I am going to California for college visits and I am looking for schools that would be a good fit for me to visit.
My gpa is a 3.33 weighted 3.0 UW…will bring up to at least a 3.4 if not 3.5 weighted by the end of this year (junior year)
My ACT composite is a 30, 35 English 33 Reading 26 Math 26 Science. I’m taking it for the 3rd time in 2 weeks so hopefully I will do better…
I’ve had 7 honors classes and will have 3 APs next year.
My ECs are: Played soccer for my school freshman + sophomore year, school newspaper writer, spanish club, french club, yearbook club junior year, have had 2 jobs since last summer, and some community service.
I am good at writing so my essays should be top notch.
Schools I’m considering so far are SDSU and UC Santa Barbara (bit of a long shot but…here’s hoping).
Do you guys have any reach/match schools for me according to these stats? It doesn’t matter where in California they are, I’m traveling from Ohio to California so I may as well make the most out of it.
Did you calculate your UC weighted gpa? It has to be 3.4 for OOS students.
Your gpa seems a bit low. Is your school hard grading or what’s up with that?
Not sure what to suggest. There are other CSUs of course. We don’t know what is a good fit as you didn’t say what you are looking for. You might look at UCSC. As you seem to be able to afford the OOS tuition rates, are you also going to look at privates?
Please note that the CSU’s don’t use essays. They have an eligibility index based on combined gpa + SAT. The UCs do use 2 personal essays totaling 1.000 words combined.
…Just a thought…while you are in SB, take a look at Santa Barbara City College, they are supposed to be one of the better ones and you can do 2 years there and (I think, not sure) TAG to UCSB. Even if they don’t have a TAG they would have a good path to transfer to UCSB or UCSC.
@BrownParent I believe it’s 3.35 (UC gpa), so I guess that’s out then.
I had some problems at home my sophomore year, so my GPA dropped as a result of that.
I did my research about UCSC and it’s a school with a lot of drug use which I am not very comfortable with.
Yes I may look at privates, any you can suggest to me off the top of your head??
I meant a good fit in terms of schools that would be a “match” for me with my ACT score and GPA.
Any other options at all???
Thank you!
UCSC does not have any more drug use than any other UC, I can guarantee you. I know very good students who graduated there, one not that long ago with a double major and got into law school. It has a bit of an intellectual exploring side that appeal to academic students too. It was one of only 3 that my daughter applied and was accepted to (UCB, UCSD, UCSC) and it is very annoying to have it singled out for no actual reason.
Look at St Mary in Moraga, Whittier, Univ of Redlands. I guess it will matter how your Jr year looks as well as class rigor to have the sophomore year explained as an anomaly. UC admits were very tough this year and SB doesn’t seem realistic.
@BrownParent Hm, there were some bad reviews about the whole campus smelling like weed that led me to that conclusion. I was using student s review to see what other kids who go there think about it, but I will definitely visit it and see. Thank you
Cal Lutheran (Thousand Oaks), Mills College (Oakland). The private schools could end up being more affordable than the out of state UC and CSU schools. Maybe Occidental (LA) although I think your stats might be a bit low at the moment.
Cal State Long Beach, Fullerton and San Marcos which are in So Cal/ SD area could be possibilities and some of the other school suggestions posted above. If you are not targeting the UC’s due to GPA, then Cal states and privates will be your options. USC is large and social but again your Stats Could be too low. You will receive little to no FA from the CSU’s or UC’s so privates may be a better choice. California is a huge state, so you need to limit your visit to the So Cal or Nor Cal areas. Unless you have unlimited time, you will run out of time to visit. Do some research and target a few schools based on your current stats.
For out of state students to UC, your weighted GPA needs to recomputed… for out of state, they ONLY weight AP/IB courses and NOT honors courses (like they do for in-state). And you need a minimum 3.4… so the reality is that you will not be allowed to apply to UC.
You could apply to CSU’s… they provide a solid education at a cheap price for in-state students, but I’m not sure they are worth the cost for OSS.
For private CA universities, your GPA is a bit low for most of the well-known ones… Obviously Stanford/Caltech/Pomona/Harvey Mudd are completely out of the question… the low GPA probably means USC/Claremont McKenna/Scripps/Pitzer/Santa Clara/Occidental are also unlikely.
That leaves a bunch of very expensive, okay-ish religious-affiliated (mostly Catholic) private schools.
Use the Supermatch Feature on this website and input your Stats with location: California. See which schools match and then do research from there. Also find out how much your parents are willing to pay. UC’s are around $55K/year for OOS and CSU’s around $30K/year. Good Luck and enjoy your visit.
To compare to your desire to meet SDSU campus and social wise, and meet your GPA/Test range, your best best is to stick with the Cal States. I’d say San Jose is the next most like SDSU except for the beach. Next would probably be Cal State Fullerton and then Long Beach. USD and Occidental are probably mid to high reaches. If you want big in your match/safety range, go Cal State. And don’t discount Santa Cruz. It’s fairly big and very social.
