Hopefully when Gumby Mom comes back, she and others will chance you - the UCs and CSUs are tough but some like SDSU are hard ins.
Also U of Redlands
Colleges generally look at two things: 1) your UW GPA (which the colleges will often calculate themselves using a 4.0 for an A, 3.0 for a B, etc.) and 2) your course rigor (which is usually a score that is provided by your schoolâs counselorâs report). They use unweighted as opposed to weighted because weighting processes vary wildly from school to school so one studentâs 4.1 weighted GPA may actually be higher than another studentâs 4.6 weighted GPA. By taking the unweighted GPA and then separately considering course rigor, they can try to compare apples to apples. Schools ideally want to see both a high unweighted GPA as well as the highest possible course rigor for your school.
i have taken pretty rigorous courses. i hope thatâll help!
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Weighted GPA from your high school is meaningless (unless it is calculated the same way as a college you apply to calculates) because high school calculate weighted GPA in different ways.
Many colleges do recalculate weighted GPAs their own ways, but those methods likely differ from how your high school calculates weighted GPA (and differ from each other).
For UCs and CSUs, use GPA Calculator for the University of California â RogerHub . This will give three GPAs; it will help others help you if you post all three. CSUs use only the weighted-capped version, but UCs use all three. If you have taken any college courses during high school, you will need to redo for CSU with double counting college courses and grades.
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Since you want California so badly, you can apply for the NU Oakland campus - also a little easier to get into than the main campus. They donât have the full communication studies major in Oakland as of yet, but they do have it as a combined major, i.e. business administration + communication studies. Northeastern University Oakland | Undergraduate Admissions
iâve looked into that. I think the size would be difficult for me
I know that your school probably doesnât rank, but theyâre sure to give colleges some info that gives schools an idea about how rigorous a course load you took, and what percentile of the class you are in. With that in mind, do you have any idea in what percentile of your grade you fall?
For example, at a rigorous suburban public high school in CT near us, with an extra 0.5 awarded for honors or AP, or 0.25 awarded for honors if for that class both honors and AP are offered, the highest GPA possible is 4.4, and probably about 15% of the class has a weighted GPA over 4.0. About 40% of the class had a wGPA of over 3.65. So if your class is similar, your weighted GPA of 3.7 puts you only at about the 40th% of your class, which is fairly consistent with an 1140 SAT.
If money doesnât matter, then you probably have a chance at schools that take at least 50% of their applicants, and you can be pretty sure to get into schools that accept at least 75% of their applicants. Iâm not saying that you might not get into a school that accepts possibly 40% of applicants, applying with no test score and needing no aid, but it would be a reach. Acceptance at schools with acceptance rates of under 40% is very unlikely.
So I think you need to take a critical look at your list. NEU is very unlikely to take you, UConn will branch you. Tulane is very doubtful, same for USC. Take the time to look at the acceptance rates for the schools on your list, and honestly, I wouldnât bother for schools that accept fewer than 25% of their applicants, even if youâre applying early and showing a lot of interest. You also need to think about where you actually want to go. Youâre applying all over the place. If your parents really are willing and able to pay rack rate for OOS publics or for private colleges, fine. Just make sure that youâre happy to wind up at any of the safeties on your list.
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Unless you took college courses, your CSU Capped weighted GPA is the same as the UC Capped weighted UC GPA. Both calculations will only consider 10-11th grades for the a-g course requirements and a cap of 8 semesters of Honors points for the AP classes.
From the close relationship between your UW gpa and your SAT score, your school seems like a rigorous, suburban school with not a lot of grade inflation. UCâs donât look at SATâs. CSUâs donât either, any more. As long youâre not aiming for the competitive CS majors or engineering majors, it seems like the CSUâs and some of the âlower tierâ UCâs would like the OOS $$ and the universities themselves have past data on which type of OOS students are likely to accept.
That said, your safeties should be more focused and should also be something you would be happy with. College of Charleston is popular with many in our area, which seems to be similar to yours. I would add ASU, as others have suggested here. Itâs a solid university, and you will be challenged in the communications program. Tempe AZ is a vibrant place and you can easily fly to CA whenever your heart desires. Best of luck to you.
I think others have answered the weighted/unweighted GPA point well.
What is it that youâre hoping to have your college experience be like? I think that would help people tailor their suggestions more. Here are some questions that might help you reflect:
- How important is ra-ra sports enthusiasm?
- How do you feel about Greek life?
- What size classes would you prefer to have?
- What kind of activities would you like to participate in (besides rugby)? That could be university-affiliated or off-campus.
- How important to you is it that thereâs a rugby team?
- What is it about California that you find attractive?
- How much flexibility do you want to have to change majors?
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oh, i thought csu chanced to allow oos to have max 8 honors classes count.
thanks!
OOS honors are not UC/CSU approved so only your AP courses are weighted for both school systems.
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Going on the assumption of 3.5 CSU/UC GPA. For the UCâs which have a Communications major, UC Santa Cruz would be a Low Reach to Reach. 25th-75th UC Capped weighted GPA range (3.86-4.22).
UC Irvine and San Diego would be solid Reaches based on your UC GPA. UCI had a 14% admit rate for your GPA range and for UCSD it was 2%. Their UC capped GPA 25th percentile is above 4.0+.
SDSUâs overall campus GPA was 4.04. A 3.5 from an OOS applicant probably would make this school a Low Reach/High Target.
As noted by several posters, other than the competitive/impacted CSU campuses such as Cal Poly SLO, SDSU and CSU Long Beach for communications, the rest of the Cal States would be good options.
With your CSU GPA, it exceeds the Impaction Threshold for Communications at San Jose State.
Your MFA exceeds the Threshold for Communications at Cal Poly Pomona. Freshman Student Profile
I would also suggest you look at Cal State Fullerton, San Francisco State, Sacramento State and Chico State.
Edited: For Southern California CSUâs, then the ones mentioned by @tsbna44 along with Fullerton and Ca Poly Pomona.
Good luck and hope you find what you are looking for in some of the California schools.
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From OP - espescially in Socal! -
hence schools like San Marcos, Northridge, Channel Islands âŠ.as back up to some of the others although it may not be the expected collegiate experience.
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Among the Cal States, which would you recommend for an out-of-state student in terms of a residential experience? I think these are the Cal State schools that are either classified as residential or have good reports of being fairly residential. Are the students there on the weekends as well, or are any of these suitcase schools?
- Cal Poly-SLO
- Cal Poly-Humboldt
- San Diego State
- Cal State: Chico
- Sonoma State
- Cal State: Monterey Bay
Also, are there any other Cal States that would have the âresidentialâ experience that many upper middle class American students tend to expect from their college experience?
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Thatâs the NEU (Northeastern) Oakland Campus. NU is Northwestern and they donât have an Oakland campus from NorthwesternâŠ
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Both NU and NEU are used for Northeastern. (For example, their first semester abroad program is called NUin, not NEUin.) At any rate, I think it was clear in context, since 1) I was responding to the OPâs post about Northeastern, and 2) I supplied a link to the correct institution.
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Just mentioning because on this siteâŠNU usually means NorthwesternâŠand NEU NortheasternâŠand yes, I know that even Northeastern uses both.
I do think the Northeastern Oakland campus is a good option for this student.