California Schools

State Forums
1

<p>Im only a sophomore in high school but I have begun to look into colleges and was interested in california. My current GPA is a 3.4 and I was wondering what schools I could get into with that grade point average. I obviously haven't taken the SATs yet so also what score would I need to get to also attend whatever school in California.. </p>

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<p>There are well over 100 colleges in California so, it is tough to answer for all of them. You are taking a first step which is great. You might want to talk to your parents about touring a few that aren’t far from home just to get a feel for what a big school medium and small school feel like. Take an organized tour, they all offer them and are typically student led. Most offer you an appointment with an admissions rep as well. Take your transcript, course catalog and pick their brain. In my experience, they love helping young students find a path to their school. They will also be frank telling you if you have no chance.</p>

<p>At this stage, if you want to go to a state school (UC or CSU) you need to be sure you take all the required courses. They call them ‘a to g classes’ - I’m sure your HS has info on them. Here’s the link from the UC site:
<a href=“http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/requirements/index.html”>http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/requirements/index.html&lt;/a&gt;
Note UCs and CSUs use the same list.</p>

<p><a href=“http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/profiles/”>http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/profiles/&lt;/a&gt;
this link will take you to a page that lists all the UC campuses on the right - those links will show you the current class profile for each campus. Overall, the UCs are pretty selective. Most admitted freshmen have GPAs of 4.0+. That’s doable from where you sit but you’ll have to really boost your grades and take some AP courses. Most of the UCs have big campuses and more than 30k students.</p>

<p>Grades and test scores required for the CSU campuses (like San Diego, Chico and Sonoma) vary widely. Campuses vary widely too, from about 5k students to well over 30k. They use a pretty simple formula to rank applicants. It’s based only on GPA and SAT or ACT. Read about it here:
<a href=“Cal State Apply | CSU”>Cal State Apply | CSU;

<p>Private schools range from super competitive - like Stanford and CalTech to much less selective like St Marys. Many private schools are quite generous with financial aid so,don’t be put off at this stage by the $40k/yr sticker price. </p>

<p>There are also a bunch of community colleges that can provide career/technical education or serve as a feeder for the CSUs and UCs. </p>

<p>Kudos to you for thinking about this in advance!</p>

3

<p>If you are looking at UCs and CSUs you have to compute your UC gpa, which ignores freshman year, uses only a-g courses and gives an extra point for APs, generally. There are also a ton of other colleges. <a href=“List of colleges and universities in California - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_California&lt;/a&gt; money is a big factor to consider, as well.</p>