3.6 GPA to at least a 4.0? Is it possible?

Answered

GPAs follow the same rounding rules as regular numbers, so anything at a 3.65 or above would be considered a 3.7 by colleges. You're not quite there right now, but you're close enough that slightly better grades as a junior would get you there.

Likewise, you would need to raise your GPA to a 3.95 to bring it to a 4.0, or a 3.75 to bring it to a 3.8. As for how easy that is to do, remember, a GPA is an average, which means that the closer you get to an upper or lower boundary (4.0 or 0.0, respectively), the harder it will be to move it more in that direction. I'm going to do the math for you, but skip to the end if you want the short answer.

To give an example, say you have six Bs and four As. GPA works by assigning a number to a letter grade, and then averaging those numbers—an A is a 4.0 (an A+ is actually a 4.3 which is the actual upper bound on a 4.0 scale, but only some high schools offer those), B+ is a 3.3, a B is a 3.0, a C is a 2.0, etc.

So six Bs and 4 As = 6(3.0)+4(4.0) divided by 10 = 3.4 GPA.

If I then add 3 As to that, we now have 6(3.0)+7(4.0) divided by 13 = 3.53—so we went up by .130.

If I add 3 more As to that, then it's 6(3.0)+10(4.0) divided by 16 = 3.625—so we only went up by .095 even though we added the same number of As.

Because we're getting closer to a 4.0, that means that you need progressively better and better grades to get big jumps in GPA.

So as for your case, I can actually do this math for you—it's pretty simple. If you have a 3.648 cumulative GPA for your freshman and sophomore year, and you want at least a 3.75, then that means your junior year is going to be 1/3rd of that final GPA. So (2/3) x 3.648 + (1/3)(X) = 3.75. X here is the GPA you need in junior year.

If we just do that algebra, then X = 3.96. That means you need at least a 3.96 GPA in your junior year to have a 3.75 overall—which means that that's about the highest you could bring your GPA up to, unless your school lets you get A+s (because a 3.96 is basically straight As).

So it would be possible for you to get a 3.7 or, maybe, a 3.8. It's not mathematically possible for you to get anything higher than that on a 4.0 scale.

Now for the actual college advice—a 3.7 or 3.8 are definitely fine for you to apply to schools like NYU, or even Ivies. A 3.7 is usually what I've seen to be the cutoff from working with students. But make sure you have strong safeties as well, and aim for a diverse array of schools—not just big private universities like NYU.