Below average student looking for colleges

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>I'm starting in August as a junior in high school. I never really gave college much thought until a few weeks ago.</p>

<p>Anyway, I live in Puerto Rico, and I'm thinking of going to college in the USA. There are a few problems...</p>

<p>First, I have a GPA of 2.50. I used to have a 4.0 until eight grade, where I got lazy and started skipping classes and stopped studying. I've realized the mistake I've made, and now starting August I'm going to study to get As on all tests, and I'm going to buy the SAT study guide from colleboard.com :D</p>

<p>Extracurricular activities: My crappy school has no clubs, and the onl extracurricular activities there are sports teams and choir practise. I'm taking choir practise starting junior year, I hate sports. Outside the school I've been playing guitar for 3 years and I'm pretty good (by far the best at my school). I play anything, especially metal (big metal fan). I've also been working out for 8 months. No community service. I speak Spanish and English fluently. I've been working on a farm for 3 years.</p>

<p>I know this topic is pretty useless without a SAT/ACT score, but I was just wondering if you guys could reccomend me some good colleges in the USA that aren't very hard to get into, and have a great social life. Also it would be good if the college is near a big city. Social life is extremely important for me, I love partying and meeting people :D I know its still a bit early but I want to start looking into colleges.</p>

<p>Any help would be greatly appreciated</p>

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<p>study on your SATs...also, what year are you going into in high school?some big city/not too crazy hard to get into schools...University of Houston, University of Texas - San Antonio, I'm from Texas so that's all I can really think of, besides the fact that I haven't looked at many colleges that are easier to get into. Hope that helps though.</p>

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<p>try to get in more ec's. Church related, community related, charity stuff. School isn't the only place- expand!
Many Ky. schools are less expensive and really need diversity you could provide. Grants perhaps? As I've said in many previous posts it doesn't take a Harvard diploma to get a successful fulfilling life. And isn't that what college is all about?
So, work on your spelling, show improvement in grades, scores, activities, that will Really help, to show you are no longer just coasting.
Good luck!</p>

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<p>here in Baltimore there are some that aren't so hard to get into. and they give good minority scholarships.</p>

<p>Morgan University-in Baltimore City
Coppin State University-close to the city
University of Maryland, Eastern Shore- not close to the city but close to the ocean</p>

<p>Look them up on Collegeboard's college search
Also I think that St. Johns University in Queens, NY is not that tough to get into. It's a good school and is located in a big city</p>

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<p>To let him know, the first two (Morgan State and Coppin State) are historically black institutions. They each have about 80-95% black, so if diversity is what you are looking for.... those may not be the choices. I don't know anything about UMES though.</p>

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<p>oh was he looking for diversity srry but use the PrincetonReviews.com college match it'll help you start</p>

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<p>Oh he didn't say, I was just pointing it out.</p>

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<p>adelphi (near nyc)
depaul (chicago)
pace (nyc)
virginia commonwealth u (richmond va)
u new mexico (albuquerque)
u cincinnatti
portland state (portland ore)
san diego state
u houston
louisville
UNLV
U southern florida (tampa)
marymount manhattan (nyc)</p>

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<p>Hey listen wat about University of Missouri? It has a guaranteed admission program. So if you pull of a semi descent SAT score u get in. The school is about an hour away from St. Louis (very big city). located in Columbia, missouri which is a nice college town. Im cosnidering USF myself and well im from Tampa so let me tell u... USF is a commuter school. so if you wanna go there be aware only 50% of 1st year students even live on campus and most are from In-state. A school i would consider is Georgia State University. Its in Atlanta. Although it is considered commuter it will probabbly change with the new state of the art residence halls they are building which would now add up to 3 total. overall its a nice school. Check <a href="http://www.campusdirt.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.campusdirt.com&lt;/a> to see ranking of big social life schools!</p>

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<p>sorry but i dont think you have any chance at a college here in california, unless you went to a community college. I dont know what huskem is thinking, sdsu is one of the hardest state schools to get into, average gpa is above 3.5 and sat is above 1100. Even low csu's will be a reach</p>

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<p>i apologize beachbum- it was on the list of 3rd tier usnews unis when i was making suggestions. i wasnt aware about the selectivity. thanks for the clarification!</p>

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<p>Wow thanks for the replies guys. You've all been very helpful :)</p>

<p>I used collegeboard's college matchmaker and got a few results, the ones I'm most interested in are Kent State University and Arizona State University. KSU has a 94% acceptance rate and ASU 91%, so hopefully I shoudn't have trouble now that I'm going to study my ass off. </p>

