Do you have a 1.8 GPA? Are you wondering whether a 1.8 is good, and what colleges you can get into with a 1.8?
We've written the most detailed guide to your GPA here:
- Find out which colleges you can get into with a 1.8 GPA.
- Learn how you can raise your GPA.
- Learn what you should be doing to maximize your chances of getting into the best colleges.
Quick disclaimer: unlike standardized test scores like SAT/ACT, GPA policies vary from high school to high school and from college to college. Some use weighted GPAs and others use unweighted GPAs. In this guide, we’ll generally talk about unweighted GPAs and compare you on a national and college level.
As we'll explain below, the actual GPA number is just one dimension of your coursework. The difficulty of your courseload is important - the more difficult your classes, the more colleges are willing to excuse a dip in GPA.
Finally, even though this guide focuses on a 1.8 GPA, our advice is the same for close GPAs, like 1.82 and 1.78 GPAs. You can use this guide for all GPAs between 1.75 and 1.84.
Is a 1.8 GPA good?
A 1.8 GPA indicates that you've gotten Cs and C-s in all or most of your high school classes so far. A GPA that's lower than a 2.0 means that you may have some trouble getting into college, and any school that you apply to will end up being a reach.
We've analyzed the student profiles at 1500+ colleges across the United States and the average GPA of its incoming students. Here's how a 1.8 GPA compares to the nation:
-
Competitive For:
0 Schools
You can apply to colleges and have a good shot at getting admitted.
-
Missing Out On:
1569 Schools
You have a low chance of getting into with a 1.8 GPA.
To elaborate, the national average for GPA is around a 3.0, so a 1.8 puts you below average nationally. Keep in mind the 3.0 national average represents all students, not just students applying to college, so the average GPA of students admitted to colleges is higher than the national average.
Here's more custom advice for you if you have a 1.8 GPA. Click your grade level to see our evaluation.
A 1.8 is well below the national average, and likely below your high school's average, but this isn't the end of the world. As a freshman, you still have most of your high school career ahead of you, which means you have a lot of chances to pull up your GPA. By the time you apply to colleges in junior year, you can improve your GPA by a whole point. You'll probably need to re-examine your study habits to figure out where you can improve your grades, but you still have a chance. Check out our tools below to see what your chances are right now with a 1.8 GPA, and how much you can improve your GPA depending on what grade you average until senior year when you apply to colleges.
As a sophomore, you still have time to bring up your GPA over the course of the next year. A 1.8 is low, but if you can manage to raise your GPA even a couple tenths of a point by senior year, you'll stand a much better chance of getting into college. If you end up with a B+ average in your classes for the next three semesters, you'll raise your GPA up to a 2.5, giving yourself many more options for safety schools. You can search for colleges that interest you in the next section to see what your chances of admission are with your current GPA. You can also use the tool in the following section to see how much you can raise your GPA before senior year.
It's going to be difficult to change your GPA very much at this stage, although there's still a chance that it will be slightly different by senior year. Having a 1.8 GPA your junior year means that you'll end up with very few options in the college application process next fall. It's rare for many schools to accept students with GPAs that are lower than a 2.0. You still have a couple options, but for the most part anywhere you apply will end up being a reach school. If you're curious about your chances of admission based on the statistics at schools that interest you, you can search for schools using the tool below.
If you're currently a senior, you'll be applying to colleges with a 1.8 GPA. This is somewhat of a tough situation because there aren't really any schools that you can count on as safe bets. You know where you plan on applying or you may have even sent in some applications already. If that's the case, you could try looking up these schools in the next section to check on your odds of being accepted.
Your Chances With a 1.8 GPA
This is probably the biggest question on your mind. What colleges can you get into with a 1.8? What are your chances of admission at your top choice schools?
We've built a custom admissions calculator that calculates your chances based on the 3 most important factors to determining your chance of admissions:
- The school's admission rate
- Your GPA
- Your SAT/ACT score
Here's how to use this calculator:
- Choose the SAT or the ACT, depending on which you're taking
- Choose your current SAT/ACT score
- Enter the name of each college you're interested in
- Change your SAT/ACT score to see how your chances change
How would your chances improve with a better score?
Try to take your current SAT score and add 160 points (or take your ACT score and add 4 points) to the calculator above. See how much your chances improve?
This is important when you're considering your GPA. You probably know how hard it is to pull up your grades and GPA. If you improve your SAT/ACT score, you'll be able to show colleges that you're academically prepared for college.
At PrepScholar, we've created the leading online SAT/ACT prep program. We guarantee an improvement of 160 SAT points or 4 ACT points on your score, or your money back.
