for a little more than a decade. For reference, the average incoming freshman at Princeton also had a 3.87 last year. Most students that go to the Y could also get into Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc... but choose to go to BYU instead. The average incoming freshman GPA at the U of U was a 3.55. That's not even in the same stratosphere as BYU and those students coming to the U would not be able to get into an Ivy league with that GPA, let alone BYU. LDS kids that go to the U of U, UVU, USU, etc... do so because they don't have the grades to get into BYU pure and simple, or they got some sort of awesome scholarship at one of the other schools or there's a really specific program they want to go to. I know for myself, I didn't get great grades in high school, went on a mission, got my grades up at UVU and transferred to the Y as soon as possible. The difference between the two schools is night and day, with BYU being much harder and more rigorous and having more engaged students who actually wanted to be in class.