I am currently a junior in high school in California and I’m curious about my chances at the UC’s and a few other schools. Also, can you please provide any tips about SAT’s, other extracurriculars, or anything else that will help my chances at these schools? Thank you,much appreciated!
Gender: Female
Race: Black
Income: $90,000
Cumulative Unweighted GPA: 3.9
UC GPA: 3.83
Rank: Top 15%
AP Courses :
AP World History (took last year)
AP Chemistry (currently)
APUSH (currently)
AP English Language (currently)
AP Calc AB (currently)
AP Calc BC (senior year)
AP Biology (senior year)
AP English Literature (senior year)
AP Gov/Economics (senior year)
I want to take an AP physics class online or at a community college and maybe a few more my junior or senior year.
Extracurriculars:
I plan to do volleyball for 4 years. 1 year of JV and 3 years of Varsity. Captain my senior year.
Track & Field 2 years so far (I will probably do it for 4 years, but lately, I’ve noticed the coach can be an a**hole so I’m not sure. If I decide not to, I will probably get a job so I can stay busy during the Spring & Winter)
90 volunteer hours so far. Hopefully 150-200 hrs by the time I apply for college.
I’ve been a part of a lot clubs at school, but don’t hold any leadership positions in them
CSF(3 yrs)
Key club, Interact, Red Cross (3 years)
NHS (2 yrs)
I want to major in Biology or Biochemistry since I want to be a doctor.
My worry is that my GPA will fall junior year. It’s the third week of school and I already have 2 D’s and it’s super hard to get a decent grade in AP Calc at my school, but I will keep studying and try to do my best in my classes.
Thank you for reading please provide my chances and any possible tips or advice!
I am assuming a 3.8 UC GPA and 1900 SAT as i type this.
This won’t be popular but, i’d suggest you drop your AP Calc course. With your stats, you aren’t really in contention for the top or even middle UCs. As such, Sr course rigor won’t make a huge difference in your chances at SantaCruz, Merced and Riverside. A D will get your acceptance (if you get one) rescinded. A C may also put your admission at risk. Take a more manageable math course - perhaps regular Calc - or even AP Stat.
Also, take a look at SDSU, and CP Pomona (maybe SLO - but I don’t know your GPA/test scores, so that’s hard to say)
If you are a Junior, your UC GPA only includes 10th grades at this point, so really pointless to speculate on your chances. You need test scores along with your 11th grades but you are heading in the right direction. Keep working hard, look for some leadership positions in your EC’s and prep for the SAT/ACT. Come back next summer with all your stats and then you can be properly chanced. Also remember, there are many other schools in California, besides the UC’s that are worth considering.
I didn’t really post this so people can discourage me…lol. I started school literally a couple weeks ago so there are only a few tests/ assignments in for my calculus grade so I won’t just drop that class because it’s hard. Isn’t that the point of an AP class? To challenge yourself and perserve? Also, you should know that a 3.9 unweighted GPA for an African American female student athlete is something that will interest admissions officers at UCs and even higher institutions. I’m not bragging, I’m just saying check before you tell me to drop my classes and shoot for lower schools. I’m not an idiot. And no your not being “realistic.” you’re being discouraging and I won’t listen to that crap. I just wanted some helpful suggestions not discouraging BS lol
@Heeeyitschin,
UC’s can’t look at affirmative action for admission, it is against the law to use race for admission, but, the private schools will like your stats. Try applying to privates.
@NCalRent is a really good advisor and is not trying to insult you. Please consider the advice and just think about it. Ask for extra help and see if you can recover from those D’s.
@heeeyitschin There’s a point where you have to be realistic about the classes you take. Of course it’s great to challenge yourself, but if you end up receiving a very low AP Calc grade, it would’ve been more impressive to colleges if you took a less rigorous math class but still received a high grade. @NCalRent is very realistic, it’s just the brutal truth you have to face sometimes.
Wow! You had two replies (one encouraging and the other trying to provide some helpful advice based upon the fact that YOU said you were starting with off with D’s and your calc class was super hard) and you went on the attack.
Yes, being a URM will help at schools like Princeton and Stanford but being an athlete will mean very little if you are not recruitable. More importantly, both schools will be extremely difficult to get into with a D or and/or some C’s on your transcript. Yes, APs are there to challenge yourself. But, that also means super-elite schools expect you to be able to rise to the challenge and post high marks in these classes. If you don’t like what people are saying when they are giving you honest, well-meaning advice then what was the point of this thread?
The point of this thread was to get helpful advice and suggestions, not for people to tell me to drop a hard class and lower my standards of schools. That is all I’m saying.
Well, you are not going to like this but that would be my advice too. However, only you know if you can turn things around and get a high grade (you should have A’s on your transcript for the kinds of schools you listed).
