Harvard isn't some lottery that just pays out. It's a school. If you have to work after school and didn't have time to study for an exam, maybe you should go to

Harvard isn't some lottery that just pays out. It's a school. If you have to work after school and didn't have time to study for an exam, maybe you should go to a less competitive school. If you're not prepared enough, getting into a very challenging school isn't good. Its like I don't know how to read because I was taking care of my dying mother but now I want to get into a PhD program for literature. The PhD program wouldnt be doing me any favors by letting me in. Instead i would be frustrated, waste a lot of time and money and drop out eventually I agree that there is likely no difference in performance between a 1500 and 1600 SAT so a lottery is reasonable. Although I will say it's pretty strongly correlated even at the extremes. But why should a school solely focus on maximizing gpa? It should minimize failure but choosing between a student who will get a 3.5 or a 3.75 is pointless https://zeescorrelationstudy.weebly.com/ https://zeescorrelationstudy.weebly.com/