Where to look?

[Pacstorm]

Hello,

So I was posting here just looking for some advice / help on what my next moves should be. I am]currently a physics / math double major graduating a year early (trying to save money) from a small liberal arts school with a, barely, 3.0 cumulative GPA. My major GPA for physics is around a 3.2 if not a little higher and for math is a 3.5. I am looking into going on to do Fire Protection Engineering or Mechanical Engineering for my masters. Putting FPE on the side (I have already looked into all that information), what are some schools in my range for mechanical engineering? I am a math / physics peer tutor at my school, have been rowing, am going to be volunteering as an EMT and will be doing my senior thesis next year on something FPE related. Me and my adviser have discussed fire modeling / smoke management topics.

I was looking into USC, UW, Cal Poly, WSU, SJSU, TAMU, VCU, VTech, and a lot of others. Where I would really want to go is USC/UW, but I don't believe I could get in with my GPA. I am studying for GRE's right now and plan to take them in August. What are my chances at some of these / where should I be looking? I know I'm just above the cut-off GPA for graduate admissions at almost every school for engineering, but is there hope? Almost all of the courses bringing down my GPA are general ed courses, if that matters. I am afraid that I have no shot at a school in the top 60 and have been basing my graduate school search on that. What range should I be looking at ranking-wise? Almost the schools on my longer list (not posted above) are not in the top 100.

Thanks in advance!