What are some colleges for?

What do colleges think of a person with a high ACT, but a low (improving) GPA?

• Right now during my second semester junior year, I have a 3.08 (unweighted) gpa. I recently took the ACT and got 29. My freshman year grades were similar to my average gpa, but my sophomore year I screwed up and got horrible grades. My junior year is my best year so far, I got a 3.5 first semester and I am on track to getting a 3.6 or a 3.8 depending on how well I do in english. I go on volunteer trips through my church parish and a member of the church's youth ministry group. I worked two jobs last summer but i will only work one this summer because it was too much. I play 3 sports, and by the end of senior year I will hopefully have two state medals (I already have one). Would colleges even care if someone has state medals or not? I was a student ambassador during my sophomore year and will be taking 2 AP classes and 1 honors class senior year. The reason I added all this in is because I want to know if all of these would help make up for my low gpa and would get me into a decent college. I was told that if you show improvement in your grades it will look good to colleges, but does anyone know how important this is to colleges? I have a few colleges in mind which are Creighton, Miami of Ohio, Marquette, Syracuse, Uconn, and St. Louis University. Do you think that these colleges are attainable for me? I know that applying to colleges is a long way away, but I would like to know if I can even get into these schools. I know I threw in a lot of questions but if you could try to answer as many as you could, it would really help me out.

• Answer:

  You should be fine getting into Miami, Marquette and Syracuse. I'm not sure of the others as I don't know anyone going to those schools.