<p>UC GPA: ~3.55
Unweighted GPA: 3.7
Weighted GPA: 3.8
Composite SAT: 2200
100+ hours of community service at:
Volunteer at nursing home
Volunteer as big brother through Big Brothers Big Sisters
Church office
Blood drives
L'Arche
Animal Shelter</p>
<p>Activites/Clubs:
1 year varsity tennis
Key club
Manager for varsity girls lacrosse team at my high school
Life club
S.A.D.D. club
U.S. Army Summer Apprenticeship ( Engineering )</p>
<p>Other info:
GPAs are rough estimates as I'm currently in the 4th quarter of my junior year and include my sophomore year GPA and my junior year GPA to date. </p>
<p>I didn't do that well in sophomore year; 3.3(?) GPA. Junior year I have been trying really hard and had all As first semester except for 1 B+. Transferred to a more challenging school for 2nd semester and received 2 Bs and 6 As. My current weighted GPA to date is 4.07 for junior year. Will UCSB notice the upward trend in my grades? Senior year I am taking 3 AP classes and 1 honors. </p>
<p>UCSB is my first choice school and I really want to get admitted! I'm going to try to get above a 2200 on my SAT. I also believe I have really good points and ideas for my personal essay. I realize my UC GPA or even my GPA isn't that impressive but I'm determined to do great things! I would also appreciate and advice on things I could do before I apply that would increase my chances. As mentioned before I am an out-of-state applicant. Thank you very much for reading!</p>
<p>I think you may get it and you may not, which isn’t very helpful. The thing is the UCs now get a lot more qualified applicants than they can accept, so a lot they turn away look considerably like many of those they take. Having said that, I think you have a chance at it, but so did one of my sons have a (somewhat better) ‘chance’ at Berkeley - and he didn’t get in. After the fact, the percentages don’t matter, if you made it it feels like you were 100% sure to get in, and if you don’t, it feels like you 100% were sure to fail getting in. These threads just aren’t very helpful, imho.</p>
<p>However, I think it is a match/reach school, a good chance, but there are those with your stats and better who won’t make it, also, so no guarantees.</p>
<p>here were the admitted freshman stats for fall 2013 (2014 isn’t out yet). <a href=“http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/files/freshman-profiles-ca/freshman-profile-ca-ucsb.pdf”>http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/files/freshman-profiles-ca/freshman-profile-ca-ucsb.pdf</a></p>
<p>It tells what percent of each band of stats was admitted -note that a lot were not expected to show up, or they would have had way more students than they could accommodate.</p>
<p>I agree it’s hard to say if someone would or would not get accepted @collegevetting . I guess I mainly made this to get ideas on what I can do to increase my chances before I apply this fall. I’m sorry to hear about your sons not getting accepted to Berkeley; stanford has a higher acceptance rate than Berkeley at my school. A lot of people with 4.5 GPAs get rejected 
good luck on other schools and any advice is much appreciated! </p>
<p>Thank you! They both got in to UCSB and Davis and others, so they are in good shape, except that they didn’t get their first choices. I was just making a point that it is unpredictable. </p>
<p>I would work on your SAT which is good, but since your gpa is a bit low, the higher your SAT is, the better. Also figure out which SAT IIs you would do well in and I would send a couple. They don’t require them, but we sent them, and if they are strong they will strengthen your application. Then, in your application, tie together your extracurriculars to a passion, if they don’t obviously show one, if you can work that in. If you have any ‘explanations’ of your gpa or whatever, personally I would suggest putting that into the ‘additional comments’ section, not the essay unless it is unusually inspiring how you overcame it or something. You want your personal statements to be why they should like you, not excuses drawing attention to weaker parts of your application (your grades.) Show energy.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks for all these suggestions! Do you know a lot about UCI as well? Are their standards for acceptance roughly the same? I have recently been considering UCI as well because I want to major in engineering or computer science and I have heard that it is very difficult to get into the college of engineering at UCSB if you were not accepted to it as an incoming freshman. I was also considering maybe biomedical engineering which ucsb does not have. I feel like UCI might give me more choices since it has more engineering majors than UCSB (unless I got accepted to ChemE at SB which seems like a hot major right now). Thanks again! @collegevetting </p>
<p>Also, does the fact I attended a private school far more rigorous than my area public school help make up for my lacking gpa?</p>
<p>rigor of curriculum counts, but it is one element of many. If they will KNOW your school is rigorous, that will help. So rigorous plus famous is better than rigorous but anonymous…</p>