My other D goes to college in Washington, being out of state, there are very few merit scholarships available to her. I can see the U.C.'s doing the same…
What I don’t understand is the financial aid program in the private schools. They use the same income level nation wide. For some states, the family gross income might be higher than those inland states, but with big mortgage and other expenses, the disposable income might be the same or even less. But unfortunately if you live in the east or west coastal states, you can’t count on any penny from the school. 60-70K a year, it’s not easy.
Do the UC’s see the other UC schools you apply to?
The reason some of you received UCB Regent invitation but received UCSB Chancellor invitation w/o Regents, the reason is simple: UCSB considers you “Over-qualified”, they knew you will have other choices, so they will only invite you to the reception (not an admission!) to test how serious you are about attending UCSB. If you show up, you will get the regent offer (which means admission), as they struggle with matriculation number. On the other hand, UCB,as the UC flagship and the best public school, is confidently and actively competing with other top-20 schools, particularly among in-state students.
OK, but a problem with the UCSB Regents is the timing - conflicts with an EC. So DC won’t be at the reception …
Sorry - I meant Chancellor’s…
@hooverhoo I’ve never heard of UCSB giving out a Regents based on whether someone attends the Chancellors reception. I can believe they will not waste a Regents offer on someone who is extremely unlikely to go there. There’s also some randomness in the system and how your essays are perceived at each school.
@hooverhoo That is false. If UCSB sees someone as “over-qualified,” the student will most likely be granted a Regents Scholarship.
@jdawg24 Do you think a student with top profile and 250k+ income will be lured by the 2500/year Regent Scholarship from UC if he/she can goto HYPSM? Will he/she go to UCSB instead of UCB (NorCal) or UCLA (SoCal) for the same amount of FA?
I have a question and maybe it’s just that Pennsylvania(or just our School District) does it differently than California. But I keep seeing these Weighted GPA’s of 4.6 or 4.7. My daughter’s school is based on a 4.0 max unweighted GPA and the highest weight is for AP classes of 1.10(1.06 for accellerated classes), so the highest possible WGPA would be 4.40 and that’s ONLY if all of her high school courses were AP, which obviously they are not. So how can they compare GPA’s from school to school or state to state if different schools or states weight differently?
@hooverhoo Minor point, but the Regents scholarship for UCSB is $6000/year. Davis is $7500. Most of the others are $2000/$2500. We do know students who chose UCSB over UCLA and Berkeley. The College of Creative Studies (CCS) at UCSB is one reason why some kids choose it over the other 2 schools mentioned.
@PAparentoftwins They recompute the GPA based on the grades entered on the application. An AP class will be given a 1 point bump over a regular class (i.e. 5.0 for an A in an AP vs 4.0 for regular).
@hooverhoo No one knows at this stage, who is guaranteed to HYPSM. The acceptance rate there is 5%-6%. I know from EA results, family with 250K+ income, good profile got less chance to be accepted by low income, first generation student.
@youcee So that’s a 25% bump for an AP, whereas my D school only bumps it 10% on their system.
@PAparentoftwins - it’s not a comparison of all kids in the country - your D is first ‘graded’ within the context of her school, region, etc.
Because each high school calculates its GPA in its own way (there’s no one system for all of California’s school’s either), each high school has its own “profile” that colleges use to understand the grading system and curriculum offered. There’s no disadvantage because your daughter’s high school does things one way and another school does it a different way. There are schools that use a 6 point system, schools that use a 100 point/percentage system, and schools that don’t give actual grades at all but only provide comments. Colleges are familiar with different systems and recalculate for their own purposes.
@ttdd16 - Explained better than my short blurb. 
I hope this is true! Attending Sunday reception in NYC! Fingers crossed!
Another reason students choose UCSB (or another school) over UCLA and UCB is because they intend on going to graduate school and want to attend an undergrad school where they will be more successful. Check out the average GPA by major at UCB. http://projects.dailycal.org/grades/
we will be there too! from PA