How to Build Your Own College List by Score and GPA, School by School

A reasonable, common request is a list of colleges in your state, sorted by how your SAT/ACT score and GPA compare, so you can tell which schools are a reach, which are a realistic target, and which are a safety. We don't publish a numeric, exact-score version of that list, and it's worth explaining why before walking through how to build one for yourself in about twenty minutes per school: admissions data changes every single year, it varies meaningfully by specific major within the very same school, and a hosted list of exact numbers is stale the moment next year's entering class data comes out. What we do have is a broader starting point: our College Finder groups a curated set of colleges in every state into selectivity tiers (reach/target/safety-style, without pretending to know this year's exact cutoff), and while it isn't every college, it's a faster first pass before you do the per-school digging below. The actual method, though, is simple and something you can do directly from each college's own numbers, which is both more accurate and more current than any third-party list, ours included.

The source: every college publishes this, it's called a Common Data Set

Nearly every U.S. college and university publishes a standardized annual report called a Common Data Set (CDS), a shared format that colleges agreed on so publications like college guidebooks could compare schools consistently. You can find any school's CDS by searching "[school name] common data set" directly, it's almost always hosted on that school's institutional research or admissions office webpage, and it's free and public.

The section you want is Section C, specifically the subsections usually labeled C9 through C12, which cover the entering class's standardized test scores and GPA. Section C9 shows the 25th and 75th percentile SAT and ACT scores for that year's incoming class, meaning 25% of admitted students scored at or below that lower number, and 25% scored at or above the higher one. Section C11 or C12 typically breaks down the same class's high school GPA distribution.

How to turn those numbers into reach / target / safety

• Below the 25th percentile for both your test score and GPA: this is a reach. Not impossible, holistic admissions do admit students below these marks for other reasons, but it means your numbers alone aren't carrying the application.
• Between the 25th and 75th percentile: this is a reasonable target. You're within the range of a typical admitted student, though acceptance is still far from guaranteed, especially at selective schools where even typical-range applicants are turned down.
• At or above the 75th percentile for both measures: this is a likely admit or safety, assuming the rest of your application (essays, activities, recommendations) is reasonably solid and nothing else in your file raises a concern.
• Do this for every school on your list individually. A score that's comfortably above the 75th percentile at one school can be below the 25th percentile at another, there's no single "good score," only a score relative to a specific school's specific entering class.

The part people miss: this can differ by major at the same school

A school's overall Common Data Set numbers describe its average admitted student across every major combined. Plenty of individual programs are meaningfully more selective than that university-wide average, sometimes dramatically so. Nursing programs in particular have become some of the most competitive majors at many large public universities, in some cases more selective than computer science or engineering at that exact same school, because of limited clinical placement capacity. Direct-admit business programs and computer science programs at many universities also set their own supplemental GPA or coursework requirements beyond general admission.

Practically, this means: after checking a school's overall Common Data Set numbers, search that specific department's admissions page too ("[school name] [major] direct admit requirements" works well) to see whether your intended major has its own, separate bar. If a program is "direct admit" (you apply to that specific major, not just the university generally) or has limited capacity, assume its real requirements may run higher than the university-wide numbers suggest until you've confirmed otherwise.

Doing this for an entire state

1. Start with your state's public university system. Most states have a small, well-defined set of public four-year universities (a flagship campus plus several regional/directional campuses), each with its own Common Data Set. These are usually the fastest to work through since they're a known, finite list rather than needing to be discovered.
2. Build a simple table as you go: school name, your test score vs. their 25th/75th percentile, your GPA vs. their distribution, and a note on whether your intended major has separate requirements. A spreadsheet with one row per school keeps this organized better than trying to hold it all in your head.
3. Aim for a spread across all three categories, a handful of targets, a couple of reasonable reaches, and at least one or two genuine safeties where you're confident of admission and would still be glad to attend. A list made up entirely of reaches isn't a college list, it's a wish list.
4. Re-check this the fall you actually apply, not years in advance. Common Data Set numbers update annually, and a school's selectivity can shift meaningfully in a few years, particularly at schools with fast-growing application volume.

This is more work than reading a ranked list someone else built, but it's also more accurate, more current, and specific to the actual major you're applying for rather than a school-wide average that may not describe your situation at all. For the admissions-timeline side of this (which test to take, when, and how application round affects your odds), see our SAT vs. ACT guide and our guide to Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular Decision.