My kids had GPAs in this range. We live in California, here are some schools that would be good for kids in this GPA range. My kids applied to several of them Most of them are out west, so would be good to check out if you’re on the west coast:
Western Washington
Northern Arizona
Colorado State
Whittier College
Dominican University of California
Linfield
Willamette
Oregon State
Washington State
Seattle University
St. Mary’s College
California Lutheran
University of Idaho
College of Idaho
University of Montana
Montana State
Carroll College
Western Colorado
Southern Oregon
Boise State
University of Nevada-Reno
Ft Lewis College
University of Wyoming
and more
My S also applied to Eckerd in Florida which is a great LAC and got in. He didn’t attend but it’s good for kids in this GPA range
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Hi gang, my youngest will be graduating HS in a year and a half, so I thought I better get her excited for the whole college application thing, which also includes the SAT. I was active in the HS Class of 2019 parent boards, hi to those that I knew from then. I took a long deserved break!
I have one older daughter who is a sophomore at Arizona State U, so I am doing this college app thing one last time. We live in Texas, but are from the Los Angeles area originally. My D and I did some YouTube college visits today, so we’re kind of excited now. I told her to go study her SAT math book, and here I am.
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Hi, @jellybean5 – nice to see you again!
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LSU would definitely have the big football scene. I think it would be a good fit for kids in this GPA range. I don’t know much about their out of state stats and requirements…
Some big schools that might work for him are:
Indiana
Maine
New Hampshire
Vermont
Missouri
Ohio State
Miami
Oklahoma
Minnesota
Iowa
All of these are big state schools and would probably be good fits for him with his GPA. Not all of them are super known for their football teams, but most are. I don’t know what their SAT requirements are though…
With the 3.0-3.4 GPA range, test scores, ECs and Letters of Recommendation might be the best way to boost college admission chances. From a personal perspective, I do not think taking more difficult classes (Honors and/or AP) in the senior year is a great idea. It might show rigor, but unless the student gets straight As, it will unlikely boost the overall GPA. Plus some schools like UC campuses focus on grades 10-11 and if you apply ED/EA, schools will mostly make their decisions on grades 9-11. If you think your child’s GPA will go up after their senior year first term then suggest applying RD rather than EA as they better GPA will show better.
My two kids are also introverted and did not have a clear idea on what they wanted to major in or where to study. Kind of tough for a 16-17 year old kid to figure out…
Not sure if you have preference now on school size or location, but here’s an extensive list of schools with low GPA requirements which might be helpful. CC blocked the website URL as it’s from a competing service so I could not paste the URL. However if you do a web search for schools with low gpa requirements, there’s a very comprehensive list sorted by each state.
Outside of the Cal State and UCs, for a California student, Arizona State and University of Arizona might be good options if your son is looking for a football school without snow. However I think the closest water is the Colorado River areas which are a huge spring break magnet.
University of Florida and Miami University might be worth a look. Both are getting real competitive as they rise in national rankings but probably not much of an adjustment for a Cali Kid. Don’t forget to look at WUE (Western Undergraduate Exchange) colleges where many state schools reciprocate in-state tuition for out-of-state students. Most are not near warm water but there might be one or two worth looking into…
ASU (Arizona State) Is a great option for a no snow school, they have an 85% acceptance rate. My oldest (D19) goes there, she is in the Barrett Honor program, which is a large-ish honors program within, but it’s still definitely ASU. It is crazy hot there when I move my girl in August but she loves it there. ASU used to have a bad rep, but their president has changed this in the last 17 years. I have an article which helped me feel better about it. I myself am from So Cal and graduated college in 1990 and always heard of ASU as being a party school, lol. Also there are a lot of kids from California there.
Link: How Michael Crow took ASU from a party school to the nation’s ‘most innovative’ university
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Thanks for posting the article! Very interesting.
My DD has ASU Barrett in her top 3 right now.
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I’m not a parent but a student of the class of 2022. Currently have a 3.4 UW GPA with honors and AP classes. Although, I am taking a regular class this year but it is an elective. I couldn’t do the dual credit course for some reason, even though I really wanted to. I am worried this will negatively affect my application. I am taking 5 honors and 1 AP this year. Looking at this forum makes me feel better about my low stats since I find more average kids—like myself—getting into nice schools. I couldn’t find a forum for students with lower stats, so I decided to look here. I live in Delaware, and I am looking at smaller state schools and private colleges. In addition, I attend one of the best public high schools in the state; my school is known for its academics and athletics. Sometimes, I stress about whether or not I can get into a good college. I wish I could have done better my freshman year since it’s bringing down my overall GPA. I have had an upward trend since then, though. My test scores are above average but not great. My EC’s aren’t great either. I’m an introvert so I haven’t joined any clubs at school. I’m hoping this forum will help me gain advice for the college application process.
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I’m sorry for whatever society has done to make young people consider themselves a low-stat kid with a 3.4 UW taking honors and AP and that you need to go to a certain level college. What do you consider a “nice school”?
I am not sure if it was this thread where I posted or another, but I have known and know of plenty of people who didn’t attend top undergraduate schools and are highly successful. Some later went on to “higher ranked” graduate schools, but others didn’t, and some never went to college (started businesses based on a trade skill). Ultimately, it’s often the soft skills (work ethic, communication skills, personality, character) that matter more in the long run.
I would recommend strengthening your ECs. It doesn’t have to be at school, but certainly can be. It can be a job paid or volunteer, community service, etc. Pick something that matters to you. My D21 is an introvert but got involved in ECs that she enjoys (some at school, some not) and found they helped her grow as a person and come out of her shell. It also shows a student has time management skills. I was same way so know taking that first step isn’t easy, but it gets easier the more you do it.
