Alright, so if you guys could help me get an idea of how my situation is right now, I would really appreciate it.
I’m 17, going into senior year of high school, and I have done literally nothing to get into a college. I haven’t looked at any schools, done any tours, or even thought about it at all. Suddenly now I want to go to college though.
The other problem is that I am SO average for admissions. I have:
3.3 GPA
21 ACT score
NO AP classes and like two honors classes
NO extracurricular activities or sports
NO references, I mean I don’t know anyone at my school pretty much.
So is it too late, and would a college even pick me? What can I do to help my chances?
PS If it matters, I want to go to college and then enlist to become a Navy SEAL after, or wait on college for a while and enlist in Marines and become a Raider.
Thanks for your help!
You could probably go to some really basic university like the University of North Alabama, California State University Fullerton, etc. Or yo could go to community college and transfer after two years.
You can go to a community college and hope to transfer once you’ve completed your 2 years.
Is your 3.3 unweighted? Did you study prior to taking the ACT?
With a 3.3 GPA (whether weighted or not) and no ECs, and no APs then you can pretty much forget about Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and the Ivy League. There are probably 40 or 50 other universities in the US to forget about. However, there are thousands of universities and colleges in the US, and you can probably get into the vast majority of them. Unweighted 3.3 is actually pretty good.
First of all, if you didn’t study for the ACT, then you should do some studying for it over the summer and retake, probably in September (registration deadline is August 4 according to Google, you should double-check this or just register early). Preparation courses and tutoring help quite a bit. There are also books that you can study. Our local town community center offers preparation classes and yours probably does also.
You should be able to do a few college tours over the summer. Start with universities in your state that are not too far from your house (so that looking won’t require a long trip) walk around and see what you think. You should be able to arrange tours, although not all universities give tours over the summer (some do).
For any particularly university or college, you can find out on-line what the average GPA and average SAT or ACT score is for incoming students. Usually this is posted as the 25th and 75th percentile, although sometimes you will find the 50th percentile. You are probably best off if you look for schools where your GPA puts you at or ahead of the 25th percentile. You can google “university of ACT GPA” and find out what scores are typical of incoming students. Just for comparison I did this for the number 2 public state university in Massachusetts (since I live in New England, and MA is the biggest state here with the most in-state universities), and found an average incoming GPA of 3.29, and a 25th percentile for ACT of 23. Thus your ACT is slightly low, but with a bit of study and retaking it you can probably get it up two points. Your GPA is right on the average for their incoming students. Thus if you happened to live in Massachusetts then U.Mass Lowell would be a pretty solid match for your stats, and it is a pretty good university. Plenty of students do very well there. Somewhere such as Framingham State would be a safety.
Given that Massachusetts only has a bit over 2% of the population of the US, you probably live somewhere else. However, you can do the same thing with public universities in your state and find out how your GPA and ACT compare with other students.
The next thing that you should do is to try to improve your GPA for senior year in high school. The two main reasons for doing this are: (i) To get in the habit of studying hard before you arrive at university (university will be more difficult than high school); and (ii) Because some of what you learn in university is going to depend upon what you learned in high school. Thus a significant portion of the extra that you learn by working hard for a year of high school will help you the following year. In the unlikely event that you don’t get into a university that you like, you can also take a gap year and apply again a year later. If you do this, then your senior year grades will be the most recent grades that they are looking at.
Think about what you might want to major in. Most students change their mind after starting university (the first two years largely consists of taking introductory courses in several areas), but having some ideas will help.
Finally, you need to think about the financial aspects of university. This can be quite expensive. The best bargains are usually the in-state public universities in whatever state you live in. You should run the NPC (Net Price Calculator) for whatever universities you are considering, then check with your parents to see whether then are okay with the result. Just google "net price calculator university of " and you will find this.
Good luck with this. You are not too late, but should start thinking about it seriously.
3.3 if unweighted is pretty good.
What state do you live in?
What’s your senior schedule?
Can you register for the August SAT and September act, and prepare thoroughly for those? Use Khan academy and any book in your town’ library. “Act for the bad test taker” also helps students in the 17-23 range improve 
There are 3,700 universities in the US. Right now, 3,500 to 3,600 remain accessible. People on this website know a lot of them and will guide you so that you have a shot at a 4-year college.