Chances at Harvard, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, and UC Davis?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I am currently a junior and a California resident. I have a 4.63 GPA, and have been taking college classes at my community college since 9th grade (I attend an early college academy). I am going to graduate high school with my hs diploma, an A.A. in Business, and an A.A. in Natural Sciences. In high school I have taken all Honors, AP, and college classes.

SAT: 1490 (I am going to be taking it once more to improve my score, and am aiming for a 1530.)
SAT II Math 2: 660 (I will be taking it again, aiming for a 700+.)
SAT II Biology: have not taken
AP World History: 4

ECs:
High School Advisory Council Member of Organization for Social Media Safety (nationwide non-profit),
President and Founder of Creative Writing Club at my school,
Creator and organizer of Annual Writing Competition at my school,
Founder of Writing Program for underprivileged youth at city library,
Working as a Peer Educator in my college’s library,
VP of Red Cross Club at my school,
Associate Justice in Tribunal in my school,
District Officer for district-wide art club,
BLS (Basic Life Support) Certified.

I have also completed over 200 community service hours, volunteering at my local library, at schools, at the childcare area in my city’s recreation center, and being a teacher/cabin leader at a local summer science camp.

AWARDS:
George Washington University Book Award,
American Legion Award in Academic Excellence,
Music Teachers’ Association of California Certificate of Merit (Levels 1-6) in Piano
Full Scholarship to AAUW TechTrek (one of three girls selected from my city),
Full Scholarship to Envision Emergency Medicine Summer Camp (one of two students from my school, one of five from US),
Partial Scholarship to National Student Leadership Conference Medicine and Healthcare Camp at Harvard University,
and Certificate of Outstanding Achievement in Honors English 10.

MISC:
I have been published by the Organization for Social Media Safety (I had written an article),
I have been playing the piano for 12 years,
I have kept a blog and have been writing on it for 9 years. I have had over 15,800 hits.

WHAT ARE MY CHANCES AT:

  • UC Irvine?
  • UC Davis?
  • UCLA?
  • UC Berkeley?
  • George Washington University?
  • University of Chicago?
  • Johns Hopkins?
  • Columbia?
  • Harvard?

Is this a good list of safety + reach schools?

2

For the UC’s you need to calculate your UC GPA which will include any a-g courses taken at the CC for 10-11th grades only.

Here is the calculator and repost with your unweighted UC GPA, capped weighted UC GPA and fully weighted UC GPA:

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

You have no safety schools on your list and UCI and UCD are your only Match schools. The rest are Reach schools.

Intended major?

3

@Gumbymom what would be safety schools for me? My intended major is Biological Sciences.

4

Possible safety schools: UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside and Merced. San Diego State, Cal State Long Beach, San Jose State, Cal Poly Pomona to name a few. What is your local CSU since you get priority?

https://www2.calstate.edu/apply/freshman/documents/csulocaladmission-serviceareas.pdf

5

@Gumbymom would you say that it is nearly impossible for me to get admitted to Johns Hopkins? What about Harvard? And UCLA?

I’m trying to see where I should apply, and whether I should even bother applying to Johns Hopkins and Harvard. I will definitely apply to UCLA, though.

Thank you for your help! :slight_smile:

6

No one can give you a reasonable estimate of reach, match, safety without your GPA recalculated in a standardized form. Your high school weighted GPA of 4.63 gives no clue as to whether it came from an unweighted GPA of 3.1, 3.6, or 4.0.

For the UCs, calculate your GPA (three variants) with the link in reply #1. The weighted capped version is the one that most UC web sites use for admission stats, and which is the same as what CSUs (other than CPSLO) use.

7

@ucbalumnus unweighted GPA is 4.0.

8

Depending on the school, some schools may or may not view you as an incoming freshman and may consider you as a transfer student.

If considered a transfer, your financial aid would be provided as a transfer student and not as an entering freshman. There are disadvantages to this including that your priority would be secondary for admission to freshman with no community college units. Also, FA would be reduced.

9

UC says in http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/transfer/index.html that “You’re a transfer student if you enrolled in a regular session (fall, winter or spring) at a college or university after high school. (Taking a class or two during the summer term immediately following high school graduation doesn’t make you a transfer student.)”