Stanford and Princeton accept kids who are among the very best in the country (and even the entire world). You are not even in the top ten percent of your local high school. Being a URM and on your high school volleyball team isn’t enough to offset mediocre grades so I would work on doing everything you can to make sure you get terrific grades this year.
Not what you want to hear I’m sure, but sometimes we parents have to practice some tough love here on CC.
@heeeyitschin Ok so I am a seinor this year at a CA high school, and I had the same type of dilemma Sophomore year with my Algerbra II honors class. There was no way I was going to be able to get better than a C in that class, so I went down to College Prep Alg II, and it was so much better. I was a able to get a an A both semesters in that class. This was better for me in the long run, and it actually raised my GPA because I received 4 GPA points instead of 3. So, just because you drop down in one AP/Honors class does not mean you are an “idiot” it is a strategic way to get a better GPA. Also, you can go down to College Prep Calc, and take the AP test to still try to get college credit for taking AP Calc. (My weighted GPA is a 4.375 by the way)
@heeeyitschin: It is great that you recognize you may be in trouble with 2 of your classes. You can do 1 of 2 things:
Find a tutor to help you over the rough start or consider dropping down a level as suggested by several posters. You do not have to take every AP class offered at your HS to be a competitive applicant. If you have the resources and are determined to continue the AP Calc, look for a tutor. Both my son’s used tutors for AP Calc their first semester and it definitely made a difference in their grades although they both were hovering around a C at the beginning.
Thank you for the advice. I mean it’s not that it’s impossible to get an A or a good grade in the class, but I underestimated how much its going to take to get an A or B in the class. We have a warm up quiz everyday of class on the previous lesson, and that’s what’s hurting my grade because it’s like you have to master the topic by the day after you learn it. I think I just need to improve my work ethic. If there’s little improvement by next month, I’ll ask my parents to look into a tutor.
I appreciate the advice so far but I will not drop out of any of my classes. Math and calculus will follow me throughout my education so…I can’t really escape it lol
@heeeyitschin I am not trying to crush your dreams. AP Calc is a brutal course at most schools and you sounded pretty convinced that a D was in your future. You asked about what you can do to improve your chances a UCs - which I took to mean all 9 campuses. I am trying to relay some insight about how to achieve your goal of getting into a UC. If you don’t have a competitive GPA, course rigor doesn’t matter. It’s that simple.
If you are confident you can earn a B or better, stick with the class. If not, talk to your math teacher and your HS counselor about pulling back to another course in which you are confident you will excel. I don’t know your aptitude, talents or work ethic I can’t advise you beyond that.
You get 4 semesters and about 10 classes to create your UC GPA. For the purposes of GPA (and in many ways course rigor), AP Calc = AP Stat. An A in AP Stat this year will make you a stronger UC candidate than a C or D in AP Calc.
See if your local CC will let you audit a college level Calc class That way you’d be able to try the class without the possibility of a blemish on your otherwise stellar record. If you do well, take AP Calc next year and blow the doors off the class.
If you dream about elite schools, especially top ranked UC’s where good grades are the most important part of your portfolio, then you better avoid getting any grade less than B!
So you better listen to above posters who happen to be the most experienced ones!
Yeah I get it, everyone wants me to drop AP Calc but I am 100% positive that is something I am not going to do. Taking the course in college is just extra money and an extra headache. I want to do biology so it’s not like if I drop the course, I’ll never see it again and it’ll never harm my GPA. It’s too late to drop any courses in my high school anyway. So can anyone reccommend some other things I can do
You had best get off this thread and stop acting like you know my life story and get a life yourself. I really don’t see the point of these threads if people are just going to insult you, discourage you, and then call it advice. I’m not stupid and I can recognize BS advice. “Oh I’m just trying to help, stop being so sensitive.”
“Why make this post if you can’t handle the advice”
stfu you already know how stressful these few years of high school are for teenagers and you’re going to sit up on your laptop and tell us to “hit the books hard” as if studying and doing everything we can think of to improve our work ethic isn’t something we already do. We’re discouraged enough and we really don’t need it on here where we’re seeking helpful advice. I acknowledge that some of you stated that dropping Calc will be in my best interest but what is annoying is that I continue to get comments about it even after elaborating that I am working hard to change my grade and genuinely don’t want to/can’t drop the class. Are you just ignoring that or are you just trying to irritate me? Anyways, the only helpful suggestion I got was the 1st one and I’m going to take their advice and come back next year where I will have a complete list of what I’ve done and hopefully some knowledgable people will give me some feedback. But who knows, this thread just proves CC is full of what people say it is: dummies who don’t know the slightest thing about college but just wanna talk.