chance me please? i know it's a reach, but mayb i can get in?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
1

<p>[ *] State or Country:California
[ *] School Type, Average Stats of School (if available): Troy High School: ranked 3rd in California, extremely competitive public high school
[ *] Ethnicity:Asian
[ *] Gender:Female
[ *] applying for Letters of Science Molecular Biology</p>

<p>[ *] SAT I (by section): 2000 (740 m, 620 w, 660cr) not sure if I should retake it since I might not have time to study for it more over the summer
[ *] SAT IIs: 760 math2c, 750 us history, 730 biology m
[ *] GPA, Weighted and Unweighted: 4.0 weighted 3.37 unweighted(messed up sophomore year) i think this is it...i cant get my transcript at the moment...btu it's somewhere close
[ *] Rank: top 20%?
[ *] ACT:N/A
[ *] APs (including this year's): AP Euro (3) AP Compsci A (2) AP Biology (5), AP Compsci AB (2), AP US (4)
[ *] IBs (including this year's: N/A
[ *] Senior Yr Courseload: AP Government/AP Econ Macro, Marching/Symphonic Band, AP Calculus AB, AP Japanese, World/British Lit, AP Physics B
[ *] Number of Apps from Your School: ALOT
[ *] Other stats (Awards, etc.): 6 consecutive years Superior for Solo and Duet in Junior Festival (piano), Advanced Level (level 10) in MTAC all levels have been honors in playing and theory (piano), CSF, NHS candidate (not sure if I got into it yet), </p>

<p>[ *] ECs:
10 years of Piano
6 years of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth summer program. (Took all 6 years of science related classes at universities 3 of them have to do with Biology (Intro to Biomed, Genetics, Genomics)).
100+ hours of community service
Tutor kids in instruments (French horn, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, piano)
4 years of Jazz Band
4 years of Key Club
3 years of Marching Band (Assistant Historian, French Horn Section Leader)
2 years of Belief Society (Treasurer)
1 year of Science Days</p>

<p>[ *] Job/Work Experience: internship at Cal State University Fullerton. Assisted in research and laboratory procedures of HSP70 proteins
[ *] Essays (subject and responses): going to be pretty good
[ *] Hook (TASP, RSI, Research, etc.): not really any…</p>

<p>thanks in advance :D</p>

2

<p>Everything seemed ok until I saw your UW GPA :O</p>

3

<p>ohhhh and i forgot to put my UC gpa…it’s 3.64…probably not that great…considering i know my uw gpa is really bad =/</p>

4

<p>3.64 UCGPA is not very good…4.1+ is average. BUT, if you write an excellent essay you still have a chance.</p>

5

<p>if you wanted to come to UCLA, you should’ve went to an easier school. GPA matters the most</p>

<p>From what I hear, Troy is brutally competitve</p>

<p>Good luck though.</p>

6

<p>I don’t know buddy. See, your stats look better than mine in some areas…Haha, except the GPA thing and I also agree with everyone before, that is a big factor for UCLA.</p>

<p>:/ …yes bummer that your high school is really competitive but we really all don’t know and you’ll never know until you try. Just keep pushing yourself and try!</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

7

<p>hmmm…haha…i guess it sucks when ur parents told ya…go to a really competitive high school and UCLA and UCBerkeley love it…and i endure all the competition…to later realize…i shouldve gone to a school which i couldve been atleast top 5%…all i can do is hope now…n make the best out of a not so great situation xD. thanks everyone for your input! i really appreiciate it =]</p>

8

<p>except for the fact that ur GPA sort of sucks… your stats are like one million times better than mine.</p>

<p>so dont give up, miracles (in your case it wouldn’t really be one) happen =]</p>

<p>apply, apply, and hope for the best =]</p>

9

<p>Do not apply twice.</p>

10

<p>haha omg, i didn’t mean it like that.
lol
i was just emphasizing he should apply no matter what.</p>

<p>:p</p>

11

<p>Yeah I figured, just hassling you haha :)</p>

12

<p>yeah, i have a friend who went to troy, and it pretty much killed his gpa too…
i’d say write VERY good essays, and try increasing your SAT score to make up for the gpa. it doesn’t hurt to retake it.</p>

13

<p>UCLA knows about specific schools and will probably grant you a little more leeway on the GPA than they normally would (that’s still not an absolute excuse, though). You have a rigorous senior schedule which is good - try to do well your first semester in your AP classes because UCLA asks “bubble” students for those grades in a supplemental survey you get around the end of January. You will definitely need to get your SAT scores into the 2100-2200 range to help offset your low GPA.</p>

14

<p>May I suggest USC (Trojans)</p>

<p>But seriously why did you take so many extra classes outside of high school? A little bit of overkill.</p>

15

<p>^^
don’t even say that.
no one should be advised to go to USC
i wouldn’t say that even to my worse enemy… =]</p>

<p>just write an awesome personal statement… and you will (most likely)
get in.</p>

<p>=]</p>

16

<p>Well to make up for my earlier posts I will try to be helpful.</p>

<p>Your EC’s are good not because you have a lot of them (clubs that you are in are pretty worthless unless you lead them or they fit with your ‘image’) but because they do mesh really well with each other, which I think is VERY important to admissions… at least at LA.</p>

<p>The fact that you show continued involvement in a few specific fields (science and music) will be worth way more than all of those other random activities you put down, and it could definitely help overcome your grades, since they see you can be very dedicated even if your grades do not reflect that fact.</p>

<p>Like others have said though, it’s a numbers game… retake the SAT or take the ACT and hope to do better.</p>

<p>I’d add to though, that if you can write good essays explaining how enriching one or two of those activities has been for you, you can sort of also explain away your grades as a cause of being so involved outside of school. You can’t explicitly say “oh hey, I got bad grades because I’m so crazy about ECs” but you can be tricky and paint a picture that does not include grades and instead highlights hardships you have faced/overcome and what you’ve learned from them.</p>

<p>Just my 2 cents, based mostly upon the fact that I had few EC’s but they did seem to work well together. Best of luck!</p>

<p>EDIT:
Do not bother with USC; remember the primary goal is to survive college and that means not getting shot.</p>

17

<p>are you troy tech too?</p>

18

<p>no my HS was competitive for sure but sounds like nothing compared to troy, aha.</p>

<p>I just have friends at my school with similar/lower stats academically who did have very cohesive ECs that got in, and I have friends with similar/higher stats who didn’t. So I’d guess that it does make a difference, but that’s all it is… a guess.</p>

19

<p>you beat me in sat, sat 2, and ec’s by far, not the gpa…but im sure youll get in, IM GUESSING youll get a supplementary form in like february, but yeah i think youll get in.</p>

<p>good luck & best wishes</p>

20

<p>i took community college classes ever since 7th grade, getting enough units to skip 2 years of high school. taking outside classes isn’t bad if you can show why it was important. i used one of my personal statement topics to talk about these outside classes, which i think helped a lot.</p>