<p>I'm also checking out the other colleges mentioned in this topic right now :D</p>

<p>ASU really caught my attention. Its next to Phoenix, and around 5 hours to Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and the university has over 50,000 students. That's what I've read on a few sites anyway. Plus, like I said before, it has a 91% acceptance rate, which is always a plus for me :) Anyone have any thoughts on ASU?</p>

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<p>no need to apologize huskem, i think sdsu is only in third tier because they are part of the csu system which means that they are not supposed to grant doctorate degrees. but they do grant those degrees so they are ranked among national universities, unlike all the other csu's which are ranked locally, such as cal poly slo. but sdsu only has 16 doctorate degrees, and thats a pretty low number; so that means that they are put lower on the list then say uc berkeley which grants alot more. But over 52,000 people apply there with only a 40% acceptence rate, so yeah its selective.</p>

<p>I'd say get a very high sat score and you might have a chance at ASU, i think average gpa there is 3.3. that 2.5 is going to hurt you alot, and for being out of state too</p>

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<p>Beach_Bum, what kind of score should I aim for in the SAT? I'm not worried about the SAT at all, I'm going to get the SAT study guide from collegeboard.com soon and I'm study it until I have it pretty much memorized. And I don't know about schools in USA, but here in PR I can raise my GPA a lot if I get all As the next two years of high school. I'm very determined, so I'll work the hardest I can to get my grades up.</p>

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<p>Arizona State had the largest student population of any university in the country last year (I think Ohio State was second and Penn State was third).</p>

<p>It's in Tempe, Arizona, which is less than 5 miles southeast of Phoenix. The weather is wonderful all year around, except in summer, when it's about 105 to 115 degrees. But since you won't be there in summer if you're going for school--that works out perfectly. </p>

<p>Phoenix is the fastest growing major city in the United States. I think it grew by something like 3.3% last year. (That's a growth of 50,000 people in a town of 1.5 million.) It's a one hour plane flight from Los Angeles, and a half-hour's flight from Las Vegas.</p>

<p>The school is well-known for certain sciences as well as having a good liberal-arts curriculum. While it's not as big a party school as the Univ of Arizona, it still is known for a bit of partying due to its location in the "sun belt" region, and its proximity to the resorts of Parker, Arizona and Las Vegas. (Check out "Spring Break on the Colorado River" on google or yahoo for more details.)</p>

<p>Average high school GPA of students going to Arizona State is 3.34, with SAT scores of 547 (critical reading)/559 (math)/590 (writing--estimated).</p>

<p>Out-of-state tuition is a reasonable $13,000 per year, with room and board running about another $6,700 a year and books running around $850 a year.</p>

<p>Caucasians make up 70% of the students, Hispanics 13%, Asian Americans 6%, African Americans 5%, Native Americans, 2%, and International 4%.
Male to female ratio is right around 48% to 52% and about 10% of the students are in fraternities and sororities.</p>

<p>Pretty good choice--though you need to get those As in the junior year to have a good shot at getting in. Good luck!</p>

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<p>I thought UMinnesota-Twin Cities was the largest?</p>

<p>EDIT: NM, not even close. I heard that somewhere. UCF is the biggest school i believe.</p>

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<p>Try Chowan University in North Carolina. My cousin had a 2.5 GPA with no extra curricular activities and she got in and got a 5k a year renewable scholarship. It is a small school of about 1000 students. It has a lot of endowment money to give out.</p>

<p>Website <a href="http://www.chowan.edu%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.chowan.edu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>jPoD,
Here's the wikipedia article on largest enrollment (by college) in the US.</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_US_universities_by_enrollment%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_US_universities_by_enrollment&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Notice that Arizona State is 1st (which is what I said), Minnesota 2nd, and Ohio State third as of the latest stats (which is Fall 2005). University of Central Florida (UCF) ranks 7th. Penn State fell out of the top 10 this year.</p>

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<p>Can I take AP classes online? Anyone know any website for taking AP classes? My school has no Ap classes at all. No EC's either. Not even around town. No community service, nothing. I've looked everywhere, but there's nothing. If I point that out in the essay, will they understand?</p>

<p>thoeting, thanks for the link to Chowan University. Always good to have a few backup places :)</p>

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<p>Volke,</p>

<p>I suggest you post your questions on APs under the SAT/ACT section of this website, which has a subsection entitled AP preparation. Maybe someone over there will know the answer to your question.</p>