Hello
Can a 1500-1600 SAT (or a 33-36 ACT) make up for a 3.75 UW GPA?
A 3.75 isn’t anywhere close to being low.
Agreed.
But to answer your question: In general, I think that the combination of a high SAT/ACT and low GPA points to a kid who has the brains to score well, but not the desire to put in the effort on a day to day basis.
I think that this is going to depend upon a lot of issues.
For example, this is more likely to be fine at your state flagship (or #3 through #8 in California) than at Harvard or Stanford. Of course this would also be true of a 4.0 unweighted GPA and 1600 SAT.
This is more likely to be fine if you have A+'s in all math and science, and a few B’s in English and languages, and are applying to engineering school (or vice versa, if applying to a different major).
Admissions in the US is relatively unpredictable and not always merit based.
And also @NJWrestlingmom is right, for the large majority of universities an unweighted 3.75 is not low at all.
@Aneem00 for most schools you should be fine.
@DadTwoGirls I plan on applying to a few privates out of state as reaches, but mostly UCs as matches and CSUs are safeties. I agree 3.75 is not low, but I believe it’s much lower than the kids I will be “competing” with for admissions.
@Aneem00 have you figured out your UC GPA yet? That will tell you more than your unweighted. The UC’s take your grades and recalculate them on their own scale.
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/requirements/gpa-requirement/index.html
I once had a conversation with the director of admissions for one of the UCs. She told me that, in her opinion, GPA was the best indicator of success in college. Whether that is a universal opinion or not, I can not say.
However, I do believe that it is true that GPA is the best indicator. It is how you perform over the long haul. Taking the SAT can involve only a small amount of prep time (more for others). It is also not that hard a test except that it like running a marathon; it takes mental stamina to take a test that lasts that long.
I also agree that a 3.75 UW GPA is pretty good. If admission to your college of choice is by the numbers only, then it is what it is. If the college has a more holistic approach, which many good colleges do, then that GPA probably gets past the “GPA gate” and it will be the rest of your application (essay and recommendations) that will decide.
@lbf my weighted and capped UC GPA is a 3.96
That a a great UC GPA!!! If you really want to go to a UC school you should be fine. Though know that Cal and UCLA are extremely difficult to get into but why not try. Also engineering usually has higher admit stats than other majors.
You will be fine 
GPA is not necessarily a good indicator either, with all the variances in school quality and whims of a teacher. Especially at a school like UCLA or UCB where you’re basically given the leeway of only one or two Bs. My kid got a B from a teacher who refuses to round up from 89.85 and didn’t give him any chance for extra credit even though my kid had the burden of carrying on with a mother that had passed away during the semester. Or the idiot teacher who gave the whole team a 0 for a group research paper worth 50% of the grade because one of the team members plagiarized his part of the paper and admitted to it, which cost my kid an A.
In most countries test scores are what gets you into the top schools.
3.75 is not low. If your grades improved over the years, that helps. Depends on which classes were at the higher end – if it was brought up by PE and Orchestra, well, that’s different than if it was brought down by those. It also depends on how the grading is at your school. 3.75would be one of the highest GPAs at our school, but kids get into top 20 schools with pretty much anything over 3.3(UW) if the rigor is there. Your best bet may be to look at Naviance for your school.
I doubt that your stats are going to keep your application from getting serious consideration.
Fair warning that if you apply to elite schools (the Ivies, Tufts, anything in the top 20 basically) you probably won’t get in without another compelling feature to your application. I was in a very similar situation (slightly higher GPA, about the same SAT scores) and only got into my safeties because I didn’t do many ECs in high school. All that said, you’ll definitely get into at least one of the UC schools, all of which are very good, and some of which (UC Berkeley and UC Davis to a lesser extent) rank among the best universities in the country, if not the world.
When it comes to UCs chances, UCs own website provides the best estimates—just plug in a particular UC campus and any HS, and you will see how many students from that school applied, accepted and matriculated. The amazing thing you will quickly notice is that even for the most selective UC schools, UCLA for example, the acceptance rate has the same range for most schools between 10-20%. As you know some HS in Ca have more than 50 NMSFs in a single school while a lot cities in Ca don’t even have a single NMSF, but all of those high schools have roughly the same chance of getting into UCLA!
So, IMHO, UCs are more heavily dependent on geography and class ranking than ACT/SAT. I have a friend whose son applied to four UCs this year with an ACT36 and was rejected by all of them. I think his class ranking was outside top 20%.
@akhipstertrash I understand that, however, coming from a very pressurized environment at my high school, I do not see myself fitting in in a top 20 school. I know the coursework will be even more rigorous, and the students even more competitive, and I believe I should be able to enjoy my undergrad years and prepare well for med school (my goal, LOL).
@jzducol thank you this brought my hopes up! I’m actually top 10% in my class, which I am happy about despite my not-perfect GPA (my school is super rigorous, daily conversations ALWAYS include grades) and I’m also in state, if that makes any difference. Aren’t the OOS and international students admitted to UCs at a much higher rate than in state students? Because of the financial factor?
2017 admit rates by UC weighted capped GPA: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21182988/#Comment_21182988
However, engineering majors should be expected to be more difficult to get into than the campuses overall.
@ucbalumnus how about biological science majors?
Biological sciences are usually not as capacity-limited as engineering majors, though they are under capacity limitation at UCSD.
Let’s say that you get a 1500. It just depends on what your major is going to be. For UCB and UCLA EECS you have 0% chance. Even with a 1600 SAT you probably have 0% chance.
As for everything else, very low chances for UCB and UCLA in general. Iffy for the mid-tier UCs (SD, I, D, SB). Meaning you could possibly get into all 4 mid-tiers or you could get shutout completely. Depends on scores, your major, course rigor, etc.
It seems like for UCB the magic number is 4.00 capped UC GPA. I haven’t seen anyone accepted below 4.00 either at my kid’s school or on this board. In actuality my guess for under 4.00 for UCB is <= 5%. At my kid’s HS a random survey from my kid’s friends all indicated 4.0+ and 1440+, but not both that low. For example my kid got in with 4.05 and 1540, whereas another guy got in with 4.21 and 1440. For L&S STEM majors no one was below 1500. Sample of about a dozen kids.
The average capped UC GPA admitted from our high school in 2017 was
UCLA 4.23
UCB 4.22
UCSD 4.22
UCI 4.15
UCD 4.14
UCSB 4.14
Below 4.0 it’s really slim at any of these schools.