Chance Me for UCSB!

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of California - Santa Barbara
1

<p>I'm from Buffalo, New york. I Visited UCSB yesterday and I can't see myself anywhere else. I plan to retake the SAT in October. The Average GPA for the school was a 3.91 and SAT was 1848, so my stats look up to par. I completely blew off sophomore year and it shows in some of my grades and scores. My worst grades, a c in french 2 and an f in chem, hopefully wont look as bad after acing french 3 and getting a solid b in chem, then getting 93 on the exams. I go to the top ranked public hs in the northeast.</p>

<p>Freshman year: 3.4
Algebra: b
World History(year 1): b
Biology:b
French:a
English:a</p>

<p>Sophomore Year : 2.8 (F in chemistry :(, but I repeated junior year so it wont be counted in my GPA calculation)
Chemistry: f (I didn't have enough lab credits to sit for the exam.)
French 2: c
Geometry: b
AP World History(year2):b
AP English: a</p>

<p>Junior Year: 4.2
Chemistry: b
French 3: a
Algebra 2/Trigonometry: a
AP US History: a
IB English(year1):a</p>

<p>UW 3.2 UC 3.89</p>

<p>Senior Year Courseload:
AP Calculus
AP Statistics
Physics
IB English
Economics/Government(half a credit of each).</p>

<p>I've been volunteering with the black leadership commission on aids since freshman year.
3 Years of Rugby/Chess
I was chess captain every year.</p>

<p>New York State Regents Grades:
100 on US history
95 on World History
94 On English
93 On Chemistry
93 On French Level 3
90 On Algebra 2/ Trigonometry</p>

<p>There are more I can't remember.</p>

<p>AP Grades
5 on AP US
2 on AP English
1 on AP World</p>

<p>650 M/610 W/600 Reading 1860 Composite</p>

<p>Ive overcome a lot of hardship, I come from a single parent household and my mother has MS. I'm also URM (AA). I'm going to write about having to take care of my cousin's 4 young children when she lost custody my sophomore year in the personal statement, so hopefully the dip in performance won't look as bad.</p>

<p>If there's anything else I can do to improve my chances, could you please tell me? Thanks in advance CC.</p>

2

<p>That dip in performance definitely doesn’t look too good. But overall, you have some good ideas for your personal statement and have some good EC’s. However, I don’t know how out of state students work since they’re in different bracket for GPA and such, so look into that. Did you say you’re black? UCSB definitely needs some more black people. I would say you’re a match/ slight reach.</p>

3

<p>Thank you hondapower.</p>

<p>When I visited Berkeley and UCSB, they were pretty adamant that the only difference between instate and out of state students was the minimum 3.0 vs 3.4 gpa. And that courseload was the number 1 factor in admissions. Also my dad lives in california and I plan on applying for in state tuition. Yes I am black. They also said the admit rate for out of state students is actually higher. Does it help my chances at all that I visited? Or do schools not even take that into account? My SAT is already 96-97 percentile for AA, but I know I can get 2100+ as I plan on doing at least 10 practice tests from August until october when I take it again.</p>

4

<p>I think you got a chance.</p>

5

<p>Thank you Jetson. Can anyone answer the questions I posed in my last post? Does it help that I visited?</p>

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<p>Yeah it helps to show interest but each school weighs that differently. But it definitely helps a little! And for ucsb, the uc gpa is capped at 8 weighted semesters so idk if u calculated it right. But if u get ur sat to 2100 then u have a good shot</p>

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<p>GPA calculation:</p>

<p>Sophomore:
2 for french
0 for chemistry(repeated, not counted)
3 for geometry
4 for ap world history
5 for ap english</p>

<p>Junior year:
3 for chemistry
4 for algebra 2
4 for french
5 for AP us
5 for IB english</p>

<p>35/9 = 3.88888889</p>

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<p>SAT subject tests aren’t mandatory for UC anymore, but should I take one for chemistry to show that my knowledge is better than my sophomore year would indicate? The reason I got a c in french and f in chem were because they were my first 2 classes and I skipped them like every other day the second semester. Is a 93 on the state exam validation enough?</p>

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<p>um ucsb doesnt care if u visit… dont listen to that.
i suggest that if u think u would do really well on the subject test, take it</p>

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<p>ehhh, out of state makes your chances significantly lower… a low gpa also hurts, even with explanation, but worth the effort.</p>

<p>looks pretty tough for you, man.</p>

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<p>They said the avg, GPA was only a 3.91 for last year’s class, if my GPA is only a little below avg. and my SAT is way above the avg. 1848, wouldn’t that give me a better chance? They say that grades and standardized tests are only half what they look at.</p>

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<p>The average accepted was a 4.1 with a 1900 and the avg enrolled was a 4.0 and a 1850 sat</p>

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<p>I got in with a 3.5 UC GPA
I’m in state…
2140 SAT
770 SAT II Literature
670 SAT II US History
5 in Envi Sci and Psych AP
4 in Gov and Art History AP
3 in Microecon and Euro AP
and zero extracurriculars. My essay was good. Writing well is really helpful. I believe that people who say that the UC’s only care about numbers are citing either outdated (and frankly questionable) statistics or just expressing their opinions. …As am I. Take any internet advice with a grain of sea salt.
Also: definitely take subject tests.
P.S. I got an F and two D’s :wink:
They probably kind of inferred that I’m a very lazy brainiac but accepted me anyway because of my personal statement swag.</p>

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<p>I got my scores from October and got 730 M 700 CR 720 W. How do my chances look now?</p>

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<p>pretty dam good</p>

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<p>Do you guys think I might have a shot at Berkeley or UCLA too?</p>