Good Test Scores, Lackluster GPA.

<p>Hey, so I've been becoming more and more concerned about what I am going to do for college as it gets closer and closer. This is my current situation, as of the end of my Junior Year.</p>

<p>ACT Composite Scores:
1st Test: 30
2nd Test 33</p>

<p>GPA:
Freshman Year: Approx 3.8
Sophmore Year: Approx 3.6
Junior Year: Approx 3.2(I know, I really screwed up)</p>

<p>Course Rigor: Took mainly only Honors and AP classes, excluding some electives as well as gym.</p>

<p>ECs:
Spanish Club
3 Years Math Team(3 Time State Qualifier, if that matters for anything)
1 Year Science Olympiad Team(Regional 1st place and 5th place awards)
3 Years Scholastic Bowl</p>

<p>Volunteer Work:
Volunteered pretty much every other Saturday anywhere from 4-6 hours at Habitat for Humanity</p>

<p>Based on this information, I want to know what my chances are at getting into the following colleges.</p>

<ol>
<li>University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana</li>
<li>Illinois Institute of Technology</li>
<li>Marquette University</li>
<li>Purdue</li>
</ol>

<p>Also, based on my information, are there any good colleges that would accept me that have good out of state tuition or good scholarships I could apply for? Any information is useful. Thanks for any help you can provide, and also, this if my first time posting on these forums, so I don't know if I'm doing all this right. Oh, and if it matters, I'm hoping to major in Computer Engineering, or maybe Computer Science. Still not 100% sure.</p>

<p>After reading other threads, I have determined that these factors may also be important.</p>

<p>Class Rank: I think somewhere in the top 20%, around 300 students, so I’m somewhere under 60.</p>

<p>Gender: Male</p>

<p>Ethnicity: Caucasian</p>

<p>AP Classes Taken/Will Be Taken: AP United States History, AP Calculus AB, AP Chemistry, AP Psychology</p>

<p>You would most likely get into Marquette, the others I’m not very familiar with so I don’t feel comfortable saying whether or not you could get in.</p>

<p>Proclivity, that is very reassuring to hear. Do you know if there are any kinds of scholarships I could look into? My parents are already paying for one child to go through college as we speak, I’d rather not put more of a financial burden on them than is absolutely necessary, and seeing as I have yet to find a job, and do not wish to make enormous student loans, paying for college myself seems out of the picture.</p>

<p>There are a lot of kids from my school who go to Marquette (I live in a suburb of Milwaukee). From what I’ve heard, they seem to be pretty generous with their financial aid.</p>

<p>Ah, I’ve heard similar things, but what I hear is that they are very generous with need based financial aid, something I don’t think I’d very well qualify for, but not as generous with the merit based. I’m also not a Wisconsin Resident so they might give some preference to those who live near Milwaukee. I have a friend in Madison and his highschool I gets some preference I believe for UW Madison.</p>

<p>Yeah my school definitely has plugs with Madison. We had 88 people get accepted to Madison last year.</p>

<p>As for merit based financial aid, I would check on their website and if you don’t find anything on it, email the admissions officer in charge of your region and find out what they have to say about it.</p>

<p>I’m not sure about your specific schools, but your GPA is not awful, especially if it is not weighted. Your EC’s might save you, but remember that colleges look at your cumulative GPA as well as year by year.</p>

<p>The GPAs were all cumulative unfortunately. And yes, there are not weighted. Do many colleges look at weighted?</p>

<p>Well, I can’t figure out how to edit my post, so it looks like I have to double post. Based on my listing of schools, does anyone know if any of those schools have nice merit based financial aid? Outside of the University of Illinois most of those colleges are atleast like $30k a year. </p>

<p>Also, what matters more, weighted or unweighted GPA? What do colleges look at more? Weighted, unweighted, or both?</p>