Direct Admit list for D26

Junior daughter - 3.97uw/4.2w; PLTW- biomedical sciences track, will graduate with close to 2 years of AP/DE credits. Will have also completed DE Bio, Chem, AP Physics or AP Chem and 2 years of dual enrollment math thru Calc 2.

Competitive gymnast for 9+ years (will not continue in college,) yearlong medical research program with nationally known ortho medical research institute, paid tutor thru local outreach organization, will obtain CNA senior year, plans to obtain nurse shadowing experience this summer as well as hospital volunteering. BUT - despite test prep will end up with around 1300-1400 SAT.

She wants a large D1 school experience prefers warm but flexible. Dream schools would be SDSU, U of AZ, ASU, UTK, FAU. Are there any target schools for her stats? Seems like all direct admit programs that fit her parameters are reaches.

If you read this far in my long post, THANK YOU!!!

SDSU won’t consider the test.

I know nursing is competitive but FAU seems reasonable as they want a minimum 3.6 and 1200.

Maybe add Marshall - a smaller FAU.

WVU may not be warm but has the rest and you meet the minimum standards.

Here’s the other thing. I love DA but if you are DA in a major and can’t hack it, you’re going to swap out. If you’re not DA but you meet the on going requirements, you’ll progress.

DA is better but there are other paths.

Best of luck.

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You might look thru some direct admit nursing threads, like this one:

You can see many more nursing threads here:

Your daughter has a great profile, she’ll be competitive at many schools.

I know you know, but direct admit schools tend to be highly competitive, even at schools that overall have high admit rates, like FAU. It is hard to categorize these schools in reach/target/likely because they tend to not publish admit rates or their number of slots. The average stats of admitted students are often far higher than the minimums they post.

Schools that might meet some of her parameters (since she’s flex on weather I’ll add cold weather schools) that may be targets for her:

U New Mexico
Loyola Chicago
Marquette
U St. Thomas
SLU

Is she considering non-direct admit options at all? That would open up schools like Auburn, Alabama, U Kentucky, and more.

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She will apply to some non-directs as back ups so some of the schools you mentioned would be on the table.

She will also include Pitt and WVU. We have strong connections with medical school/hospital at WVU. Except for weather, it would be a perfect fit.

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Direct admission nursing programs usually have progression / weed-out requirements including a GPA requirement which varies from low 2.something to 3.5 or so.

Non-direct admission nursing programs usually have competitive secondary admission, and most do not specify how high a GPA one has to have to be competitive (3.9 or 4.0 is not unheard of). A few do have automatic-by-GPA secondary admission, which is functionally equivalent to a direct admission program where that GPA is the weed-out GPA.

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I just attended FAU admit students program. They have a totally different criteria than general admission. They received 1000 applications for fall 2025 and accepted 90-100 students. Cast your net wide!

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She could try for Clemson in SC. It’s a direct admit program. My daughter applied for it without test scores (I’m unsure if they require them for next year or not). It would meet the D1 ra ra sports atmosphere but it is in a more rural location.

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