Chance Me! Can I get into an Ivy? ( Political Science @ UCLA, USC, etc)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi! If you are reading this, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to help me.

I am a Mexican-American female from Southern California. I am a first-generation college student. I come from a low-income family. Thank you so much for reading this and helping me out. If you have any recommendations of schools that I did not list that would be a good fit for me, please feel free to mention them. Thanks :slight_smile:

Stats:
SAT: Taking in August

Subject Tests: Spanish (760), U.S. History (640), English Literature (Taking in October)

UW GPA: My school separates GPA into three different categories.
UW Academic GPA (9-12): 3.93
UW Academic GPA (10-12): 3.89
UW Total GPA (9-12): 3.94

W GPA:
W Academic GPA (9-12): 4.26
W Academic GPA (10-12): 4.37
W Total GPA (9-12): 4.22

Rank: Top 15% of a class of 468

APs: Junior Year (APUSH-4) (APLANG-3)

Senior Year:
AP Gov and Econ, AP Lit, AP Spanish, AP Pysch, Honors Pre-Calc, Yearbook

ECs:
Yearbook ( 3 years, 11th- Junior Editor, 12th- Editor-in-Chief)
Link Crew (2 years, 12th- Commissioner)
Habitat for Humanity ( 11th and 12th- Founder of campus chapter and President)
Freelance Photographer
Other miscellaneous activities and major family responsibilities

Ayn Rand Anthem Semifinalist (10th grade)

I plan on double majoring in Political Science/Government and English and minoring in Spanish.

College List:
-UCLA
-UCSD
-UCD
-UCSB
-UCI
-Cal Poly SLO
-USC
-Cal State Long Beach
-NYU
-Fordham
-Reed College
-Stanford

2
  1. UC’s and CSU’s have their own GPA calculation so you need to figure out your Capped Weighted UC/CSU GPA and your Fully weighted UC GPA using this calculator:

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

Cal Poly SLO is the CSU exception and they use 9-11th grades in the above ^^ calculator while the UC’s and CSU’s use only 10-11th grades in their GPA calculation. You get 1 extra honors point for each semester for a UC approved Honors, AP, IB or DE a-g course taken 10-11th grades only.

  1. First generation is considered by the UC’s and CSU’s but Race/Ethnicity is not.

  2. CSU Long Beach admits by eligibility index and major (CSU capped weighted GPA x800) + (SAT Math + EBRW). You are then ranked by EI and major. If you within the local service area of CSULB, then you get priority.

  3. UC’s and CSU’s do not consider Senior grades in their admission decisions, but HS course rigor will be important.

Based on your posted stats and the # of AP classes taken in 11th grade, your CSU/UC GPA is probably around 4.0-4.1. Without SAT scores, it is difficult to predict your chances.

Unless CSULB is your local CSU, I see no safety schools on your list. I would add UC Riverside and/or Santa Cruz along with another CSU besides CSULB and Cal Poly SLO. Sacramento State might be a good option due to the proximity to the state capital and good internship opportunities.

Below is the admit rates for 2017 Freshman based on UC capped weighted GPA and not major specific. If my UC GPA prediction is correct, none of the UC’s you have listed are solid Match schools. They range from High Match (50:50 chance) to Reach schools.

Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 3.80-4.19:

UCB: 12.6%
UCLA: 11.7%
UCSD: 38.7%
UCSB: 53.6%
UCD: 56.5%
UCI: 52.1%
UCSC: 75.7%
UCR: 90.1%
UCM: 96.1%

Below is the 2018 Freshman SAT data and to be competitive, you want to be at or above the 50th percentile:
25th - 75th percentiles for SAT:

UCB: 1360-1540

UCLA: 1340-1540
UCSD: 1300-1520
UCSB: 1270-1500
UCD: 1220-1480
UCI: 1230-1490
UCSC: 1210-1450
UCR: 1130-1380
UCM: 1020-1280

Best of luck and post your CSU/UC GPA’s.

Also run the Net Price calculators on all schools of interest to see if the cost of attendance is affordable. No reason to apply to schools that will not give you enough financial aid to attend.

3

As long as you do well on the SAT, all of the UCs look reasonable for you. I would recommend taking one of your ECs and seeing if you can take it above and beyond outside of school before you apply. Good luck!

4

Lmao forget about your stats you’ll get into any ivy just bc you’re mexican, low-income, and first-generation; they can fill all their quotas with one person