If my UWGPA shows a upwards trend, even if my UWGPA average is a low 3.85 will ivy leagues accept me?

Answered

Hi @joker, I hope to clarify a few wrong assumptions you have about UWGPA and Ivys. First of all, there is no UWGPA below say a 3.5 that excludes puts you in a high risk category for being rejected. Whether you get accepted into an Ivy depends on a very complicated scoring rubric that covers sometimes over 100, sometimes 200 data points.

Some things that are not properly addressed on any college blog/vlog/portal are the following:

-Private Vs. Public HS. If you attend an elite college prep school (either boarding or day), many of these schools have a huge advantage over those attending public high school. The advantage can be as large as a factor of 25 times. I attended 2 HSs. The 1st public school I attended had a 1.3% matriculation rate for Ivys. My 2nd Private boarding school had a 22% matriculation rate and a 30% admissions rate into the Ivys.

-ALDC vs non-ALDC. If you are a recruited athlete, legacy, developement candiates ($$$$ donor parents), or fac-brat (child of college employee), you have a huge advantage over non ALDCs. Sometimes this bump is 50%. I know that my private school there were many recruited athletes and legacies that were admitted into Ivys with UWGPAs less than 90 on a a 100 point scale, and less than 1400 SAT, and 30 ACT. These were mostly White students, not brown or BIPOC students or Asian students.

-BIPOC/Low Income/Marginalized vs over-represented demographic. If you are a black, LatinA, indigenous and/or come from a low income, first gen, or marginalized background, then the barrier for entry is set at a lower bar for your to cross into the IVYs. There are countless youtube videos that forensically prove this point. Sometimes these students can gain admittance with lower GPAs, lower test scores or no test scores and lack of course rigor. Why is this? Its the Ivys way of creating a level playing field for those who didn't have the benefit of living a great zip code with great schools and teachers and resources. Or rewarding kids who had to overcome various hardships that show immense drive and potential to succeed.

That being said, if you are not a beneficiary of any of these categories, then you have to work incredibly hard for the next 3 years to make the cut. Why? Because on average Ivys reject 95% of their applicants across the board. Harvard rejects 97% and Cornell 93%. These are still incredible probabilities to overcome.

All Ivys use an academic scoring card rating from 1-5 or 1-6. Harvard uses a 1-6 with 1 being the best and I think Dartmouth uses a 1-5 with 5 being the best. Each school will evaluate your UWGPA, WGPA, course rigors, AP or IB test scores, SAT/ACT scores, additional coursework like college classes, and something called Intellectual Vitality or Intellectual curiosity rating. So you will be evaluated against your peers from your zip code/school district first, and then as you application moves upstream to a regional decision, you will be evaluated against students in your state, and then by region before your application gets to committee where it is upvoted, deferred/waitlisted, or rejected. Sometimes your application is read by 1 reader, sometimes 2 readers before it goes to committee.

Regardless of your goal to attend an Ivy, make a practical list of other non-Ivy colleges to apply to as well. As you know these days even colleges that were 2nd or 3rd drawer colleges a few cycles ago are now having sub 10% admit rates. For instance Tulane and NorthEastern. Why are these schools 7% admit rates when better schools like NYU, USC and Emory (avg) are 12%.

Remember that many admits to Ivys have perfect grades and over 50% of those with perfect grades still get rejected, so having an upward trend sometimes is not a compelling enough of an argument if someone has out performed you from the same demographic.

Good luck.

A 3.85 gpa will be just fine for ivy leagues to accept you in terms of uw gpa. However, you can't hypothetically get a 4.0 uw gpa once you go below it. But an upward trend is great but don't put too much hope on it to make a huge impact during admissions review.