of my best students, I always looked forward to hearing them speak in class and their participation was always welcomed by the other students. Their questions were always very good, and sometimes wound up challenging the way I thought about the material that I presented. When I think of student #2, I think about her great smile and her funny quips that made the class enjoyable for other students. She was never disruptive, but always had a great sense of humor that lightened up a class that had an intense workload sometimes. During study halls, I would often see student #2 helping her other classmates work through difficult homework assignments. She was a valued member of our community, she had great school spirit and she will be missed greatly. Obviously her grades speak for themselves, and I don't doubt that she will be successful at the most academically rigorous colleges in the country."

Who do you want in your student body at Yale?

Pretty crappy teacher to write such a crappy letter. The teacher was likely bitter that the student had challenged them in class!

Maybe the kid was an unlikable jerk, and was a net negative to the overall environment because of their cutthroat nature. Why should that student be given an advantage over someone who actually made the school a better place?

If the student was an unlikeable jerk, you would expect the letter to say as much. If you want to baselessly speculate without evidence, maybe student #2 is also a jerk but his mom is a teacher who wrote the LoR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

You would have been 100x better off attending a lower resource school. I am not sure why TJ parents haven't grasped this yet?

It's always a balance. Bright students between 14-18 still need a peer group and good teachers to really succeed. Dropping some brainiac into the worst high school in East St. Louis isn't doing them any favors, both in life and for college admissions.

That being said, the TJ catchment area encompasses some perfectly good non-magnet public schools. So choices are being made. At the T20 level, you are always competing against classmates for those spots. And you have to distinguish yourself in some way. But I'm surprised this student was waitlisted at UVA. What are they doing in Charlottesville? I know they need to take students from all over the state and not just NOVA, but c'mon. A 4.4 and and a near 1600 from TJ? Really?

The most conspicuous college admissions penalty from TJ is at UVA.

Bc they can’t admit half the school. This is not news.

Of course they can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think the “letter quality vs academic performance” argument applies to the OP’s case. Her kid likely had a GPA lower than 4.4 at the end of his junior year, which translated into somewhere between top 30% to top 40% of their class at TJ? Unless their letters and/or ECs are spectacular, not getting into an Ivy or T20 is actually not surprising.

LOL. No matter how many people tell you that academic performance is not a ranked system at Ivies, you refuse to believe them. Claim "racism" and move on. ACADEMICS IS A QUALIFIER it is not the determining factor. Listen to the Yale podcast. Listen to the Darmouth Podcast. Listen to the Columbia AO interview. They all say the same thing. Academics and test scores demonstrate you can do the work, after you are qualified you need to have a lot more. The qualifier is ROUGHLY an SAT of 1450 and a GPA (with max rigor) of 3.7ish. Yale, Dartmouth and Columbia all said the same thing, practically verbatim. And no, it isn't about keeping Asians out, or Italians, or Russians. It is about having kids who align with institutional priorities and enhance the community and the long-term standing of the institution.

So, having 100% math robot test takers isn't something they want. They want a certain number of actors/musicians, supreme court litigators, federal judges, olympic gold medalists, NHL superstars, senators, governors, hedge fund managers, high school english teachers, social workers, world bank heads, UN delegates, presidential candidates, novelists, artists, engineers, and tech people. It's just sad to see people tell you how the world is, and you go back to talking about stats stats stats, ranking rankings rankings, discrimination discrimination discrimination, SAT SAT SAT.

It is completely bonkers to me. These parents are ignorant with a chip on their shoulder. Yale isn't the India Institute of Technology. It's not a statistics focused institution, it never has been, and it will never be. If you don't like it, then don't apply there or the other ivies.

I think you’re replying to the wrong post.

The post was long but an appropriate post to the people on this thread insisting that a particular GPA and a particular SAT should gain you admission to a particular school. That's not how it works, which is the gist of this long post.

Understandable that you feel the Ivies should take a kid with low SAT score, as reading comprehension is not your strength. While a very high GPA or SAT score may not get you into a top college, an overall grade away from the top 20-30% at TJ means it’s an uphill battle for getting into an elite college. Also, your 3.7/1450 cutoff is plain wrong. A 3.7 uw GPA might be good at an elite private, but it’s only average in many high schools. A former AO from Yale explicitly said his cutoff for a low SAT is 1520, and he had older colleagues who still gave bonus points to a perfect 1600 score!

You're conflating many posters. In fact, many of us think you are a nasty troll. If being a horrible person here helps you not be a horrible person in real life, I'm happy about that.

So the many of you know each other now? You’re the bitter/angry one who acts like an authority to everyone!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think the “letter quality vs academic performance” argument applies to the OP’s case. Her kid likely had a GPA lower than 4.4 at the end of his junior year, which translated into somewhere between top 30% to top 40% of their class at TJ? Unless their letters and/or ECs are spectacular, not getting into an Ivy or T20 is actually not surprising.

LOL. No matter how many people tell you that academic performance is not a ranked system at Ivies, you refuse to believe them. Claim "racism" and move on. ACADEMICS IS A QUALIFIER it is not the determining factor. Listen to the Yale podcast. Listen to the Darmouth Podcast. Listen to the Columbia AO interview. They all say the same thing. Academics and test scores demonstrate you can do the work, after you are qualified you need to have a lot more. The qualifier is ROUGHLY an SAT of 1450 and a GPA (with max rigor) of 3.7ish. Yale, Dartmouth and Columbia all said the same thing, practically verbatim. And no, it isn't about keeping Asians out, or Italians, or Russians. It is about having kids who align with institutional priorities and enhance the community and the long-term standing of the institution.

