What steps can you take to get accepted despite a low GPA? [Show Summary]

Linda Abraham outlines five steps for mitigating the impact of a low GPA so that you can move forward with a successful graduate school application.

Linda Abraham, Founder and CEO of Accepted shares her insights into overcoming low stats [Show Notes]

Welcome to the 458th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me. Before we dive into our main topic for today, I want to invite you to take advantage of Accepted's library of free downloadable reports, several of which discuss how to apply successfully with low stats. Check them all out today. 

Now to today's topic. I was recently doing some end-of-the-year/beginning-of-the-year review and noticed that one of our most popular podcasts is “Five A's For Your Low GPA”, which is now going to be replaced by today's podcast. I decided to address this topic again, because it is a recurring issue and because I'd like to address some factors that have changed since the initial podcast in 2016 which is almost six years ago. 

We're going to go through the five A's as I call them, or the five steps for dealing with your low GPA. You really have to do all of them if you have a below-average GPA, because you want to mitigate its impact or ideally eliminate its impact as schools evaluate your application. So to deal with a GPA that is causing you concern, I'm going to give you the following five steps.

The five A's are:

* Assess your GPA (is it really low?)* Analyze the causes of your low GPA* Address those causes* Add context to the low GPA* Avoid mistakes in addressing the GPA

Now let's go through each topic in more depth.

1. Assess your GPA (is it really low?) [2:41]

I define a low GPA as one that is 0.3 or more below your target school's average GPA for matriculating students on the US 4.0 scale. This information can usually be found in posted class profiles, or sometimes on US news rankings, or on Accepted's Med Selectivity Index, Law Selectivity Index, and MBA Selectivity Index. An alternative definition, which also works in my book, is a GPA that is below your target school's 75th or 80th percentile if you have that information. Usually, the information I started with is a little bit easier to come by, but if you have this, it works also.

Now let's take a look at these definitions and discuss what's good and bad about them because there's good and bad in both of them. First, the good. What I like about these definitions is that they are relative to the schools you are targeting. So if you have a 3.3 GPA and the average GPA for the entering class at your target school is a 3.3, you do not have a low GPA. You don't have anything to mitigate. You don't have anything to address unless possibly there's a downward trend in your grades. However, don't tune out yet. If you have that same 3.3 and the schools that you're aiming for have an average GPA for accepted students of 3.7 or above, as do several medical schools,