I am from Maryland is my state although I have never schooled in the US so I am not too familiar with the system. I wrote a British exam known as IGCSE and I got 1A* 5As and 3 Bs with the grade boundaries being 90-100 for an A* 81-89 for an A and 71-79 for a B. I am currently undergoing the International Baccalaureate Diploma and my predicted grade is 35 with 665 at Higher Level. Although I flopped in my SATs and got 1170 but I am to write the subject test is Biology and Chemistry and Math level two next month. My desired course of study is biochemistry. I am also an African American (minor)
Deadline was Nov 30.
I know, I’ve already applied but what are my chances?
Can you afford all of those expensive schools?
The UC’s are $55K per year. NYU is around $72K
The SAT score will not get you into UCSD as a non-resident. Santa Barbara will be difficult.
The tuition fees aren’t my major concern atm, won’t my IB predicted grade and IGCSE result as well as the fact that I play school football and attend a voluntary event once a week boost my application?
And what about NYU and UT?
GPA and test scores are king in admissions to the UC’s. Those EC’s won’t change grades and test scores.
FYI: The UC’s do not fund OOS students. There is no financial aid for non-residents. NYU is known for giving really poor aid. This should be a concern for you since your direction has to go to wherever your parents will pay.
Fair enough, my parent’s can afford the schools. So you feel my chance of getting admitted are pretty slim?
Could be. Your current writing style shows areas of weakness which could complicate things.
The UCs are not allowed to admit based on race. Its against the law; no affirmative action. You should apply to schools that are still accepting applications and fit your stats and personality.
“attend a voluntary event once a week”
man
schools in california are hella competitive if you don’t think that UC applicants aren’t involved in keyclub and don’t already do like 100+ hours of volunteering at hospitals and all of that stuff. “attend a voluntary event once a week” man. volunteering is definitely the norm so it’s not going to provide a boost compared to other applicants.
and UCSD doesn’t care about sports, i think they just recently voted to be division II though but they don’t have a football team at the moment. so honestly don’t know if that will help you or not, it might if they’re looking to make a football team since lord knows there aren’t any real athletic students attending already. i can’t see it hurting you but honestly they’re not the type of school to reach out to athletes like you see in other schools.
tl;dr no i don’t think attending an event once a week and playing football will boost your application to UCSD. as for santa barbara, the same applies in regards to your “volunteer” activity but they’re a bit more into sports… not sure about football but they have healthy swim and soccer teams. not sure how they are with regards to athlete recruits though, that’s more of a UCLA thing.
biochemistry is especially popular at UCSD so you need to do really well on your SATs. grades and scores are what they’re most concerned with. lucky for you UCSD is probably one of the UC’s that least cares about extra curriculurs so honestly just focus on getting GREAT scores. UCSB is a bit less competitive than UCSD in terms of grades but your overall lack of extra curriculurs doesn’t really help… but honestly i don’t think you need as high of grades to impress them so you might be ok. that out-of-state stuff does really pull you back a bit just because there are already so many qualified in-state students applying.
then again they do need that out-of-state/international student money so who knows, those are my six pence.
edit: but also, being an athlete and majoring in biochemistry is pretty unique. plus you went to school in britain (or out of the country at least) so you may provide a very fascinating and unique story so i think you really need play that up.especially at ucsd where the majority of the students are asian and want to major in biochem premed and all of that. if you can provide a unique story for why you’re biochem vs the typical “i want to be a doctor it’s what my family wants i want to help people” stuff it might help a lot. but still, focus on those subject tests cuz ucsd is a lot more grade-scores driven than many of the other uc’s.
good luck! 
Mate it’s almost 3 am over here, of course my writing style won’t be A1 lmao. Anyhow, I have already submitted my applications to all these universities but it makes no sense to me why they won’t consider my application just because I underperformed in my SATs, what if the style of the exam isn’t for me? All my other grades are pretty good.
Why don’t you consider University of Maryland; you’d save some money…
You are competing for a spot in a very popular state where they receive hundreds of thousands of applications. It is a very competitive university and they want you to do well in your classes. The only real resource they have for seeing what you’ve learned is by using the SAT. If you don’t do well, you may not do well in the American style of classes.
There are only so many seats. Students are rejected if they believe these students will underperform in their classes. Remember that these are California public schools built to educate California residents. Their obligation is to serve those students first. Lots of political pressure to keep California residents in California schools.
What of Uni of Texas? And can’t I just take subject tests because its my english score that always brings me down?
UT is also a state funded university. They are very strict about prioritizing admissions for Texas residents. Check their website.
Oh wow so I am basically not getting into any of these unit? Do you suggest any other uni? Uni of South Florida maybe?
You need to check websites. There is a link on the left of this page where you can look up schools and the stats required. You will get in somewhere, you just need to be willing to look.