Well, for starters. I have a hard time believing a 3.5 GPA wouldn’t be in the top 90% of engineering students. It’s not high school and not all students are CC perfect.
Secondly, I don’t know any school that has a hard cutoff at 3.6 GPA to progress. Maybe they’re out there, but I doubt my kid would have gotten into them in the first place. Madison SAYS 3.5 technical GPA for a couple majors, but that is guaranteed progression, I know for a fact that they go below that although I cannot find the stats right now. BTW, they direct admit. It’s progressing that requires you meet the GPA.
MN does not direct admit and requires a 3.2 GPA for guaranteed admission. In the past three years they denied about 10% into Biomedical Engineering (their most in demand major), but I have the stats for that. 24% accepted had a GPA between 2.8 and 3.2 so I think it’s safe to assume those denied due to space were quite a bit below the 3.2 automatic.
http://www.advising.cse.umn.edu/cgi-bin/courses/noauth/apply-major-statistics
Obviously, this is a deal breaker for you which is fine. We all have our own criteria for school choice. But no, it doesn’t bother me if a school isn’t direct admit.