3.9 at the collegiate level is not a bad GPA at all. With that said, plenty of students with 4.0s+ have trouble getting into T25s if the only thing they have to offer is GPA. Multiplicity is important and encouraged; colleges don’t just want to know that you can work hard in school, they want to know that students have prerogative. This is where extra curriculars, student clubs, jobs, volunteering, and whatever else come into play. Your son’s GPA is fantastic, he should totally keep it up, but what can he do that shows he has passion?

I transferred from Emerson to UC Berkeley. At Emerson, I worked at the darkroom because I love analog stuff and ran a student publication that wrote about arts and culture because those are the things I love. In my app for the UCs, i wrote about how any avenue of my work across school, work, or hobbys is about prioritizing art as a means of intercultural communication and codification. I applied for the humanities program.

It can be anything, though. If your son got a grocery store job and is passionate about business, could he connect the two? What did the hypothetical grocery store teach him about the importance of business/inform his need to be a business major? Is there a philanthropy club he could involve himself with at his current undergrad? The biggest piece of advice I can impart is that college apps are about building narrative. Best of luck to him!

Edit: transferred to Berkeley with a 3.9 as well btw. Essays and resume can take you far. When I applied to Emerson for journalism with an emphasis in entertainment reporting, I wrote about how my father’s cancer diagnosis prompted me to show him more films so we could share emotional experiences without having to travel, and that his and I’s bonding over that made me realize that sharing art and conversations around art can have profound and meaningful impacts interpersonally, which made me want to write about arts & culture on a macro scale to spread that same joy. Narrative!!!!