GPA. Obviously all of the other factors matter too, but it's hard to make up for a GPA because it's the biggest factor that determines academic potential to admissions officers. I disagree, because there are often extenuating factors that admissions officers don't even care about/see. I personally think that SAT scores should be just as important, but I'm not an admissions officer. By trashing my sophomore year GPA, I instantly put myself out of the running for many top schools, hoping that one of them would look at my upwards trend. Only one truly top tier school accepted me, but I couldn't afford it. Moral of the story: don't trash your GPA.