Advice for my phone call with UCSD tomorrow morning, please help!

Transfer Students UC Transfers
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<p>So I could desperately use your advice tomorrow when I'm on the phone with these peeps. How can I make sure I have the highest chance of being successful? Please let me know your thoughts on anything below: </p>

<p>To restate, here are my stats/situation:</p>

<p>3.19 GPA, from 2 semesters at a 4-year university (Fall 2008-Spring 2009), and 1 semester at a CCC (Fall 2009). </p>

<p>My "upward" GPA trend:
Fall 2008: 2.54
Spring 2009: 3.26
Fall 2009 (@ CCC): 3.77
This semester: ~4.0</p>

<p>Here's some things that I think they either overlooked or didn't acknowledge. I'd wholeheartedly appreciate any of your thoughts on these:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I reported only 58 units on the November application (though I included my 4 APs, which translates to 14 units), and I think they forgot to examine my January update, where my total fulfilled their requirement of at least 60 units. If they examined fully my January update and my APs, I would have had 74 units. But I'm not sure they saw this, since as we saw they overlooked statistics on others [mythology, chris] and rejected them. </p></li>
<li><p>I had the necessary GPA to sign the TAG on the November application, but could not because I did not have one TAG course [English 3] completed by Fall 2009 ( which was the requirement to sign the TAG. The reason for this: I could not enroll in the course at my CCC (or any other within 50 miles), since they were all enrolled to full capacity. I could only register in English 3 for this semester. Had I been able to enroll in that course I could have signed the TAG. How do you think they'll respond to this? Btw, I thought of mentioning to them the fact that since I passed the AP Language exam (which I reported on the app) I would of course been able to competently complete English 3 by Fall 2009 [i.e. with an A in it]. </p></li>
<li><p>I think it's unfair for them to ignore grade +'s and -'s that the 4-year I went to gave. I earned five B+'s in two semesters; the difficulty in these courses was SIGNIFICANTLY harder than a CCC. Can this hold weight if I mention it to them on the phone? I can't understand how they can just average the two GPAs and consider it evaluated. </p></li>
</ol>

<ul>
<li>What should and shouldn't I say? (You don't even have to say anything about the above 3.) I could use any advice.</li>
<li>Am I missing anything?</li>
<li>Can I offer to send them my grades from this semester, to show them I'm of UCSD caliber? [I'm anticipating a 4.0 in 19 units this semester, putting my CCC GPA from 2 semesters @ 3.9]</li>
</ul>

<p>Thank you so much again for all your help. I can't express how indebted I am to you.</p>

<p>POSTEDIT: Sorry if this post looks so convoluted/distorted! I need to learn how to communicate my ideas better in writing. Please bear if you can.</p>

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<p>they didn’t miss stats for me. they actually counted more units than when i counted my units. they’ll count your aps for sure. i think they just messed up for a bunch of tag people.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>you don’t qualify for tag if you’ve only been there one semester, and my english classes were at full capacity too. i managed to get in one on the last semester i was eligible. it just means you needed to finish it earlier. it won’t be a valid excuse =/</p>

<p>the +/- grading isn’t a valid excuse either =/</p>

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<p>Thanks for the reply mythology</p>

<p>I actually thought like you too that I didn’t qualify but then when I spoke with a counselor 2 months ago on the phone he said I still could have qualified because I do meet the definition of a CCC student (since 2 regular terms = 2 CC semesters, he said–which I’ve got). That’s why I thought of mentioning this inability to sign it tomorrow.</p>

<p>Yeah I agree, the +/- is probably just going to sound like me whining…I guess I’ll leave that out. Anything else? </p>

<p>So I should expect it to be about 20 minutes long, give or take? I may call later in the day then after I’m 100% ready with ammo.</p>

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<p>I would call early when they have not dealt with a LOT of people yet :stuck_out_tongue: haha</p>

<p>You can ask them what is the reason to them not accpeting you then work out a solution around it then, a lot of the people who had tag got rejected because of silly mistakes of them not totalling up the right units :slight_smile: good luck!</p>

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<p>thanks nymphz </p>

<p>I began calling 30 minutes ago and have tried about 10x, I get the busy dial tone EVERY time - wth’s up with that?! How many times did everyone else try before finally getting in touch with them? This is taking forever…</p>

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<p>Update: After a 1 hour conversation (half of it was me waiting on hold) the guy said the cut-off for all non-TAGgers was 3.23. They calculated my GPA to be 3.13; so if I had TAG I would’ve been in. </p>

<p>He said that I could appeal but that out of the 1,000 or so appeals they receive every year, only around 20 are accepted. He said teacher recs are usually barely even glanced at, no matter how rhapsodic they are. Also, sometimes even appeals with seriously compelling information (such as medical/family issues) are rejected, if they’ve exceeded their yield target for the next class. He thinks this year may be one of those (though he wasn’t 100%) sure. </p>

<p>Blah, well I hope that helped anyone who was planning on going through this exhaustive process. I have to decide now between UCSC and UCI, or waiting another year and re-applying.</p>

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<p>apply for spring admission with UCSD oliver… that’s what I would do.</p>

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<p>@BPkid101: but they don’t do Spring anymore, they only do Fall :frowning: </p>

<p>Which schools DO allow applicants for Spring 2011?</p>

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<p>oh, I didn’t know they changed that… sorry</p>