JHU says in https://apply.jhu.edu/application-process/transfer-students/ that “High school students currently in a dual-enrollment program should apply as first-year students.”

Harvard says in https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/application-process/transferring-harvard-college/transfer-eligibility that “Students who have completed one full-time year of college in a regular degree program in lieu of their senior year of high school (often referred to as dual enrollment) should apply for first-year admission if these courses are taken for credit towards a high school diploma.”

For other colleges, investigate carefully. In general, taking college courses after high school graduation is the type of action that could force you to apply as transfer instead of frosh as many colleges. But each college may have its own special rules.

10

If your unweighted GPA is 4.0 (including all high school and college courses), then your UC weighted capped GPA is probably around 4.2-4.3.

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-general/2127392-faq-uc-historical-frosh-admit-rates-by-hs-gpa-2018.html shows admission rates by GPA range for fall 2018:


Campus  4.20-   3.80-   3.40-   3.00-
        higher  4.19    3.79    3.39
UCB     37%     10%      1%      1%
UCLA    41%      9%      2%      1%
UCSD    70%     34%      7%      1%
UCI     75%     38%      7%      1%
UCSB    80%     41%      8%      1%
UCD     89%     52%     14%      3% 
UCSC    92%     70%     33%     12%
UCR     96%     84%     49%     15%
UCM     98%     95%     82%     45%

If you are applying for a major that is more popular than its capacity (e.g. CS or engineering majors at many campuses), then you should expect admission to be more difficult than past admission rates suggest for the overall campus.

If you are a pre-med who is willing to practice in inland southern California, you may want to add UCR to your list. It has an early assurance program for its medical school that you apply to a year earlier than you would normally apply; if admitted, you would be able to avoid spending a lot of time and money in the regular medical school admission process (pre-meds who apply typically apply to 15-30 medical schools at a cost of $7,500 or so and feel lucky to get one admission).
https://somsa.ucr.edu/thomas-haider-early-assurance-program

11

@“aunt bea” I will be applying as a freshman, but will enter with sophomore to junior level coursework completed. Essentially, I am on track to graduate in 2-3 years, instead of the 4-5.

12

Note that some colleges limit credit that can be used for early graduation (although subject credit and advanced placement may be given).

Early graduation is not generally considered advantageous for pre-med purposes. Also, medical schools want to see a substantial amount of science course work completed at four year school, rather than only or mostly at community colleges.

13

This^^^
@maroonhampster19, you don’t seem to be getting the message. You are not the first, nor only person to have advanced coursework as a high school student. A number of us have exceptional children who have already been through this process and have graduated. It’s not something new and we’re giving you a heads up. Learn to be humble.

What @ucbalumnus is indicating is very common. Depending on the school, you may not be graduating in 2-3 years. Colleges want their own series of courses completed. They DO limit what kinds of credit is given. Each of my three children went through this at very different university systems; they all received priority registration.

14

@“aunt bea” since I am asking for advice regarding whether or not I have a chance at certain schools, it is important for me to list all of my accomplishments.

15

Academics: try to improve your SAT score. Try to get an 800 or close to it on the subject tests. Most schools don’t care about weighted GPA–it is a pretty unreliable metric and pretty hard to interpret. That you have a 4 unweighted is good. That being said, colleges are not impressed with community college classes any more than they would be with high school classes. Also, not sure how much credit you would actually get for cc classes–I assume very little if any. May help you place out of some things, but that is not the same as credit.

ECs: The things you listed under ECs aren’t very impressive. You have a lot, but none seem like they are very interesting or that they are big time commitments. Putting all of these things on your app is unwise. It will look like resume padding.

I’d say medium chance at UCs. Slightly higher at GW. Lower at Chicago, Harvard, and Hopkins. Still worth applying, though. I would add more lower reaches–top 20 schools, higher ranked LACs, etc. Your chances at high reaches are very slim, but if you add enough lower reaches, your chances of getting into one goes up.

If I were you, I would commit more to an EC or two. Explore them more in depth. Also make sure to write really good essays.