Top Colleges with 3.72 GPA?

College Search & Lists
21

Check out the Colleges that Change Lives book or the website of the same name - ctcl.org There you will find many options where you would be in the upper 25% of the student population and would qualify for merit aid. It sounds like you will also require need-based aid, so check out the NPCs to see what they say. There are many options in warmer climates.

I would take a look at Muhlenberg (match), Skidmore (probable), and Kenyon (a reasonable reach)

Apply to at least one in-state public option that offers enough aid to be affordable to your family.

After you have identified at least two safeties (both financial and admissions) and two solid matches (admission rates of at least 50% and where you fall above the 50% percentile of admitted students), then build your list of reaches.

Good luck! You have a lot going for you. Just make sure you have a back-up plan as college admissions can be unpredictable.

22

All true re Navaince, but the OP first needs to get a sensible list complied. Navaince gives no info about the academics, students, professors, vibe, town, activities, and so in about colleges. A guide book tells you about that stuff.

23

@merc81 I think those temperatures should be negative.

24

Because you live in CT and are out of state for the public colleges you mentioned, I would eliminate those first. As an out of state student, it will be harder to get in and a lot more expensive since publics are not known to give very good aid. One automatic safety that immediately comes to mind is your instate public, UConn. With your stats, I’m positive you can earn some merit money. You may not love the idea, but it’s certainly a good last resort.

From your original list, that leaves Brown, Bowdoin, USC, Pomona, Northwestern, Emory, Tulane, and Colgate. I see that there has been talk of weather, and I would suggest not eliminating any school because of that. This is coming from a kid in California going to a school on the East Coast not exactly known for it’s warmth. In fact, all the schools I applied to had pretty harsh winters.

I can’t tell you which of those to pick, but I would like to advocate for some schools. I’ve heard great things about Bowdoin and a friend who visited and applied said she fell in love with the school and was probably one of the best colleges she visited. I visited Colgate and fell in love with the school. It’s a great place to be, and I consider it one of the more lively LACs. All these schools have solid reputations, so these are just personal blurbs.

Some safeties and matches with your stats include: DePauw, Bucknell, Kenyon, Wake Forest, George Washington, Denison. Some of these are not sure fire safeties, but they are matches you have a great chance at. As long as you have two safeties (both financially and admissions wise), I do not see any problem.

A potential list I would apply to if I had your stats that has a good mix with all the schools mentioned: Brown, Bowdoin, Colgate, Emory, USC, Bucknell, Wake Forest, Denison, UConn, and possibly one more instate public. Maybe keep Tulane or add GW if you like it enough. It has the mix you want. These schools largely vary in size, location, and weather, so you can keep having your options open. 10 schools may or may not be too much for your preferences. This list is still probably considered top heavy, but there are a great deal of matches that you should have at least a 50/50 chance at.

25

@usualhopeful : Temperatures are positive, in Fahrenheit. Source: Sperling’s.

26

There are some great matches out there where you have the potential to get excellent scholarships. They might not have quite the national name recognition/prestige of Bowdoin, Colgate or Pomona, but these schools are highly valued by employers and grad school adcoms, they have highly accomplished alumni, and they are way more affordable for your stats than those on your list. Try these schools in the Midwest & South: Earlham, DePauw, Wooster, Denison, Centre, Sewanee, Trinity Univ, Rollins, Beloit, Lawrence Univ, Rhodes and others from the CTCL list.

27

Then have you discussed college with your GC? I would expect they can give realistic advice.

Also cross UCB (any UC, for that matter) off your list. They do not offer a single cent in financial aid to OOS students starting this next academic year.

28

Any college with below 30% acceptance rate should not be considered a match. That eliminates Bucknell, Kenyon and Wake Forest.

29

Regarding matches, while I agree that certain tippy top schools can never be considered matches, I don’t think that extends to all schools in the vicinity of 30% accept rate. A match does not mean a sure thing or even a likely thing. It means that your stats are strong enough that that part of your application would make you a serious contender for the school. An ACT of 32, which this OP has, puts him 2-3 pts above avg for some of the schools on the list, and that can be considered a match (not a lock). Of course, there still is a need for safeties. But a lot of schools get apps with stats far below avg and that makes up a disproportionate amount of the 70% rejects. The OP is not in that pool.

