My GPA Is Being Weighed Down From Freshman Year, Am I Still Okay For My College Choices? [IN resident, 3.28 GPA, 1320 PSAT, <$80k]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Guidelines

  • Please check back to answer questions.
  • Please do not share identifying information.
  • Please do not include your race.

Demographics

  • US Citizen
  • Indiana Resident
  • Public High School Junior
  • Varsity Lacrosse Starter, Former Starting Pitcher for Baseball

Cost Constraints / Budget

  • Relatively Affordable, Nothing over 80k a Year

Intended Major(s)
Criminal Justice/Pre-Law Track
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
3.2 GPA, 1320 PSAT, 4 AP World History, 3 AP US History

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.28
  • Weighted HS GPA: 3.48
  • College GPA: (for transfer applicants)
  • Class Rank: N/A
  • ACT/SAT Scores: N/A

List your HS coursework

(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)

  • English: AP Literature, Honors English 9 and 10
  • Math: Currently Taking Algebra 2
  • Science: Taken All Required Courses (Chemistry and Biology)
  • History and social studies: AP World History, AP US History, Currently Taking AP Gov
  • Language other than English: Honors French 2, Currently Taking Spanish 2
  • Visual or performing arts: N/A
  • Other academic courses: Weight Training, Drawing and Art Classes, Currently Taking Oceanography and Zoology.

College Coursework (Transfer Applicants)
(Include college courses taken while in high school if not included above.)

  • General education course work: N/A
  • Major preparation course work: N/A

Awards

Extracurriculars
Varsity Lacrosse (1 Year), Varsity Baseball (2 Years), Baseball Team Manager (2 Years), Food Drive Volunteer (4 Years), Church Volunteer (6 Years), JPGA Golf (10+ Years), Local Job (1 Year)

Essays/LORs/Other
Intend to Ask Teachers Concerning My Major (AP Gov, Criminal Justice, Etc:) For LORs

Schools
Indiana University (1st Choice), Holy Cross College, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Wabash College, West Point (Extreme Reach)

If a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below; also, for colleges that admit by major or division, consider that in chance estimate.

  • Assured (100% chance of admission and affordability): N/A
  • Extremely Likely: N/A
  • Likely: N/A
  • Toss-up: N/A
  • Lower Probability: N/A
  • Low Probability: N/A
    (Not Too Sure About Scholarships Yet, I Would Know More Next Year)
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Are you planning to take the SAT or ACT?

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Yes, I am planning on taking both next semester!

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Sorry I forgot to clarify some things!

  1. I am a white male from a Christian household.
  2. I am a legacy student from IU, my grandfather has a masters in finance from there.
  3. I intend to take both the SAT and ACT next semester.
  4. I am a first semester Junior in high school.
    Thank You!
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Can you tell us your unweighted GPA separately for each year of high school?

Generally speaking your freshman year of high school is going to be less important than your sophomore and junior years. Universities will look at your individual grades and also at the trend through your high school years. They will not just look at the overall GPA. An uptrend will help you quite a bit.

There are some universities (the various Universities of California and any university in Canada come to mind) that will not even consider your freshman year grades. They recompute your GPA based on more recent years. However, for nearly any university, and probably any university at all, your more recent years will be more important. Strong sophomore and junior years of high school will make the point that you are ready to do well in university.

How important your senior year will be is going to depend upon what universities you apply to. I have known some people with shaky freshman and sophomore years of high school but with a strong junior year who had a few universities ask for midterm grades senior year, and then admit them based on strong junior and mid-term senior year grades. However, some universities might do this and some might not, and I am not personally familiar with IU.

Regardless, pulling up your grades from now on is very likely to help you quite a bit.

And I know a few people who started off way worse than a 3.2, at some point got their act together, and ended up being very successful (with degrees from well known and very good universities).

To answer your question, I think that you are still okay, but doing very well this year and next will help you a lot.

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I don’t think Holy Cross and Rutgers are going to work out but you can always apply to Holy Cross as a reach.

Other excellent Catholic colleges would be SeattleU, St Mary’s of California, Gonzaga, Fordham, DePaul, Loyola Maryland…

Why Rutgers? It’s an odd choice from so far OOS. Nothing Wrong with it for NJ applicants (though the split campus may make them consider TCNJ and Rowan instead or in addition to it) but from Indiana I’m wondering your rationale. (Name? Location? Athletics?..?)

Iowa and Iowa State would be likely.
uCincinnati and Bowling Green State, would be possibilities - and Miami Ohio a reachable reach. UMaine would be a safety.

From a curriculum standpoint, to increase rigor next year, consider Precalculus and AP Stats, French3 or Spanish 3, AP Lang, Physics, and another AP history/social science.

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Thank you for the recommendations! My grandmother actually was a professor at DePaul and it has always been somewhere Ive thought about. As for why I am choosing Rutgers to apply to, I have always loved the campus there as I used to travel to New Jersey for sports. I also have a friend who goes there currently and is a Criminal Justice major and he has influenced my decision very much. I have looked into schools such as uCincy and Miami Ohio and their campuses really never appealed to me and they’re not really prepared for my major. Specifically Cincinnati, I would have to travel between two campuses and that really did turn me the other way. Thank you again for the recommendations, it has really helped!

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IU potentially but maybe not 100%.

Wabash - likely but not assured.

If all else fails, you can always apply to a Kansas or Mizzou or Ohio U.

Good luck.

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The OP might want to look – if he hasn’t already – at the Common Data Sets for each of the schools on his list; specifically Sections C7 (academic and non-academic admissions factors for each school) and Sections C9-C11 (objective criteria – GPA and standardized test scores – for recently matriculated students.

Regarding West Point, does the OP plan on getting a congressional recommendation for an appointment?

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Make sure you have 2 sure things (universities you’re sure to get into, like, and can afford, such as Wabash, Iowa or Iowa State), ~5 universities where your odds are 50-50 (like DePaul, St Thomas in MN, Loyola Maryland,…) and then as many reaches as you wish (such as Holy Cross or Fordham).
Note that Criminal Justice, unlike Criminology, is a great major if you want to join a police academy but isn’t seen as comparable to a “traditional” major by Law Schools - they prefer something like History, Philosophy, Economics, or Psychology, Data Science, Applied Math, Quantitative Economics… Subjects that require a LOTS of reading, writing, analyzing, manipulating concepts.

Rutgers is known for its split campus (ie., you have to take a bus to go to different parts of NB depending on your classes).

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THIS!

You still have 3 semesters of grades to help offset your lower freshman year. If you can earn 3 more semesters of good grades you could find yourself applying to college with a GPA closer to 3.5 unweighted. And that, along with a consistent positive trend in your grades, would put you in a much stronger position with more good options.

Buckle down - good luck!

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