<p>Hello! Again, another thread about GPA and admissions. However my situation is a little different.</p>
<p>I'm a current junior, in a very competitive high school, with (sad to say) some teachers who can't teach. Most of the students in my high school can afford to have tutors, while I struggle with reading up textbooks over and over..</p>
<p>anyway, to get to the point: I'm a junior. My gpa is not at a 4.0, rather within a 3.5 to a 4.0 range (not sure as finals have just ended). I participate in many things, many hours of volunteer work, outside lessons (art), took a course online (chem, did well), currently an editor for hs newspaper (hopefully will be editor in chief senior year), working at a financial planning firm as a client relations assistant... etc. I'm about to take the SAT's and SAT IIs (possibly choosing 3 from physics, lit, us history, spanish I, mathI/II).</p>
<p>I was wondering, with all my extra work, and if i possibly score high in the SATs, will colleges heavily factor in GPA? I'm planning on applying into a UC or schools around that level. What would be my best option? I am planning to end the year with better grades of course, but as of now, does GPA strongly matter?</p>
<p>Thanks! ((: Feel free to comment on SAT II recs too...</p>
<p>I believe that even with your high test scores and extra curics, colleges - especially UCs will still hold your GPA in a high regard. In my opinion, the “easiest” SAT 2s that you can are USH and Lit. I personally believe this since if you’re already good at Lit, then there is really no need to study all that much. As for USH, it’s purely memorization. There’s no concepts to understand and whatnot. If you focus and just read a prep book over a period of time for say, an hour a day, you should do fine. </p>
<p>Given the information you’ve provided, I think that you can probably get into all the UCs save LA and Berkeley, with SD being a reach. </p>
<p>Unweighted I know it’s around a 3.5-3.6, weighted its a 3.8-4.0 again, finals are around the corner, so hopefully my grades will boost up.</p>
<p>@thenerdyjew — (a LOT to type so heres a brief) took as many advanced classes in fresh year, not weighted. worst grade was geom and adv history began with a b ended with an a. soph year all was advanced, only ap euro was my possible weighted class, b and ended with an a, math tho i got a c+ didnt take a sci this year because of too many classes, so i opted for an online class and self taught chem. junior year so far i have 3 weighted b’s, all are a’s except for math, which is a c+ (we’ll see outcome after finals, hopefully i’ll get two of my weighted to an a and math to atleast a b…</p>
<p>mind you i also took an extra class (“a period”), and the problem i realized is when factoring gpa, instead of dividing total score with number of classes to get gpa, my gpa is lower because i divide it by 7 classes instead of 6… ): so idk if the uc’s will factor that into my grade too.</p>
<p>): sigh. so no matter how much effort i’ve put into these last 3 years, +all extra cred, +IF i get good SAT and SATII, no chance on la, berk, or sd?): toughh toughh… kinda sucks too!</p>
<p>Don’t take my word for it though. I’m just basing your application off of the ones I see from around my area. SD is easier to get into than LA and Berkeley, but I’m not sure how the acceptance rates are going to be after this year. Supposedly, SD is now the second most applied to UC, so the acceptance rates are going to be lower.</p>
<p>Also, if you have your mind set on Berkeley or LA, you can always transfer from a community college or from another UC.</p>
<p>thanks for the advice. it just sucks that i’ve been working so hard for the last few years, and gpa is going to bring me down/: do schools take into account the difficulty of your high school adn everything else?</p>
<p>Do you know what your UC GPA is? I’m not positively sure how they calculate it, but if you’re in California, your counselor will hopefully be able to tell you what it is. It might be substantially higher/lower. And colleges definitely take the rigor of your high school into account as well.</p>
<p>Anecdote: I also took an extra (unweighted) period that pulled my weighted GPA down.</p>
<p>As far as the lit test: I agree with eckoback that it’s a supereasy test for the right kind of person. If you’ve been consistently and regularly reading for the past few years (nonfiction, prose, and poetry) and you feel comfortable with analyzing a work from the author’s point of view and extracting meaning…it’s actually a really fun test, and I found one of my favourite poets through it. But I tend to think it’s the hardest SAT II to study for because it’s absolutely impossible to cram and very difficult to develop that kind of literary critical thinking over the course of only a few months.</p>
<p>USH is easy. Math II (I’d personally advise doing one humanities and one math/science subject test to give you the most options possible, with a third if you have the time) may or may not give you trouble (check out Sparknotes and their prep guide to it to see how comfortable you are with the material it covers). Physics: if you’re enrolled in the course now, take it May/June if possible.</p>
<p>thanks for the advice greekfire. what is the uc gpa? i’ll probably email my counselor about this today.</p>
<p>I think i’m set on doing the lit test, i’ve been taking all honors/advanced english so i think i might do well. USH also seems like a choice i’d pick. im not that good in math, so do you recommend math I or II? i might either do a math one or a physics one (weird… suck at math but good in physics…)</p>
<p>UC GPA is just taking into account grades from Soph and Junior year in A-G classes. There is a cap of 8 weighted classes (each class lasting for a semester). Your counselor should tell you how to calculate it, or you can find more info on the UC website I think.</p>
<p>I found lit fairly easy. English is sort of “my” subject, though; it’s what I’m best at in school (maybe tied with a couple other subjects). I like writing analytical papers for English class and thinking about literature. If you’re that type of person, I strongly suggest it.</p>
<p>USH is really easy. It’s ALL fact-based–no “thinking” required. You just have to put the time in to memorize the information and you should be able to get an excellent score.</p>