I understand that, however WHAT are the chances of making it to Harvard being from a WHITE blue collar family? I don't play sports, so I can't make the school any money being a collegiate athlete and boosting ticket sales, etc. It's all about money.... I sat down with a Princeton admissions person once with my IB counselor and they explained all of this to me, however she said that students are typically picked upon their FAFSA b/c they won't have to give X amount of money to so many people.... greedy greedy system.
You can make it in on good GPA, good test scores, strong personal statements and strong LORs. Schools aren't so discriminatory that they would rule you out based on you being white; there is no 'quota' at most schools. Hell, one of UCLA's recent entering classes was only 2.7% black with only a 15 something % acceptance rate of black applicants.
There's no auto-reject button because you were born [blank] (whatever that might be). There is also no auto-accept button either ... you make it happen with your own blood, sweat, and tears... that's what I've learned over the course of my higher education lifetime. Sure, there have been times in the past when I feel slightly neglected that some scholarships are off limits to me because I'm not a/an 'URM'. I've learned to just work hard and not let that political blathering get in the way of my performance. There are many corporate scholarships out there based strictly on performance and not how/where you were born. There are scholarships out there for first gen college students.
Harvard isn't exactly known for their athletics.. and the sports they do enjoy aren't really west coast sports. Fencing, sailing, crew, lacrosse, etc. Preppy east coast ivy league stuff. You don't need to be a crazy HS athlete to join those, my long time friend, neighbor, and teammate was part of their crew team for 3 or 4 years. She wasn't recruited by anyone for her athletics; she was accepted strictly on the strength of her academic history and application.
As for the FAFSA issue. What she said was true. The financial aid office use your FAFSA EFC calculations to determine how much money to pull from 'need-based' grants and endowment funds to meet your needs.
Sorry my example was a bit off what I'm trying to say is many schools disregard IB credit for whatever reason. So kids who spent 4 yrs doing these programs aren't receiving the same benefit for taking the tests... yet IB is supposed to be "international level" so you'ld think b/c international standards are SO high they'd be accepted. 😕
I'm sorry to hear that. I would also be annoyed and confused if I learned that AP credits weren't accepted anywhere.
👎mad: (retake the classes anyways, the experience is worth it!).
And to go back along the lines of the OP's question... University X at 3.5 is probably looked upon more favorbly than Cal at 3.0. The difference between a 3.5 GPA and a 3.0 GPA is, on a 128 unit degree program, a 64 grade points difference. That's 12.5% of the total grade points you could possibly earn, a fairly significant value... on average 8 grade points lower per semester over the period of four years. To put this into perspective, in an equivalant exchange the Cal student would earn roughly 2 C's for every 2 of University X's B's or 2 B's for every 2 A's for every semester in a four year span. Strictly GPA-wise, I believe the X numbers trump the Cal numbers. Name/prestige probably does carry some weight between equal candidates but loses its relevancy when discrepencies in GPAs are this large.
