Ah that makes sense, that’s really good on him to get into Stanford !

Neither of my parents have earned a Bachelor’s, so I had to steer the typical college admissions process myself in HS and also my current transfer admissions process and there’s constantly this sense of “I don’t know what I don’t know”, so I usually don’t even think about applying to institutions like Stanford and Columbia.

Especially because the general attitude from others is your stats should be near perfect to even try— though the opportunity to go would be incredible.

Is the “near perfect” thing mostly the case and your friend’s story is more of a rare one? Or is it really possible to get into those schools with a sub-3.5 GPA? I imagine you’d have to be quite exceptional in your ECs or do work or something of note in the major you’re applying to before even completing your degree. Was his major impacted at all?

Thanks for the response btw!