So, having 100% math robot test takers isn't something they want. They want a certain number of actors/musicians, supreme court litigators, federal judges, olympic gold medalists, NHL superstars, senators, governors, hedge fund managers, high school english teachers, social workers, world bank heads, UN delegates, presidential candidates, novelists, artists, engineers, and tech people. It's just sad to see people tell you how the world is, and you go back to talking about stats stats stats, ranking rankings rankings, discrimination discrimination discrimination, SAT SAT SAT.

It is completely bonkers to me. These parents are ignorant with a chip on their shoulder. Yale isn't the India Institute of Technology. It's not a statistics focused institution, it never has been, and it will never be. If you don't like it, then don't apply there or the other ivies.

I think you’re replying to the wrong post.

The post was long but an appropriate post to the people on this thread insisting that a particular GPA and a particular SAT should gain you admission to a particular school. That's not how it works, which is the gist of this long post.

Understandable that you feel the Ivies should take a kid with low SAT score, as reading comprehension is not your strength. While a very high GPA or SAT score may not get you into a top college, an overall grade away from the top 20-30% at TJ means it’s an uphill battle for getting into an elite college. Also, your 3.7/1450 cutoff is plain wrong. A 3.7 uw GPA might be good at an elite private, but it’s only average in many high schools. A former AO from Yale explicitly said his cutoff for a low SAT is 1520, and he had older colleagues who still gave bonus points to a perfect 1600 score!

You're conflating many posters. In fact, many of us think you are a nasty troll. If being a horrible person here helps you not be a horrible person in real life, I'm happy about that.

So the many of you know each other now? You’re the bitter/angry one who acts like an authority to everyone!

^^ and that is a different poster than the earlier one who called you out for calling people racist and idiots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still not able to comprehend that with a mid-year GPA from TJ 4.4X, SAT close to 1600, very good ECs, my child got rejected from all Ivies applied, waitlisted in a few T20 schools mostly private and UVA. We are trying to understand what went wrong. Really bothering us for the last couple of months how this can happen with this profile. Was GPA too low?. Did rigor matter at all?. They take the hardest courses but kids from other schools get into T20 schools with less grade or rigor.

You would have been 100x better off attending a lower resource school. I am not sure why TJ parents haven't grasped this yet?

It's always a balance. Bright students between 14-18 still need a peer group and good teachers to really succeed. Dropping some brainiac into the worst high school in East St. Louis isn't doing them any favors, both in life and for college admissions.

That being said, the TJ catchment area encompasses some perfectly good non-magnet public schools. So choices are being made. At the T20 level, you are always competing against classmates for those spots. And you have to distinguish yourself in some way. But I'm surprised this student was waitlisted at UVA. What are they doing in Charlottesville? I know they need to take students from all over the state and not just NOVA, but c'mon. A 4.4 and and a near 1600 from TJ? Really?

The most conspicuous college admissions penalty from TJ is at UVA.

Bc they can’t admit half the school. This is not news.

Of course they can.

But they don’t want to. It might mean less students from a rural part of the state.
TJ is not an institutional priority.

[Anonymous]

OP: Did your kid just get off the UVA waitlist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think the “letter quality vs academic performance” argument applies to the OP’s case. Her kid likely had a GPA lower than 4.4 at the end of his junior year, which translated into somewhere between top 30% to top 40% of their class at TJ? Unless their letters and/or ECs are spectacular, not getting into an Ivy or T20 is actually not surprising.

LOL. No matter how many people tell you that academic performance is not a ranked system at Ivies, you refuse to believe them. Claim "racism" and move on. ACADEMICS IS A QUALIFIER it is not the determining factor. Listen to the Yale podcast. Listen to the Darmouth Podcast. Listen to the Columbia AO interview. They all say the same thing. Academics and test scores demonstrate you can do the work, after you are qualified you need to have a lot more. The qualifier is ROUGHLY an SAT of 1450 and a GPA (with max rigor) of 3.7ish. Yale, Dartmouth and Columbia all said the same thing, practically verbatim. And no, it isn't about keeping Asians out, or Italians, or Russians. It is about having kids who align with institutional priorities and enhance the community and the long-term standing of the institution.

So, having 100% math robot test takers isn't something they want. They want a certain number of actors/musicians, supreme court litigators, federal judges, olympic gold medalists, NHL superstars, senators, governors, hedge fund managers, high school english teachers, social workers, world bank heads, UN delegates, presidential candidates, novelists, artists, engineers, and tech people. It's just sad to see people tell you how the world is, and you go back to talking about stats stats stats, ranking rankings rankings, discrimination discrimination discrimination, SAT SAT SAT.

It is completely bonkers to me. These parents are ignorant with a chip on their shoulder. Yale isn't the India Institute of Technology. It's not a statistics focused institution, it never has been, and it will never be. If you don't like it, then don't apply there or the other ivies.

I think you’re replying to the wrong post.

The post was long but an appropriate post to the people on this thread insisting that a particular GPA and a particular SAT should gain you admission to a particular school. That's not how it works, which is the gist of this long post.

Understandable that you feel the Ivies should take a kid with low SAT score, as reading comprehension is not your strength. While a very high GPA or SAT score may not get you into a top college, an overall grade away from the top 20-30% at TJ means it’s an uphill battle for getting into an elite college. Also, your 3.7/1450 cutoff is plain wrong. A 3.7 uw GPA might be good at an elite private, but it’s only average in many high schools. A former AO from Yale explicitly said his cutoff for a low SAT is 1520, and he had older colleagues who still gave bonus points to a perfect 1600 score!

You're conflating many posters. In fact, many of us think you are a nasty troll. If being a horrible person here helps you not be a horrible person in real life, I'm happy about that.

What did they say that was horrible and nasty?