Do I have a chance at getting into Stanford if my GPA is 3.1 but I have a 1600 SAT and a few international achievements for ECs? Or will I be instantly threw into the bin because of my sub par grades?
As I have explained in the past, admission to Stanford is done in stages. The first stage is to separate the legacies, single-choice-early-action, and recruited athletes from all others. All these applications will be read and a committee will determine whether they are good enough to be Stanford students.
The rest go through a number of hurdles. The first hurdle is the SAT score because it is a national test with a single number. At least a third will be set aside (not tossed into a bin, but assigned a lower priority) solely on the SAT score (remember selecting about 2,000 applicants out of at least 40,000 applications is VERY time consuming, so using the SAT score is efficient). You will probably make it through that hurdle. At this point there are 1,500 slots for 25,000 applicants.
The next hurdle is the GPA. This requires the reviewer to evaluate your transcript. Some schools are tougher than others. Some courses are more difficult. So the GPA as a number is not as comparable as a number as is the SAT score. There is no magic cut off, but I would say you need at least an unweighted GPA of 3.8 to get through this hurdle (this GPA number can be higher or lower depending on the competition). The goal is to set aside 15,000 applicants. (Set aside implies that your application is not given priority, not that it has been rejected, that will take place at the end of the process.)
The third hurdle is your letters of recommendation. There is no magic number here. Any negative information will get you set aside. We are now down to 6–8,000 applicants for 1,500 places.
The next hurdle is evaluating your essay and extra curricular activities. This is VERY time consuming! After this there are about 3,000 applications or so. This is when the « Stanford family » is called in to interview the applicants in every part of the world. All Stanford alums are expected to cooperate. Depending on the review, your application then is reviewed by a committee to determine if you are an appropriate addition to the incoming portfolio of students. Can you play a musical instrument and are you likely to contribute to the infamous band? Walk on to any sports teams? Perform some magic in a laboratory? Etc…
Finally, along with the legacy, single-choice-early-action, and athletic non-rejects, an algorithm is used to determine how many acceptance letters to send out and how many applicants to put on the waitlist.
This is a VERY labor intensive process and it would be great to treat each applicant as a unique individual, but there are an ever increasing number of applicants (there were 42,000 for the class of 2022 with 1900 admits) requiring an ever increasing objectification of applications.
FYI, I was rejected by Stanford and ended up teaching there for 26 years. So, if you are rejected, keep applying at every stage! One of the things Stanford likes is people who don’t quit. Keep trying and some day you might be living or working on the Farm!
✍️ Dm: @ton_adres
✔️ @fulltuition
As I have explained in the past, admission to Stanford is done in stages. The first stage is to separate the legacies, single-choice-early-action, and recruited athletes from all others. All these applications will be read and a committee will determine whether they are good enough to be Stanford students.
The rest go through a number of hurdles. The first hurdle is the SAT score because it is a national test with a single number. At least a third will be set aside (not tossed into a bin, but assigned a lower priority) solely on the SAT score (remember selecting about 2,000 applicants out of at least 40,000 applications is VERY time consuming, so using the SAT score is efficient). You will probably make it through that hurdle. At this point there are 1,500 slots for 25,000 applicants.
The next hurdle is the GPA. This requires the reviewer to evaluate your transcript. Some schools are tougher than others. Some courses are more difficult. So the GPA as a number is not as comparable as a number as is the SAT score. There is no magic cut off, but I would say you need at least an unweighted GPA of 3.8 to get through this hurdle (this GPA number can be higher or lower depending on the competition). The goal is to set aside 15,000 applicants. (Set aside implies that your application is not given priority, not that it has been rejected, that will take place at the end of the process.)
The third hurdle is your letters of recommendation. There is no magic number here. Any negative information will get you set aside. We are now down to 6–8,000 applicants for 1,500 places.
The next hurdle is evaluating your essay and extra curricular activities. This is VERY time consuming! After this there are about 3,000 applications or so. This is when the « Stanford family » is called in to interview the applicants in every part of the world. All Stanford alums are expected to cooperate. Depending on the review, your application then is reviewed by a committee to determine if you are an appropriate addition to the incoming portfolio of students. Can you play a musical instrument and are you likely to contribute to the infamous band? Walk on to any sports teams? Perform some magic in a laboratory? Etc…
Finally, along with the legacy, single-choice-early-action, and athletic non-rejects, an algorithm is used to determine how many acceptance letters to send out and how many applicants to put on the waitlist.
This is a VERY labor intensive process and it would be great to treat each applicant as a unique individual, but there are an ever increasing number of applicants (there were 42,000 for the class of 2022 with 1900 admits) requiring an ever increasing objectification of applications.
FYI, I was rejected by Stanford and ended up teaching there for 26 years. So, if you are rejected, keep applying at every stage! One of the things Stanford likes is people who don’t quit. Keep trying and some day you might be living or working on the Farm!
✍️ Dm: @ton_adres
✔️ @fulltuition