There is a tremendous diversity in colleges regarding levels of competition all over the United States. Most top schools require the students applying to maintain GPAs in the 3.5-4.0 range, but the schools with the highest academic rankings may not be a practical option for a lot of people when taking their high school scores into account. What are some of the best American schools that represent students who have the same GPA as you? The scores in parentheses represent the average scores of students who have gotten accepted and the SAT scores are out of the old SAT score of 2400.

 

The overall national GPA average for high school students is actually a 3.0. Some colleges on the East Coast that accept students averaging somewhere between a 2.0-3.0 include:

• Fairleigh Dickinson University College at Florham (3.1) -New Jersey
  • Acceptance rate: 80.8%
  • SAT average: 1505
• Saint Thomas University (3.03) – Florida
  • Acceptance rate: 79%
  • SAT average: 1080
• Mitchell College (2.68) – Connecticut
  • Acceptance rate: 95%
  • SAT average: 1010

 

What if you’re in the middle of a 3.0 and a 4.0? Here is a list of schools that accept students with GPAs ranging from 3.3-3.6:

• Louisiana Tech University (3.43) – Louisiana
  • Acceptance rate: 65%
  • SAT average: 1130
• Hawaii Pacific University (3.39) – Hawaii
  • Acceptance rate: 62%
  • SAT average: 1497
• Pfeiffer University (3.5) -North Carolina
  • Acceptance rate: 47%
  • SAT average: 1050

 

Some of the best schools in the US that are not Ivy League but still hold strongly competitive rankings will accept GPAs just under 4.0s, in the 3.5-3.8 range.

• New York University (NYU) (3.71) – New York
  • Acceptance rate: 32%
  • SAT average: 2015
• Rice University (3.89) – Texas
  • Acceptance rate: 16.7%
  • SAT average: 2180
• University of Notre Dame (3.887) – Indiana
  • Acceptance rate: 22.3%
  • SAT average: 2130
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (3.924) – Massachusetts  
  • Acceptance rate: 8.2%
  • SAT average: 2220

 

And what about Ivy Leagues? Despite that they are extremely competitive, selective, and thousands of people are turned down every year, their average GPAs of accepted students are not always 4.0s.

• Brown University (3.885) – Rhode Island
  • Acceptance rate: 8.5%
  • SAT average: 2155
• Columbia University (3.84) – New York
  • Acceptance rate: 7%
  • SAT average: 2215

• Cornell University (3.862) – New York
  • Acceptance rate: 14.9%
  • SAT average: 2120
• Dartmouth College (3.88) – New Hampshire
  • Acceptance rate: 10.3%
  • SAT average: 2190
• Harvard University (3.83) – Massachusetts
  • Acceptance rate: 6%
  • SAT average: 2260
• Princeton University (3.89) – New Jersey
  • Acceptance rate: 7%
  • SAT average: 2250
• University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) (3.894) – Pennsylvania
  • Acceptance rate: 9.9%
  • SAT average: 2185
• Yale (3.866) – Connecticut
  • Acceptance rate: 6.5%
  • SAT average: 2255

 

Read more:

 

http://blog.prepscholar.com/whats-the-average-high-school-gpa

 

http://collegeapps.about.com/b/2014/05/22/gpa-sat-and-act-data-for-the-ivy-league.htm

 

http://colleges.startclass.com/stories/5390/colleges-highest-average-gpa#2-Cornell-University