30

I agree with many of the schools in #25: Sewanee, Earlham, Centre. For my 2cents, I would check out schools that give amazing financial aid first, then look for pretty decent writing programs. Also, because I’ve known highly qualified students who’ve been awarded in state tuition at OOS schools, it’s sometimes worth tossing your hat into the ring of an OOS school if that school is truly a place that you’d love to be. You need to tell yourself that you won’t go if it’s too expensive, but they might just toss you something wonderful to lure you in. To that end, I’d add University of Iowa to your mix. It invented the writers workshop. Because of lousy financial aid, I would avoid NYU and the New School. Also, when you google lists of great writing schools, don’t simply take their word for it. Dig a little deeper. Sometimes those lists contain schools that are famous because of writers who attended 50-100 years ago. See if you can find schools where writing is What They Do, places where no matter what you study, even economics and chemistry, you will also learn to write. These include Vassar, Hamilton, Wesleyan, Smith (with the 5-college consortium) etc. Look at the faculty of the schools and the course listings. That should help you decide.

31

I would respectfully disagree on the assertion that those schools can’t be considered matches. For all three schools, I believe the middle 50% of ACT scores are 28-32. Also, a 3.72 UW at a well respected school certainly will not hurt him either. Matches are generally schools where you fall in the middle of the stats. As long as he has the extracurriculars, essays, and other things to back it up, I think he has a decent chance (50/50) at all three. I do, however, acknowledge that none of them are sure guarantees. That is why they are not safeties.

For perspective, Colgate and Bowdoin (even more) would be a step up in selectivity and be considered reaches, but OP would still be a competitive applicant. I would urge him to keep these schools because they will meet full need and give him a decent package. Brown would even be a bigger step up and will be a big reach, as it is for everyone. Even then his stats will not count him out.

32

@Lindagaf To each their own interpretation, but I disagree on any school with a 30% or below acceptance rate being a reach regardless of the students stats and profile. All of my S’s safeties were in the 30-something acceptance rate, he had matches up to about 15% acceptance rate and his reaches were 5-15%. And he got into all the matches (with one waitlist exception). Some of the high matches were subjective on being match versus reach but it worked out in the end. It’s definitely relative to the student. In my S’s case, the Naviance stats made it pretty clear those 30-something % schools were near sure things for him. He applied to 3 (planned on 2 but one made it easy to add) just in case he got unlucky at one. By design the “matches” were 50/50. Someone from a competitive school, high stats, strong in relation to their peers and with Naviance data showing most people from their school with their profile get in, has every reason to consider a school with a 20-30% acceptance rate a match.

33

Naviance is useful, but you can’t tell who is hooked, so it can be misleading. Most of the Stanford admits from our school, for example, have been some kind of URM. i just happen to know this, but if you looked at our dots for the past 5 years or so, of course you can’t tell that those are the admits. So you really can’t just count on Naviance. Also, I would NOT start your search with where others from your school have applied or attended. Start with your interests, a copy of Fiske, maybe visits to a few different types of schools in your area to see what you think about big vs. small, urban vs. rural, etc, and net price calculators for all the schools you are considering.

34

Good for your son @citivas but most people on this thread seem to think OP has a reach-heavy list, and I agree. Emory, Tulane, Colgate and U Mich are all under 30% acceptance rates. There isn’t a single college on this list the OP can be assured of getting in. So your opinion might be correct, but conventional CC wisdom doesn’t seem to back you up.

Our HS has consistently had three or four kids accepted to Tufts. This year, with its lowest acceptance rate ever, only one kid was accepted, and she applied ED and was a semifinalist in a very prestigious national science competition. U Rochester, with a 35% acceptance rate, typically is quite generous with admitting our students, but kids with higher stats than my D, who has pretty high stats, were WLed or denied. This is probably because yield protection is a thing, and the more apps kids toss out to schools, the more these schools are engaging in yield protection. They want to admit students they think will actually attend. So OP, you can listen to Citivas, or you can listen to,the rest of us.

