Graduates of West Catholic High School in Grand Rapids with a GPA of 2.0 or higher will qualify for immediate admission into Aquinas College starting with the fall 2026 semester.
Brian Matzke is vice president of enrollment management at Aquinas. He says it’s all about making college more accessible.
“How can we kind of remove some barriers, and one of them was, well, why have them fill out the application process and do everything when we know the students, we know the school, we know the curriculum.”
The Catholic liberal arts college has just over 1,200 students enrolled for its 2025-26 school year, with 419 new students this fall, up from 311 last year.
Matzke says the GPA requirement of 2.0 for West Catholic graduates makes a college education accessible to students of all academic levels.
“We’ve done studies of how students do here. There is a correlation between high school grade point average and how well students do in school, but with our Catholic schools in the area and West Catholic, we know they come from a very robust academic curriculum. We’ve seen that curriculum. We review them all the time.”
More Catholic high schools could be added to the program in the future.
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