Hello I’m a high school senior in Santa Clara California. I am applying to some private schools and some CSU’s through cal state apply. I am not sure what CSU’s I should apply to. I am not submitting SAT/ACT scores. My family is low income. Throughout high school I worked to contribute toward my family’s income. I also had many responsibilities outside of school such as taking care of a grandparent after school and before school. My weighted gpa is a 3.06 and my unweighted is a 2.94. My gpa is not the greatest and does not show my ability or potential. I thinking of applying to Fullerton state, San Diego state, Cal Poly Pomona,Chico state university, Sonoma state, and San Jose state. Through the common application I am applying to University of San Francisco, Saint Mary’s college of California, pacific university and university of the pacific. Could I get into any of these schools? Should I think about community college? Do you have any suggestions for other schools I can apply to? I have also already been accepted to Northern Arizona University. My major is going to be Exercise Science.
I would say that other than San Jose state or Chico if local and Sonoma State, the rest of the CSU’s are Reach schools. Unfortunately the CSU admissions will heavily depend upon your academics and there is really no where to explain your family circumstances. GPA is king.
SDSU average admit GPA was 3.97, CSU Fullerton was 3.68, Cal Poly Pomona was 3.83 for 2019, Chico was 3.45. Here the averages I posted so you can target schools in line with your GPA.
I would add a couple of non-impacted campuses like San Francisco state, Channel Islands, Dominguez Hills for example.
For the privates. Saint Marys and Pacific University could be options but are they affordable? Each school has a Net price calculator to determine your costs. Your stats will not warrant merit aid so your need aid will most likely not cover all your expenses especially at the private schools.
Community college looks like a better option where you can show the colleges your potential and then transfer into a choice university. Best of luck.
Thank you so much, I am still going to be applying to some of the less competitive CSU’s and some privates. I am thinking more about of going to community college now. For the CSU’s I was able to explain a lot of my family background with the EOP program questions. I’m eligible and I’m first generation and low income. Thankfully I was able to explain a lot of things in there. Unfortunately some of the less competitive CSU’s do not have my major. Again thank you this helped a lot.
Thank you for clarifying that you are applying for EOP. As an EOP applicant, you can defintely elaborate on your situation. Unfortunately EOP is not a guarantee at any of the campuses. You could get EOP at one campus but not the others.
Best of luck again and I am sure you will succeed no matter where you end up.
Humboldt, SF and perhaps Sac are likely admits and worth aps
Good luck
Calculate your weighted-capped GPA from
https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
The weighted-capped GPA is what CSUs will use. CSUs will not use SAT/ACT for admission this year.
At SJSU, all majors are impacted, but kinesiology and kinesiology for secondary school teaching historically have not been heavily impacted majors. The following describes how SJSU will do admission. It also links to historical thresholds, but they are not directly comparable because they used a formula of GPA * 800 + SAT.
Note that you will get a boost for graduating high school in Santa Clara County, and/or if you have a CSU application fee waiver, and/or your parents do not have bachelor’s degrees.
For the other nearby CSUs:
Santa Clara County is also in the local admission area of CSUEB. See the following for CSUEB admission criteria:
https://www.csueastbay.edu/admissions/admission-requirements/freshmen-requirements/ca-resident-eligibility.html
SFSU is not impacted for the campus, but kinesiology is an impacted major. See the following:
https://future.sfsu.edu/admissions/impaction
CSUMB is impacted for the campus and for the kinesiology major. See the following:
https://csumb.edu/admissions/impaction
Also, each college should have a Net Price Calculator on its web site to give you an estimate of what the net price after financial aid grants may be like for you. You may want to check this on each college (particularly the private ones that could be very expensive if they do not give enough financial aid grants) before applying.