Good luck!
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I agree with what @GetCollege19 said. But I also want to add that college admissions representatives know which high schools are highly competitive like yours. For the colleges on your list, email your admissions reps and ask questions, don’t feel badly about your achievements. Best of luck!
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My school is ranked around #10-12/40 in the state. But it’s one of the better public schools and wealthiest districts. So, not as great as I initially thought but still a good high school. Definitely not underfunded, though. However, my school does have some kids from poorer backgrounds so it’s not all rich kids. I feel like I have the opportunities to take advanced classes to help me prepare for college. My school has around 15-20 APs and many honors classes. 5-6 of those are available to juniors. I take all honors offered, but am taking 2-3 APs overall in HS along with a college class. 1 junior year then 1-2 senior year along with a college class. For the most part, I’m trying to challenge myself to the best of my ability. I know I wouldn’t be able to handle taking many APs in one year. People from my school tend to go to smaller liberal arts colleges and state schools with >60% acceptance rates. I have been encouraged by my GC to look at such schools. Most athletes go on to play sports at the D3 level, but some even go on to play D1. My school doesn’t have many people applying for Ivy Leagues or T20s, but many people apply to really good schools and succeed there. For example, UDel is a good school and is sometimes known as a public ivy; people from my school attend there since it’s our state’s flagship school.
Jump starting this thread again! Hope everyone is hanging in there! My D has been having a rough year with virtual school. We had the option to send her back f2f unfortunately by the time we realized how bad things had gotten we missed the deadline to move her for 2nd semester, then it just seemed silly to move her for the final quarter when they wouldn’t guarantee she could keep her classes and her whole schedule would be rearranged completely. I did tell her she’s going back in the fall no matter what.
Meanwhile she’s been studying for the in school SAT coming up on the 24th. I don’t have high expectations based on her practice tests and am probably going to have her try ACT after this but this one is free so 🤷 Seems like test optional will still be popular this year as well so I’m just trying not to sweat it.
In exciting news this week was spring break and she finally got her driver’s license and we did some virtual college visits. It was interesting to see how different schools approached the virtual visit concept.
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@1822mom – congrats on the driver’s license! Such a great milestone! My S needs more driving hours before he starts behind-the-wheel in April, so we are doing a college visit tour in two weeks (for Spring Break) and he can get some hours done. 
S is solidly in this GPA range now (unfortunately) but what can you do now? (Not much.) He’s going to take another crack at the SAT in June and a single try at the ACT in July.
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What schools are y’all going to visit? I’m so anxious to get my S on some campuses to compare to the only campus his visited (his sister’s school)!
I hear you, @packacards ! S22 toured some schools when D19 was in the college search, so he has already seen some of our in-state options.
We’re focusing on NC for this trip, so we’re revisiting JMU and VT as on-the-way drive bys to App State, UNC Charlotte, side trip to UofSC, and UNC Wilmington. We’ve already visited Elon and UNCG, as well as NC State. (We’re doing self-guided tours.)
This is likely the last bit of touring we can do before applications are assembled and submitted. He plans to take good notes.
Yeah the visit thing is hard. D22 has been on campuses when we were touring for D18 but none of those schools are relevant to her search. We moved from CA to TX right after D18 graduated, a move that came as a surprise in Dec of her senior year so most of our touring was CA and west coast schools. She ended up at a TX school she applied to last minute that hadn’t even been on the radar before. All that to say D22’s experience is very different. I don’t really expect to get her on a campus until summer, but mostly we’ll do a bunch of trips during the school year. I’m expecting to form her list based on virtual visits and may have her apply more broadly so she can choose after visiting (assuming acceptance 
).
She’s looking mostly at liberal arts colleges that offer creative writing as a major and give merit aid to this gpa group. So there isn’t a huge pool we’re swimming in. 
Over spring break we did virtual visits to Knox, UTulsa, Eckerd, and Sweet Briar. Knox came away the front runner and had a lot of content for the virtual visitor. She went in liking the school she came away feeling really really good about it (I think love is not a word she would ever use for a college 
). We still have more to see but I felt like that was a good sample start for her and the first time she willingly sat down and looked at anything college related!
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Our college counselor for D19 had her check out Knox because of their strong writing program! That could be a great fit for your kid!
@1822mom , is she open to an all women’s school? If so see if she might be interested in Hollins in Roanoke VA. My dd22 (A-B, or A-B-C student) is going to a writing camp there this summer. She is very focused on Creative Writing as her major. Roanoke College (which is actually in the next door neighbor town of Salem) also has a good writing program. Both should be in the target range for B students.
@OrangeFish I’ll wave as you go by! I ended up really liking UNC-G more than I thought I would when we did a walkabout in the fall. App is great too and we love Boone. UNC-W did not do it for us, but we were there in the summer and there were a bunch of senior citizens on campus and no students and it was very hot. Grandma lives in Charlotte, but UNC-C has not made it on her list at all. Not sure why. It seems to be booming lately. She is also not interested in Elon at all (too close to home?) or ECU. (I can’t see her at ECU anyway.) Guilford has been going through some financial struggles, but seems to have a plan now. I still like it, but I think it is going to be too small and too close for dd22. She is still really interested in going to school in the UK, but I think Hollins is her top domestic pick and then maybe UNC-G (obvs also in Greensboro, but bigger). I think she can do bigger and close or smaller and farther away, but maybe not small and close? She’s not interested in looking at other schools in the US right now. We’ll see how it plays out. Hope we can get through this school year intact. She is totally ready to leave for college right now. Ready to be done done done with online high school and high school in general.
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