Well first of all, I’m not really a spectacular student just a regular high school student that didn’t really challenge myself all 4 years and barely did extracurriculars. I’m not looking into applying into any Ivy League colleges because I know it’ll just be a waste of money on applying.
About Me:
- Filipino
- Living in California
- Going to be a Senior in Highschool this fall
My Academic/Extracurricular “Activities”:
- Weighted GPA: 3.8
- Unweighted GPA: 3.6
- 1530 SAT (planning on taking it again; nothing too special with my score) 470 Writing - 500 Math - 560 Reading
- Ranked 138 (weighted GPA) & 144 (Unweighted GPA) out of 907
- Haven’t taken the ACT
Memorable classes I’ve taken so far/will take:
- Honors Pre-Calc
- Honors World History
- AP Us History
- AP Stats (Senior Year)
- AP Comp Sci. (Senior Year)
Extracurriculars:
- Red Cross (3 years including Senior year)
- Anti-Bullying Club
- College Bound Club
- Church classes/community service (2 years)
- Library community service (couple of hours racked up)
- STEM (Senior Year)
- ROP for architecture drawing (Senior year)
Major: Computer Science
List of colleges I want to apply to:
- Cal Baptist University
- University of La Verne (Supposedly our school gets automatic acceptance, but if not what are my chances?)
- Cal State Fullerton
- Cal State San Bernardino
- La Sierra University
- University of Irvine
- Cal State Los Angeles
What are my chances at these colleges and what can I do my senior year in order to improve my chances on getting accepted?
What is your UC/CSU GPA? http://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
UCI: Reach (SAT low/GPA on low side) UCI likes UC GPA’s at 4.0 or higher
CSUF: High Match
CSUSB/CSULA: Safety
Univ La Verne/Cal Baptist/La Sierra: Match
The privates will consider Mid-year senior grades but the UC’s and Cal states will not. All will look at your Senior year course rigor.
University of La Verne is not known for the STEM majors so although you may have automatic admission, Cal Baptist and La Sierra might be better choices.
Since you are a California resident, you should consider Cal Poly Pomona for CS. Highly regarded for the Engineering/STEM majors and with an increase in your SAT around 1700+, you would have a decent chance for an acceptance. CSUSB is not considered very good for CS either.
Thank you! I might add CPP to my list, would you say that it’s a match or a safety college for me? And I’d there anything else that I can senior year do to increase my chances of acceptance in these colleges? For senior year I’m taking:
Prep Gov/Econ
AP Stats
AP Comp Sci.
Arch Drawing 2
Prep English
ROP for arch drawing (parents made me take it)
I know it’s not that rigorous, but I planned on getting a job also to help out my parents or should I dish out the job idea and take a harder class instead?
Your schedule looks fine. A job is actually an excellent EC to put on your application. Good luck to you.
Thank you very much for the information! 
Hopefully I get more insight on taking CS at the colleges I listed from other members because I researched and found out that CPP is VERY impacted for classes.
Bump
Looking for more inputs and also if you are attending/graduated from any of these colleges majoring in CS what were your experiences?
CS is pretty impacted for many of the Cal states due to popularity and excellent CS programs. Here are the Cal States not impacted for CS:
Bakersfield / Northridge
Channel Islands / Sacramento
Chico / San Francisco
Dominguez Hills / San Marcos
East Bay / Sonoma
Fresno / Stanislaus
Humboldt
LA
By LA do you mean Cal State LA?
And I honestly wish I had the opportunity to apply for those colleges but my parents won’t let me dorm my first year of college
Yes, CSULA is non-impacted for CS. So your limitations are for local Cal states that are within commuting distance?
Is cost a concern in regards to dorming? You should run the Net Price Calculators for each school and see how much FA you may receive. You might be able to get enough money to considering living in the dorms.
No they just don’t want me to dorm for personal reasons. And I guess cost is also comes into play when choosing a college, so I’m very very limited
Have you considered going to a community college for 2 years, then transferring to a UC via TAG or CSU with an AA-T or AS-T agreement? This way you can finish your pre-req/GE classes for a lower cost and maybe in 2 years they will let you dorm as a transfer. If you do well at a CC, you will be able to transfer to a better CSU/UC for your major.
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/transfer/guarantee/
http://www.calstate.edu/transfer/degrees/AAAS-TDegreeRequirements.shtml
Since you have to stay local, apply everywhere you can drive to and see what happens. A stronger SAT would certainly help.
If you plan to transfer later, a CC is the most cost effective and will afford the more options a few years out.
Good luck.