Hello, this fall I will be applying to 4 CSU’s (Sacramento State, San Jose State, San Diego State, and Cal Poly SLO) and 7 UC’s (Santa Cruz, Irvine, Santa Barbara, Davis, San Diego, and LA). My grades are not the best, my weighted GPA is a 3.9 unweighted, 3.5 from 7 AP and 4 Honors. However my test scores seem to be pretty okay, 1480 SAT and 32 ACT. I have been heavily involved in extracurricular with tons of community service, volunteering, and charity work. I want to pursue a career in either engineering or business/economics (unsure what type of engineering). From those of you speaking from experience what majors do you recommend I apply for in order to increase my chances of admissions and is there any specific outlier that likely will prevent me from getting admission. Also, I have been interested at taking the community college route, if I don’t get into the schools that I really want to. Please speak from your own personal experience, as the more I talk to people I hear completely different opinions and end results, from overqualified students being rejected, to under qualified students being accepted. I would greatly appreciate it if you would notify me of a major within engineering or economics/business which is easiest to get into. Thank you for your help.
Regarding the UC schools, you can call the admissions office of one of those schools if you want to double check this. They will tell you the answer. However, on a tour of a few of the UC schools (SB, Berkeley, and LA), they said they treat all applicants equally as long as they are in the same college. Economics is in the College of Letters and Science, so as long as you get into that college, it does not matter if you are an Econ major or undeclared. Engineering is an impacted major at Berkeley (and probably every other school in the U.S.), and is usually in a different college (i.e., the College of Engineering). I guess what I am saying is that it is most likely more difficult to get into the Engineering major. I cannot speak for the CSU schools, other than to say my friend was able to get into Engineering at Cal Poly SLO with a GPA near yours.
If you enroll as undeclared or in a non-competitive major, it may be very difficult or competitive to change into a more competitive major later. In general, if engineering is of interest, it is best to start college as an engineering major, so that you can follow the sequenced curriculum more easily with assistance from engineering advising.
For general UC admission rates by GPA (unfortunately not available by intended major), see:
For past SJSU admission thresholds, see:
http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/
UCs and CSUs generally do not use level of interest. However, their admissions processes tend to emphasize GPA over test scores, and the effect of intended major is often underestimated, resulting in apparent surprises that are not really surprised after these factors are taken into consideration.
Include UC Riverside and Merced to increase your chances. Their acceptance rates are higher.