Here's a summary of why we're so much more effective than other prep programs:
- PrepScholar customizes your prep to your strengths and weaknesses. You don't waste time working on areas you already know, so you get more results in less time.
- We guide you through your program step-by-step so that you're never confused about what you should be studying. Focus all your time learning, not worrying about what to learn.
- Our team is made of national SAT/ACT experts. PrepScholar's founders are Harvard graduates and SAT perfect scorers. You'll be studying using the strategies that actually worked for them.
- We've gotten tremendous results with thousands of students across the country. Read about our score results and reviews from our happy customers.
There's a lot more to PrepScholar that makes it the best SAT/ACT prep program. Click to learn more about our program, or sign up for our 5-day free trial to check out PrepScholar for yourself:
Can You Improve Your GPA?
We’re not going to sugarcoat it: GPAs aren’t easy to improve. The later you are in high school, the less your GPA will change before you apply to college.
For example, if you're currently a junior in high school, your grades in freshman and sophomore year will anchor your GPA so that your junior grades won't be able to change your total GPA much.
Here's a calculator for you to see how much your GPA can improve in different cases. Choose your current grade level, and then choose your future grades up until college applications. We'll show you how high or low your GPA can be, depending on your grades from now forward.
| Your Grade Level | Current GPA | Semesters Remaining | Future Grades | GPA for Applications |
1.8 |
0 | 1.8 |
Warning: Because you have no semesters left, your GPA won't change by the time college applications are due. You'll need to apply with a 1.8 GPA. As we explain next, your best chance at improving your chances of getting in may be to improve your SAT/ACT score.
Final Verdict and Advice
Sometimes it's not easy to adjust to the demands of high school academics, but you can always make positive changes in the next couple of years. If you can step back and assess what's going wrong, you may be able to fix the issues you're having and improve your grades. The key thing to remember is that it's always better to ask for help sooner rather than later in your classes. If you don't understand something, get clarification from your teacher or a tutor before you end up more confused. There's still plenty of time for you to get your GPA up above a 2.0 and into a range that will provide you with more options for college, but you're going to have to start making changes now!
Since you're a sophomore, you still have time left to improve your GPA to a point that will give you some solid college choices. Over the course of the next year, you should put significant effort into raising your grades and figuring out what might be going wrong in your classes. Remember that you can always ask for help if you don't understand something!
This is also a good time to start thinking about standardized tests. You will most likely take the SAT or ACT for the first time early in your junior year, so the sooner you begin your preparation the better. Even with your low GPA, you will have a much better chance of getting into college if you do reasonably well on standardized tests. You can still make changes to your GPA, so don't lose motivation.
Based on the information in this article, you can see that a 1.8 GPA as a junior may put you at risk of not getting into college. It's going to be difficult to change your GPA after this point, but you still have the power to make smart decisions about where you apply and improve your standardized test scores.
Over the course of this year, you should keep working to improve your grades while also taking the SAT or ACT once or twice. If you plan your studying out accordingly, you may be able to get high scores and improve your admissions prospects. You can continue studying over the summer and take the SAT or ACT again next fall. While you're inevitably going to face some difficulties in the college admissions process, you can still make it into college if you're careful about where you apply and have decent test scores.
Hopefully this article was helpful in giving you some perspective on the types of opportunities you might have based on your GPA. It's likely that you're already working on your college applications or have already sent in some of them, so this may be old news. Just make sure that you've chosen schools that will give you at least a small chance of admission. You also might consider retaking the SAT or ACT this fall or winter if you feel that you can still improve your scores. This can go a long way towards increasing the potential of your applications. With a 1.8 GPA, you may have a bit of trouble getting into college, but there's still hope if your test scores are decent.
Download our free guide on the top 5 strategies you must be using to improve your score. This guide was written by Harvard graduates and SAT perfect scorers. If you apply the strategies in this guide, you'll study smarter and make huge score improvements.
Download our free guide on the top 5 strategies you must be using to improve your score. This guide was written by Harvard graduates and ACT perfect scorers. If you apply the strategies in this guide, you'll study smarter and make huge score improvements.
Colleges that Accept a 1.8 GPA
We've picked out a set of schools that are within range. Click on each school to learn more about it.
Change My GPA
Curious about what your profile is with a different GPA? Choose any GPA to see what you'd be able to do!
Analyze Your SAT/ACT Score
Wondering about how competitive your current SAT or ACT score is? We've created strategy guides for each SAT and ACT score so you can see what your chances are at schools, and what will happen if you improve your score.
Data on this page is sourced from Peterson's Databases © 2023 (Peterson's LLC. All rights reserved.) as well as additional publicly available sources.
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