Sophomore and freshman year were a mess for me. I had a lot of personal problems but when I entered junior year, I managed to turn it all around and got a 4.3. What is the best way to show my change in the UC application and how much will my bad grades affect my odds of getting in? (2.8 and 3.5 10th grade semester gpas)
@Porkisok: Welcome to College Confidential as a first time poster.
The UC application will ask you to list all a-g course grades from 9-11th grades so admissions will see the upward trend. You can also address any issues that affected your academics in one of the personal insight essays but make sure you emphasize that you have overcome the issues by doing extremely well Junior year.
The UC’s only use 10-11th grades for their GPA calculation so Sophomore year will impact your UC GPA.
Please calculate your UC GPA’s using the calculator below and post the unweighted, capped weighted and fully weighted.
https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
What about HS course rigor, SAT/ACT scores, SAT subject tests, EC’s? All these items will contribute to your chances.
Which UC’s are you targeting and there is nothing magical about the UC’s so if you are a California resident, many of the Cal states offer programs on par with some of the UC’s.
3.33 unweighted, 3.67 fully weighted and 3.58 capped. I’ve taken very rigorous classes and am a year ahead in math. My sat score is a 1250 at the moment but that was from last year. I took it again just yesterday and expect a higher score. I havent taken subject tests but will for math 2 and physics. I did cross county and have a lot of community service and an internship. I want to go to UCI or UCB.
Also thanks for the info. I didnt know a lot of that.
UCI and UCB will be Reach schools. UCB in fact should be considered a Reach school regardless of your academic qualifications just due to the low acceptance rate.
I would definitely apply to any schools you prefer, but if you want to attend college, you need to be realistic in your choices. You need to find schools where your stats currently are at or above the 50th percentile for the best chances.
There is always Community college with transfer to your choice UC as an additional option. UC’s will not consider your HS academics since they only accept Junior level transfers so you can excel at a CC and then transfer to a UC.
What is your intended major?
I will post some UC statistical data to help you determine your chances with your current UC GPA and test scores.
2018 Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 3.40-3.79 capped weighted and not major specific:
UCB: 1%
UCLA: 2%
UCSD: 7%
UCSB: 8%
UCI: 7%
UCD: 14%
UCSC: 33%
UCR: 49%
UCM: 82%
2019 UC capped weighted GPA averages:
UCB: 4.23
UCLA: 4.25
UCSD: 4.23
UCSB: 4.16
UCI: 4.13
UCD: 4.13
UCSC: 3.96
UCR: 3.90
UCM: 3.73
2019 Data:
25th - 75th percentiles for SAT totals:
UCB: 1340-1540
UCLA: 1330-1550
UCSD: 1300-1520
UCSB: 1280-1520
UCD: 1230-1490
UCI: 1250-1510
UCSC: 1200-1450
UCR: 1130-1400
UCM: 1020-1290
Like I stated in the above post, your application will be reviewed overall, but UC’s tend to be GPA focused and having only 1 year for competitive grades will be difficult to overcome. Just remember there many roads to your goal so you need to be flexible and realize if you are a California resident there are many other schools beside the UC’s that would love to have you as a student.