California Bay area resident
Permanant resident
Public High school
Male Asian Indian
Mechanical Engineering
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.80
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.53
Class Rank: Decile rank 1
ACT/SAT Scores: 1450
Coursework
Freshman:
AP Human Geopgraphy
Sophomore:
AP Calculus BC
AP World History
Junior Year:
AP Statistics
AP Physics
AP Us History
AP English language
Senior Year:
AP MacroEconomics
AP Gov
AP computer Science
Mutivariable Calculus
UC approved Elective courses taken in High school:
Principles of Engineering
Enginerring Architecure
Engineering Design
Awards:Eagle Scout
Extracurriculars
UC COSMOS summer program at Davis
Internship on AI platform
3 yrs Varsity Volleyball
Tutor and Grader at KUMON
Chamber orchestra violin player performed at carnegie hall
Founder and president of Enginnering clud
Of course, UCs are test blind, so this will not be a factor.
Does your school use Naviance? If so, I would use that as reference as likely a lot students are applying to UCs. You can also check here to see how many students from his school apply and are accepted by campus:
But Naviance and/or your guidance counselor will likely be your best resource for sifting through recent data about who from your school gets in to which UC.
From what you have posted, he seems like a competitive candidate for any of the UCs. Make sure he really works hard on his PIQs - that is his chance to tell his story and show the UCs who he is and what he will contribute to campus. But he sounds like a great kid - good luck!
Then it sounds like he is one of the top students in his class, which would likely put him in striking range, at least by stats…And of course the UCs, including and maybe especially UC Berkeley, are holistic and use more than stats. But stats are a great start. He’s got decent ECs. So my advice is the same - really, really work on those PIQs. They are important, perhaps especially for Berkeley, and especially for a competitive major like ME. But important for all UCs. That’s his chance to show them who he is and why they should accept him. And at this point, the only part of his application he can still control.
Are admission decisions really based on school locations?
We have 85 applicants and only 9 got admitted to UCB in 2022.
Based on this what’s my son chances
Here are some overall Mechanical Engineering admit rates for each UC campus if available for 2022/2023 admits:
Campus
Mechanical Eng
UC Berkeley
7.3%
UC Davis
Estimated <30% Selective major 2024
UC Irvine
15%
UCLA
5.5%
UC Merced
90%
UC Riverside
56%
UC San Diego
Estimated <20% Capped Major
UC Santa Barbara
Estimated <20%
UC Santa Cruz
N/A
Some Cal States admit rates:
Campus
Mechanical Eng
Cal Poly SLO
19%
Cal State Long Beach
50%
San Diego State
50%
San Jose State
61%
What the admit rates do not show is how competitive the applicant pool was the Mechanical Engineering major.
Overall admit rates based on the Capped Weighted UC GPA and not major specific:
Campus
4.00+
Berkeley
17%
Davis
58%
Irvine
35%
Los Angeles
13%
Merced
97%
Riverside
95%
San Diego
37%
Santa Barbara
41%
Santa Cruz
69%
Overall admit rates 2023 based on residency:
Campus
CA RESIDENT
Berkeley
14.4%
Davis
36.3%
Irvine
20.4%
Los Angeles
9.5%
Merced
95%
Riverside
68.7%
San Diego
24.5%
Santa Barbara
28.1%
Santa Cruz
60.4%
Your son is a competitive and very qualified applicant but so are many applicants to the UC’s.
UCLA and UC Berkeley should be considered Reach schools for all applicants regardless of their qualifications due to their low admit rate.
UCSD/UCSB, UCI and Cal Poly SLO are in probably in the Low Reach/High Target area. Also note that Cal Poly SLO uses 9-11th a-g course grades with an 8 semester Honors point cap in their GPA calculation which is different from the UC’s and the rest of the CSU’s.
UC Davis, UC Riverside are Target schools.
SDSU and San Jose State are probably Likely/Safety schools.
Good luck and he does have a chance at all the schools but the UC’s tend to be very unpredictable.
No, not exactly. But school context is important - and to some degree you are evaluated relative to other students at your school in terms of GPA, rigor, etc - and historical data for your school can give you a sense of how competitive your students are for various UCs.
For SJSU, calculate 4.20 * 800 + math_GPA * 400 (+ 200 if graduating high school in Santa Clara County) and compare with the threshold listed at Freshmen Impaction Results | Admissions . The threshold will be competitively determined, so it may be different from last year, but last year can give an idea of how competitive the major is.
If you’re applying to UCs, might as well throw in all of them (maybe except Merced because he has automatic admission), unless the application fee is a barrier. While UCB and UCSD will definitely be the best for MechE, UCLA has a fine program and you may want to add UCD and UCR for good measure.
I think this will likely throw Cal Poly into the reach zone. Even if the student earned all As in 9th grade, the dilution of the honors weighting will drop their GPA down to the 25th percentile of the CENG. Successful ME applicants aren’t typically in that range unless they have non-academic boosters like Hayden Partner school.
Cal Poly Pomona calculates an index of GPA * 1000 + 450 + unspecified bonuses for local area, first generation, etc. For the OP, this means 4650 (plus any bonuses). Last year’s ME threshold was 4562 (though it can change this year, since it is competitively determined), so CPP ME is probably a match. See Freshman Student Profile .
Cal Poly Humboldt is a non-impacted campus whose only impacted major is nursing. Admission to any non-nursing major should be a safety for any applicant meeting CSU minimum requirements. However, the mechanical engineering major is new and is therefore not (yet) ABET accredited. The program is seeking ABET accreditation, according to Program: Mechanical Engineering, B.S. - Cal Poly Humboldt - Acalog ACMS™ , although that will not occur before the first students in the program graduate (the accreditation will be retroactive for those students if granted).
This is all assuming the algorithm is unchanged since it was last publicly facing in 2013, but they are schools that largely serve students from families in the lower socioeconomic strata. They may be called something else now.
@Gumbymom@worriedmomucb
Can you please respond to my application question ASAP.
Student has completed few courses outside from BYU like spanish and Health.
BYU trnascript shows one year duation for each of student’s health and spanish courses, do we just need to add completion term and enter the grades only in that in UC application?
if we enter all the terms I am with BYU like fall, winter, spring and summer for that 1 year and just enter the grade only once, the rest of the terms are showing as red and not able to move forward in the applicaiton process.
Health is usually not an a-g course for the UC’s but if the BYU course is UC approved then it can be reported. If both courses Spanish and Health are 1 grade and 1 year duration, you can change the BYU term to 1 year vs. quarter and enter in the grade for Spanish and Health.
Health is one grade but spanish 1 has both A and B parts each valid for one year.
The courses are valid for one year but BYU webiste clearly mentions that each of their part is equivalent to one semester so we entered BYU under semester system.
