Western Schools for the 3.0-3.3 kid

[Shrinkrap]

BUMP! Any updates?

After a 4.0 this semester, and a significant improvement on the June SAT, here is "our" current list

* Cal Lutheran U
* Cal Poly SU San Luis ( the big reach, but his number one choice)
* Cal State Poly U Pom
* Cal SU Monterey Bay
* Chapman U
* Gonzaga U
* Loyola Marymount U
* Point Loma Nazarene
* San Diego SU
* Santa Clara U
* Sonoma SU
* U Calif Santa Cruz
* U Redlands
* U San Diego
* Whittier C
* Willamette U

Still reach heavy, but we are getting there...

[Deziky]

I would highly recommend taking UNM down. I live in New Mexico, and anyone that didn't completely fail high school goes there. I think a 3.0-3.3 kid could do much, much better. (of course, their nursing program is pretty good)

[csleslie51]

Sorry Deziky, same thing could be said by nearby residents of almost all the public universities mentioned on this thread. True, many of these schools accept lower stat kids but they (and higher stat ones who goof off) soon fall by the wayside leaving the more motivated ones. Also check out the honors college there: University Honors Program home

[mom60]

Shrinkrap- I don't know if I have ever seen Point Loma and UC Santa Cruz on the same list.
My son who is going to be a college senior had several of those schools on his final list. He got into several of them and not into a few others. Son also had an upward trend. Just make sure he has all the UC and Cal State requirements completed with no D's.

[calv1n]

Is it my imagination or is CSULB becoming increasingly selective and better regarded? S mentioned it the other day and asked if we could take a drive out to visit because it's NOT the slacker-surfer dude U that we had both mistakenly thought it was. Granted, this was simply assumption based on no facts at all. Does anyone know more about it?

[arabrab]

My big question for any of the Cal State campuses: how likely is it that freshmen can get the courses they need to make significant progress towards graduation requirements. I keep reading horror stories of kids not being able to get into fundamental classes (English, math, econ,...)

[Shrinkrap]

I think CSULB is at LEAST considered popular. the CSU website will say if the school, or certain majors use more selective impacted criteria.


Campuses That Have Higher Standards
https://secure.csumentor.edu/plannin..._standards.asp
Long Beach is listed...


"I don't know if I have ever seen Point Loma and UC Santa Cruz on the same list."

mom60;

Are you referring to stats or campus culture here? He's been in a Point Loma environment for the last 12+ years.... He has no D's; in fact, his problem is primarily that he got 4 C's in core classes in the first semester of sophomore year. Not much less than a B, before or since.

[mom60]

Campus Culture!

[kelliebeff]

To the recent questions regarding CSU Long Beach: for this year, kids from our average public northern cal. high school with 3.0-3.1 range were not accepted. Those with higher gpa's (the ones I know of were much higher) that were accepted received a letter in the mail explicitly stating that they would not be able to graduate in 4 years.

I believe they use different criteria for kids outside the service area. So maybe those same 3.0 or 3.1 local to Long Beach kids would have been accepted.

SJSU, Sonoma and SDSU also have higher requirements for the kids applying outside the service area.

[calv1n]

Of the CSUs, are there any that people know of where freshmen are more likely to get the classes they need? S has visited Sonoma State and will probably apply there. We were wondering if applying to SFSU and CSULB would just be a waste of time and application fees. S's first choice is UC Santa Cruz, but their admissions seem quite erratic, so we wanted a handful of California academic and financial safeties -- but not if it'll take a decade to get a degree from a CSU! Thoughts? BTW, we are also looking at some east coast schools, but that's a conversation for another thread.

[Shrinkrap]

We did a tour of Sonoma state, and they spoke of the bus that takes kids to the CC for classes. They made it sound like a GOOD thing. We also visited Monterey, and for some reason I got the impression this was less of in issue, but I could be wrong.

[mom60]

I think one of the reasons that some students take longer to graduate from a CSU is that they don't come in at a level of taking college writing and math.If you require remedial courses it will add on time. I know many kids in recent years who have graduated or will graduate this coming school year from San Diego State in 4 yrs.

[kelliebeff]

I know of kids at several UC's and CSU's. The Kids at UC's are having a better time getting classes.

At the CSU's it is not the freshman that have difficulty. Freshman are guaranteed their classes. Unfortunately, sophomores have last priority, and I know of a few that had a hard time getting full time status at our local csu last fall.

[arabrab]

I've also been hearing of problems directly from friends, and I've been reading about the problems too. In some cases, kids have lost financial aid because they couldn't get enough courses to meet full-time requirements. I also have a friend with a child at Cal State Northridge who ended up with a very lopsided schedule spring semester (classes very first thing in the morning and then classes at night) because that was all that was available, and she apparently felt lucky to get them.

I wish that they'd more strictly limit the number of students they admit to better ensure that the students that they have already admitted can get the classes needed for graduation.

(Neither of the kids I know needed remedial math or English.)

[norcalifmo]

There are some of the schools on this list that seem to be suffering from a dated reputation. Maybe there are a couple of kids with a 3.2 who got into Cal Poly SLO, Chapman, Long Beach or LMU, but they are rare. They must have great test scores or a great hook.
CSUs are all over the place in terms of selectivity and class availability. Long Beach can easily take seven years, but that still costs less than four years at Chapman.