<p>When I was on this forum I always wished I could get more input from people who had just gotten accepted/rejected before. For all people who will be applying next year or maybe even later than that, here are my California college responses with my stats!</p>
<p>My advice is at the bottom!</p>
<p>APPLIED TO:
- UCLA
- UC Berkeley
- UC San Diego
- USC
- UC Davis
- Cal Poly SLO</p>
<p>ACCEPTED TO:
- UC San Diego (John Muir, first choice of the 6)
- UC Davis</p>
<p>REJECTED:
The rest</p>
<p>STATS:
4.02 GPA weighted (UC GPA)
3.93 GPA weighted (high school/CSU GPA)
3.81 GPA unweighted (something like that)
Class Rank 14/397
SAT I - 2020 // 620 CR 680 M 720 W
SAT II - Bio E 600, Math 2 640</p>
<p>Extracurric:
ASB Vice President (1600 student body)
Junior Class President
Sophomore Class Treasurer
An editor-in-chief of the school newspaper (3 total editors for 2010-11) (our newspaper puts out the most issues per year of any high school in my county)
Organized and MC'd Westmont's Got Talent 2009
MC for several Night Rallies, Prom Fashion Show
ASB Videographer (commercials for events for morning announcements)
Interact Club Vice President & Founding Member
4 years tennis team, 2 years on Varsity -- team captain this year
4 years writing for the school paper, 3 years on staff
1 honors Freshman year
1 AP, 1 honors in Sophomore year
2 AP, 1 honors in Junior year
2 AP in Senior year
3 years on School Site Council
2 albums released to iTunes
Selected by principal to represent my school on a panel to help select next year's principal
Played in multiple bands with over 40 performances, play multiple instruments (mainly drums, which I've played for over 5 years now)
HOBY NorCal Delegate (leadership camp)
California Golden Boys' State Delegate (state-wide mock government camp, all states have one annually)
ELC Delegate (Rotary Enterprise Leadership Conference)</p>
<hr>
<p>ADVICE:
If you want to get into a top UC, you need to focus on academics. Don't bother with clubs or leadership -- play a sport, maybe be in a club if you want, and take 4 APs a year and get 4.3 or better in the end. Your SAT score has to be over 2000 or else you could be cut from number slices (61,000 freshman applicants at UCLA this year -- THEY DID NOT READ ALL OF THOSE!)</p>
<p>If you want to have a good time, do as much as you can and enjoy yourself, DON'T BOTHER TRYING SUPER HARD unless you're sure you can get a 4.15 or better. If you are like me and try to do a little bit of everything, your GPA or test scores might fall short, and your extracurriculars WILL NOT pick up for you. It's more competitive than ever and getting tougher each year, so don't let anyone convince you that extracurriculars and leadership are the keys to college, UNLESS you can do all of those and get a 4.15 or better!</p>
<p>It's never too late to talk to your folks and decide if a community college route is for you. You can basically do the things you enjoy in sports, clubs, leadership, the arts, etc. and put a good effort into academics without going crazy, go to a community college and do well there, then transfer to a top school. You'll pay less and end up getting the exact same undergrad education as those who spent a LOT of time on schoolwork and to go straight to Stanford, Berkeley or LA.</p>
<p>Some might -- and will -- disagree with my outlook. They will say I'm just a disillusioned kid who tried really hard to do a bit of everything and couldn't do it. That is true, I claim all of these things. However, I have a more current, contemporary, and fresh outlook on this than any adult does. In retrospect, I wish I had either spent a lot less time doing the extras (so I could focus on my numbers), or a lot less time on AP classes and SAT studying (so I could focus on my extras and leadership).</p>
<p>Also, I have a small but worthy-of-considering pool of evidence. At my high school (a really, REALLY average performance high school with ~1600 student body, 360 or so in the Senior class), only ONE person who applied to Stanford got in. The rank 1 and rank 2 students did not get in -- the rank 3 student had the numbers AS WELL AS a focus on only one thing (Stanford loves savants) which was Drama/Theater. She is a big-time techie.</p>
<p>Of the 5 people I know that got into UCLA, there was, among them, a total of:
- ~4.2 avg gpa
- ~2050 avg SAT
- 3 sports (2 of which were played by the same person)
- 3 clubs (Robotics and CSF being the common trend)
- NO LEADERSHIP POSITIONS</p>
<p>I kid you not on these. 3 of the 5 are very good friends of mine. One of them had a 4.4 GPA, 2370 SAT (only point missed on the essay, he got a 5 and a 6 from the readers), and ZERO extracurricular. He's a good friend of mine and a great guy, but he won zero awards, lead nothing, was a part of nothing, didn't play a sport, etc. He did not get into Stanford. HOWEVER he says that in retrospect he wishes that he, for himself, had done more extracurriculars such as sports and clubs.</p>
<p>There are many ways to spin it, and it's different for everyone. These are my results and my observations. Good luck to everyone else!</p>