Chances at UC's

<p>Hello there! Anyways, I would just like a realistic opinion on my chances when it comes to admissions into college. I am looking into applying to all the UC's (except riverside and merced) along with USC and some states. This is what I got:</p>

<p>White jewish male
resident of california
GPA: 3.66 unweighted
SAT: 700 reading, 700 writing, 650 math = 2050
SAT II: 720 US History, 660 Chemistry (plan on taking literature and math II possibly)
AP Tests (both taken and will be taken): Chemistry (4), Spanish (2), Economics, Goverment, Calculus BC w/ AB subscore, English</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
2 years of soccer
Head of video productions for leadership class and link crew
member of senior class council and hebrew club
writer, director and actor of fall drama performance
Made video for Berkely Manufacturing Institute that was shown on the Discovery Channel, Sci-Fi Channel, and featured within Wired Magazine
Head of Mills Television Project
Activist for the senior class; designed and produced senior sweatshirts and t-shirts not authorized by the school and outsold the school, donating all proceeds back to the school
Business owner- clothing</p>

<p>Classes:
Freshman Year-
Honors English
Honors Modern World History
Spanish 3-4
Geometry
Biology</p>

<p>Sophmore Year-
Honors English
World History
Spanish 5-6
Algebra 3-4
Chemistry
Summer: US History @ Community College</p>

<p>Junior Year-
Honors English
AP Chemistry
AP Spanish
Physics
Art
Pre-Calculus
Summer: Health and Psychology @ Community College</p>

<p>Senior Year-
AP English
AP Goverment
AP Economics
AP Calculus BC
Drama
Tech Theater
Abnormal Psychology @ Community College</p>

<p>there you go! thank you.</p>

<p>UCB--Slight Reach
UCLA--Match to Slight Reach
UCSD--Match
UCSB/UCD/UCI--Safe Match
UCSC--Safety
USC--Match, although a lot of competition for the film school now that George Lucas made that $175 million contribution.</p>

<p>thats a confidence boost... i would just wonder, how would lower or high SAT scores affect my chances for admission? basically what i'm asking is how strong are my classes and extracurriculars, most of which came late in my high school career??</p>

<p>The UCs really don't look hard at ECs, it's primarily about GPA and SATs. You should be fine at any other than the top 3, and you have a shot, not huge, at those with a strong essay.</p>

<p>An extra 100 to 150 SAT points would make you a total match at UCLA.</p>

<p>An extra 150 to 200 SAT points would make you a match at all of the schools including UC Berkeley in my humble opinion.</p>

<p>i really appreciate the insight im getting through this, however i still got a few questions...
how do UC's veiw students with learning disabilities? i personally have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and have been able to maintain what most would consider a rather rigorous acedemic schedule. i am also surprised by the apparent emphasis UC's have on SAT's and GPA. It's always been conveyed to me that as long as a student is consitant in the classes they take and their scores aren't stagnant, then the deciding factors are the strength and amount of EC's a student has and their essays. what should i be focussing on when it comes to writing these essays, is there anything specific UC's look for? And when it comes to preparing to submit an application, should i be concentrating more on improving the SAT scores and GPA and doing less EC's???</p>

<p>If you want specifics on the admission process to the UCs, check out the factsheets posted by each UC campus. For example, here is the one from UCSD:</p>

<p><a href="https://tritonlink.ucsd.edu/portal/site/prospective-students/menuitem.24134797e5e2fd95a0b86710514b01ca?storyID=20690%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://tritonlink.ucsd.edu/portal/site/prospective-students/menuitem.24134797e5e2fd95a0b86710514b01ca?storyID=20690&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Unfortunately, each campus does the process slightly different, although I think the UCSD link above gives you a pretty general indication of how most of them do it (UC Berkeley seems to be a bit different--most of the rest are like UCSD).</p>

<p>You have to realize that some of these campuses (like UCLA) get over 40,000 applications. It is just not possible to read through this many essays--so I'm guessing that they grade first on GPAs and SATs and then review the essays and ECs of those who are in the borderline range. One person I talked to at UCSF essentially confirmed this was how they got sorted originally.</p>

<p>As far as the learning disability question, I don't really know. I would guess that they would just ignore it, since under Federal law (the Americans with Disabilities Act), there is to be no discrimination based upon this situation. In fact, here is a quote directly from the Act: "The ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, programs and services provided by state and local governments". Since this is a program being provided by a state government, I would presume the ADA act applies.</p>

<p>Oh, here's the link that tells how many points you get at the UC campuses for certain scores on the SAT and ACT tests:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/freshman/scholarship_reqs.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/paths_to_adm/freshman/scholarship_reqs.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It's at the bottom of the page.</p>

<p>For the first score (GPA), you take your UC GPA score and multiply by 1000.</p>

<p>I'm referring here to how they do the computation as shown on the UCSD link in my last post.</p>

<p>Note that based upon the UCSD site, out of 11,100 points possible, 4,500 of these come from the UC GPA score, and 3,200 come from your SAT/ACT scores. The other 3.400 points come from factors like if you took extra core courses (500 points), if you were in the top 10% of students in the state (600 points), if you come from a low income area (600 points), ECs (1,200 points), and special difficulties faced/overcome (500 points).</p>

<p>So if 29% of the points come from the SAT/ACT scores, and only 11% from the ECs, you can tell where you should put your emphasis. Although if you overcame some difficulties, that should definitely go in your essay and on the application so you can get some extra points (up to 500) for this reason.</p>

<p>dbates0623:</p>

<p>UCB/UCLA: Slight Reach
UCSD: Match
UCI/UCD/UCSB: Safe Match
UCSC: Safety</p>

<p>what are my chances of getting into UCB, UCLA, and/or UCSD?? I have a weighted GPA of about 4.0 and SAT score of 1900. </p>

<p>But I have a lot of ECs: president of a club, vice president of another club, 2-yr captain in xc, 2-time MVP in xc, MVP in track, captain in track, piano 11 yrs. </p>

<p>If I write a really strong essay, will my chances of getting accepted, increase at all?</p>