Hi,
So I come from a super competitive high school, and was looking at my schools naviance scattergrams which tell me I am going to get rejected from all the UCs with a 1510 SAT score. The problem is I am not too 10 percent of my class. The average for kids accepted to UCSB from my school is a 1540. I think this could be because my school is insanely hard and never has 4.0s, but I don’t really think this is fair. Anyone ever have a similar experience?
UCs emphasize HS GPA over test scores. So applicants with very high test scores may not get as much boost from their test scores at UCs as they could at some other universities.
In your other threads, you mention a UC-recalculated HS GPA of 4.1. In 2016, 54% of applicants in the 3.80-4.19 HS GPA range were admitted to UCSB. However, some majors are more competitive than the school overall.
@ucbalumnus Yeah I meant 4.0 unweighted. And I do have a 4.1, but it just seems a little unfair that my test scores are so high but GPA lower because my school is so hard
@DDHH2017 Where did u find the stats for ur school’s sat scores in terms of UC admissions. Can u gimme it plz?
@ironweasal
Test scores of past admitted students can be viewed through OPs high school’s Naviance account. If your school uses Naviance, you can likely see the data for your school.
Do u know where I can find my OPs high school’s Naviance account? Also, I do not know what OP stands for or what a naviance account is.
@ironweasal OP stands for original poster. The person who submitted the original post attends a high school that uses Naviance. Naviance is a program that some high schools purchase as a resource for their students when applying to college. Within Naviance, the student can view the grades and test scores of prior acceptances from their school. This information is often self reported.
Your HS counselor can tell you if your school uses Naviance.
Not sure how to post a link but search UC admittance by California high school. Gives info from 2016 and prior years for public & private high schools in California. I’ve noted kids from higher income schools in my son’s district need higher stats to be admitted. Makes me glad we stayed with the “bad school” instead of jumping ship like so many other families.
Freshman admits GPA by HS and year: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/admissions-source-school
To add further to the point of UCBAlumnus above: The Naviance graphs do not differentiate between applicants to L&S vs Engineering majors. My son had very high SAT/ACT scores and GPA but applied to CS programs (college of engineering), and did not get into UCLA or Berkeley last year. His little red X on the Naviance chart looks like a major outlier on a graph full of L&S applicants.
To the OP’s bigger question: Is UC admissions unfair? There’s no way to satisfy everybody. UC is trying to offer more opportunities to qualified applicants from areas/schools that are poorer/have fewer resources. Americans like to think of their country as the land of opportunity, but the fact is that economic mobility in the US is largely a myth: if you are born poor in the US, your children are very likely to remain poor. Education is a chance to break this cycle, and I believe our society would be better off overall if everybody had access to a quality education. So I do agree that it makes sense for UC to try to balance admissions based on academic qualifications with admissions based on other factors. I can be bitter that my son didn’t get into UCLA or Berkeley (and I was), but he did get into other UC schools and is happy. With a high GPA and high test scores, I’m sure that OP will get into several of the UCs, but possibly not the most competitive ones.