35

But @lindagaf the point being made is about matches. Matches are different than safeties. They are 50/50 not sure things. Sure OP needs some safeties and already has reaches, but there are some matches on the list too. Under your definition it almost seems like there are reaches and safeties and nothing in between. And I mean no disrespect by this, because you have been a generous poster, but I do seem to recall that you listed some competitive schools as matches for your own daughter.

36

A match should not be “fits middle 50”. That is skewed too low due to hooks. Your matches should be those 20-30% schools where you are in the top 25% and your naviance shows kids with similar scores have been admitted recently.

The world has changed dramatically in the last few years, making Naviance hard to use for matches/reaches. Don’t rely on the average for admitted kids. Look at the scatter gram to see how it looks. If all the acceptances are clustered, and your score is similar, that is better than matching the average but the scatter gram shows 2 acceptances far apart, skewing the average. The lie probably had a hook. The higher is probably the true “average”.

37

@wisteria100 Exactly, I do not think this poster has any true matches, as I have said a number of times. My Ds stats are almost identical to this kid, except her SAT was 2240. Her GPA was 3.75. 8 APs, 2 SAT 2s, etc… Her match schools, five of them, had acceptance rates from about 40% to 33%. She was WLed at one match, with a 33% acceptance rate. Her five reaches were all 25% or below. She got into one reach, WLed at two others. She was offered a spot off the WL, at the match school, with merit aid. I would not call a school with an under 30% acceptance rate a match. A match means you should be able to get in, but don’t count on it. This OP can’t count on any of these schools coming through.

38

@Lindagaf I didn’t say anything about the OP’s list not being top heavy. Your comment was that any school with a 30% acceptance rate can’t be a match school. Not reach but match. And from the comment directly following yours it appears I am not the only one who disagrees with that. There are definitely students for whom a school with a 30% acceptance rate ia match. It doesn’t mean they are definitely getting in – even a safety doesn’t guarantee that. But it means they have a very good shot. It’s not like every student equally has only a 30% chance of getting into a school with a 30% acceptance rate.

Hopefully the OP doesn’t put too much weight into ANY of the comments on an anonymous message board of strangers who don’t know the OP or their school and for the most part not admissions professionals. Take all our comments with a grain of salt, please.

@intparent I think we are in agreement for the most part. Naviance isn’t a magic ball that can predict your future. It’s one of many tools, a very good one, but not the be-all, end-all. And like any tool it has to be used correctly to be effective. Of course students shouldn’t base their entire search on stat comparisons to their peers. The usefulness also depends on the school. In my S’s case he had about 4,000 data points. For most of the schools he looked at, this mean there was in excess of 100 data points. Except for a couple specific schools in close proximity to us (where the data is useless because of he high number or connected applicants), in most cases the number of applicants who were legacies, recruited athletes, etc., was relatively small. A quick chat with the GC can confirm that case-by-case. And with the scatter graph it was pretty easy to see where those outliers were and at what point you were in a GPA/score range where the strong majority of applicants were accepted.

39

Then we are disagreeing about definitions. In my definition, whihc you have read, the OP has no true match schools. In your, he/she does. We shall agree to disagree. As I said, my kids stats were a little better than OP, not by much. I would never consider a college with a 25% acceptance rate a Match.

Might be worth noting that the professional private advisor we used is how I came by much of my information.

40

@Lindagaf It does sound a bit snarky actually…I am very well aware that Colgate, Bowdoin, etc. aren’t warm weather schools. I’m from the northeast.I would like to apply to more schools that are warm weather, considering a lot of mine aren’t. I also never just said I was looking at Naviance…obviously I’m not expecting, at all, to get into a school like Brown, which is why I created this post in the first place. I also never stated that Colgate, Emory, UMich, and etc. were safeties. I might apply to some of them because I’m interested in their schools. That being said, I think it’s a bit ignorant to assume that the Naviance acceptances/rejections for my school won’t give me a ballpark indicator of whether or not I should even apply. I never once stated that I am “assuming” to get into any of these schools- I’m not because obviously nothing is ever truly certain. I think I’m allowed to state which schools I feel like I would have a better shot at getting into, like Colgate because I have alumni ties.