[CTcard]

I find talking about weighted GPAs to be absurd, every school does it differently (mine didn't at all, I've heard of places going as high as 6.0 for certain courses), so you never know what you're talking about.

This is quite true, and why Stanford pays no attention to what high schools' say is a student's GPA, they recalculate on their own based upon transcript.

Anyway, perhaps something like a 3.65 would be a disaster now, but I thought that it depends on what else you're doing to make up for it, and that admissions cares more about trend lines, ie I didn't have the strongest 4-year GPA, but my junior/senior year GPAs were probably pretty close to a 4.0 with the most difficult slate I could take at my school, so I think the slightly worse results in earlier years mattered less. No idea if that's still the case (or really if it was even true then).

I think it has been a long time since a Stanford-calculated 3.65 has been very competitive. There's always been room for a significant story.
In the past, Stanford had only considered grades 10-12 and threw out courses they do not consider "academic", so it is possible that Stanford considered your GPA to be higher than did your high school.

Stanford does still publish the common data set. Mostly the GPA information is too coarse to be of much use for this sort of discussion, but perhaps not for 3.65.
For the most recent report (entering class of 2019 I think), Stanford reports that 95.4% of entering freshmen had a GPA of 4.0, 3.6% had a GPA of 3.75 to 3.99, 0.9% had a GPA of 3.5 to 3.74, and 0.1% had a GPA of 3.25 to 3.49. None were lower than that.
It's not entirely clear if Stanford is reporting what the high school says the GPA is or Stanford's own calculation, though there are some words that might indicate the former.
Stanford Common Data Set 2019-20

The oldest Common Data Set easily available is from 2008-09. The categories were slightly different then, but Stanford reported 87.2% of entering frosh had GPA over 3.75, 9.1% had GPA from 3.5 to 3.74, 2.9% had GPA from 3.25 to 3.49, 0.6% had GPA from 3.0 to 3.24, 0.1% had GPA from 2.5 to 2.99, and 0.1% had GPA from 2.0 to 2.49.
[That last one is curious.]
So, either high school grade inflation has been continuing apace, or Stanford has driven up the bar on GPA. Probably both.
Stanford Common Data Set 2008-09

[CTcard]

I find talking about weighted GPAs to be absurd, every school does it differently (mine didn't at all, I've heard of places going as high as 6.0 for certain courses), so you never know what you're talking about.

This is quite true, and why Stanford pays no attention to what high schools' say is a student's GPA, they recalculate on their own based upon transcript.

Anyway, perhaps something like a 3.65 would be a disaster now, but I thought that it depends on what else you're doing to make up for it, and that admissions cares more about trend lines, ie I didn't have the strongest 4-year GPA, but my junior/senior year GPAs were probably pretty close to a 4.0 with the most difficult slate I could take at my school, so I think the slightly worse results in earlier years mattered less. No idea if that's still the case (or really if it was even true then).

I think it has been a long time since a Stanford-calculated 3.65 has been very competitive. There's always been room for a significant story.
In the past, Stanford had only considered grades 10-12 and threw out courses they do not consider "academic", so it is possible that Stanford considered your GPA to be higher than did your high school.

Stanford does still publish the common data set. Mostly the GPA information is too coarse to be of much use for this sort of discussion, but perhaps not for 3.65.
For the most recent report (entering class of 2019 I think), Stanford reports that 95.4% of entering freshmen had a GPA of 4.0, 3.6% had a GPA of 3.75 to 3.99, 0.9% had a GPA of 3.5 to 3.74, and 0.1% had a GPA of 3.25 to 3.49. None were lower than that.
It's not entirely clear if Stanford is reporting what the high school says the GPA is or Stanford's own calculation, though there are some words that might indicate the former.
Stanford Common Data Set 2019-20

The oldest Common Data Set easily available is from 2008-09. The categories were slightly different then, but Stanford reported 87.2% of entering frosh had GPA over 3.75, 9.1% had GPA from 3.5 to 3.74, 2.9% had GPA from 3.25 to 3.49, 0.6% had GPA from 3.0 to 3.24, 0.1% had GPA from 2.5 to 2.99, and 0.1% had GPA from 2.0 to 2.49.
[That last one is curious.]
So, either high school grade inflation has been continuing apace, or Stanford has driven up the bar on GPA. Probably both.
Stanford Common Data Set 2008-09