I am graduating next year and have really gotten serious about college searching. I live in CA and would very much prefer to go to a southern CA school with a major in business or markeing. I have a 3.5 gpa as of last semester, play city league soccer, and volunteer. I don’t believe that I will make it into an amazing school like USC or UCLA because my 3.5 has some C’s along with it, don’t play high school sports like a lot of people and I would have a hard time paying for a high-end school. I’ve been looking at CSUN for a while but was wondering what other CSU’s would fit me best. ANy opinions?
CSUs use a really simple method to evaluate applicants to most majors.
The most important screen is the completion of the A-G requirements with a C or better. this link is for the UC list but, they are identical.
http://www.ucop.edu/doorways/
They combine your CSU GPA (10-11 college prep only and drop +/-) and your SAT or ACT to create an index. A 3.5 CSU GPA and 1100/1600 SAT would give you an index of 3900. Then they stack all applicants and draw a line when the seats are full. Applicants from a school’s local area are held to a lower threshold. Read about the index there:
https://secure.csumentor.edu/planning/high_school/elig_index_calculator.asp
Notice how ECs and sports aren’t factored in at all.
Note some CSUs use a modified index for STEM majors.
Also note, Cal Poly SLO uses a very different method.
So - to see where you stand, you need to calculate your CSU Index. Eliminating PE and other non a-g courses tends to bring most people’s GPA down a bit.
For most majors, a 4100 SAT index will get you into SDSU. 3800 will do the trick for CSULB. CP Pomona, around 3600, Fullerton probably 3700, Northridge and San Marcos 3500.
If you complete the required courses, do well on your standardized tests, you will be eligible lots of good SoCal schools. Not enough info to provide any guidance on UCs.
For Biz in So Cal, I’d rank the CSUs this way, SDSU, CSULB, Fullerton, Pomona, Northridge, San Marcos.