Hello everyone. Thank you for looking at my post. I am currently a Senior in high school and will probably want to major in some type of engineering or Comp Sci. Other schools I am interested in is Cal Poly and NYU. I would be very happy if I was accepted into Irvine and UCSD but I am conditioning myself not to expect so high 
Projected Senior year grade: 4.67 weighted 3.85 unweighted.
- Weighted GPA: ~3.7 Unweighted ~3.1 UC GPA ~ 3.42
-ACT:35 Sat :1450 (17 Essay) - There are no school ranks. An absolute guess would be top 30%?
-SAT II Math: 790 Sat II Chemistry :800
-California resident
-Sport: Tennis, Fencing ( not exceptionally good at it for it to be a benefit) - Community Service: Over 500 hours in community service. (For 2 school years I tutored for my school)
-Letter of Rec: I am able to get them from the 2 teachers I tutored under. - EC: I honestly don’t do anything notable. Though I do feel like I am a capable enough of a writer to make a good essay about my interests.
-Clubs: Math Club, FCCLA. (not in any notable positions)
-Not an URM. Regular Asian male with a privileged lifestyle that I am grateful to my parents for.
Legacy: Not sure if siblings count, but just in case: Brother went to Berkeley, John Hopkins. Dad went to Cal Poly. Cousin went to M.I.T and Berkeley.
-I go to a public high school in the Bay area. The school is pretty good compared to the ones around it and have a handful of accepted applicants to the U.C’s every year. - My school provides me a program (Naviance) that shows me a scatterplot of past students applying for these colleges and whether they were accepted or denied. Typically, these colleges accept a high GPA like 3.7-4.2 and somewhat mediocre SAT (1200+) from my school very often with the occasional >3.5 GPA making it in. However, my situation is not very predictable since not many people at my high school have high ACT/SAT score but as low of a GPA as mine.
Classes (AP): Biology(4) Physics 1 (2 oof) English Lang Comp (4) U.S History (4)
Current(AP): Calc BC, Comp Sci, Chemistry, English Lit, Japanese.
Honors: English 1, English 2, Modern World History, Contemporary World History.
- Academic Rigor: Currently I am taking 5 AP classes, 1 CP class, and an after school tutoring class this senior year. I have taken 7 periods on all years except sophomore year. In total, I have taken 9 AP classes and 4 honors classes. I have the most rigorous schedule possible given what my school allows me to take. I could not take any AP's sophomore or freshmen year unless I took a course during the summer. At my school, honors classes do not give a grade boost like AP classes, but I still chose to take it despite working harder for the same 4.0 grading scale. This year was the the first and only time I have chosen a CP class (gov) that had an AP class available. This does not mean I did not take any other CP classes. For example, I took CP chemistry because they did not allow Sophomores to take AP Chemistry and honors was not available. I tried to take AP Statistics but my counselor told me they have a rule where I could not take more than 3 science and math classes ( Even though my friend was allowed this with a different counselor..).
Basically, I got a B in almost every course I took except 1 AP class in my Sophomore and Junior year/ ( Excludes classes like Art, P.E, and After school tutoring). People who have high test scores and low GPA are usually seen by admission officers as smart slackers. But to be honest, I sincerely felt like I gave it my all. Everyday was a struggle to keep up with my work while studying for the SAT and ACT. I struggled with emotional problems and was generally not very happy during that time of year. It was a big leap for me from having no AP classes to having four of them when I transitioned from Sophomore to Junior year. My grades reflect an upward trend but its honestly because of the AP grade scaling being out of 5.
I did not do well in Sophomore year because I was not very aware of the time commitment required for my studies ( I did not care about my grades previously). I am doing really well in my Senior year but I feel like it is going to be heavily neglected by the U.C’s.
I’m quite troubled by how people who take very few challenging courses and get a way higher GPA statistically have a better chance of getting into a U.C than me. I feel like I truly messed up for trying to push my boundaries and sacrificed my GPA for the sake of taking advantage of the opportunities my school offered me.
- I know I am probably out of the range for most U.C's like Berkeley and UCLA. I don't think I want to go to Riverside or Merced. My counselor told me Davis, Irvine and Santa Cruz are possible candidates but somewhat unlikely.
Some last questions I have:
- Will colleges even notice I am doing well in Senior year? Could it offset my previous years?
- Will colleges be more forgiving of my extremely low GPA given how rigorous it was? Am I an exception to the “Low GPA High SAT/ACT” because of it?
- Does my high ACT score still me put me back in the running?
I truly appreciate your time for viewing this. Through this post I wanted to know if I should keep my hopes high or not be too hopeful when admission season starts rolling in and tears stop dropping :(.