My nephew-a junior… Intend to apply Computer Science for the upcoming cycle UC Berkeley and UCLA.
Freshman - AP Comp Science Principle
Sophomore - AP Comp Science and AP Chem
Junior (this year) - AP Bio (required a life science by HS), AP Cal, AP lang, AP Spanish, AP USH, HO Computer science
JV Tennis 9th and 10th
Varsity Tennis 11th
SAT 1560
Got straight A’s for 9th and 10th grade. Looks like straight As for this year as well.
Decent volunteering activities. @Gumbymom and others, does he have a shot for Computer science major at UC Berkeley or UCLA or SLO?
I am in this thread because my son just committed to UCLA recently. Now, would like to ask for my nephew.
He will be competitive but CS is so highly impacted that many very qualified students have been waitlisted or denied for CS at these schools the last few years. All 3 schools should be considered Reach schools.
For UCLA 2021, admit rate for CS was 5.4%
For UCB EECS 2021, admit rate was around 3-3.5%.
For Cal Poly SLO 2021, admit rate was projected to be around 9%.
SAT will not be taken into consideration since the UC’s and CSU’s are now permanently test blind.
I would recommend he applies widely. If a CA resident, then consider all the UC’s, several of the Cal states such as Cal Poly Pomona, San Diego State, Long Beach state as possible options. Also look at some private universities such as Stanford (high reach), Santa Clara, USC where he could garner merit aid with his exceptional SAT scores and some OOS schools like Arizona State and University of Arizona. If he is a National Merit Finalist, it opens up more schools for Merit.
To add to what @Gumbymom said, I would rate the chances as SLO > UCLA > UCB. Not just because of the admit rates above but also because SLO is strictly a numbers game and your nephew will rank near the top if he has perfect "A"s in grades 9-11. If he still has the chance, I highly recommend that he find ways to maximize the A-G course count and up his math rigor and also add AP Physics to his senior year course plan.If you look through the SLO posts, you will find a range of ways in which he could optimize course selection.
SLO publishes target projections where you can guesstimate the admit rate using the # of Freshman applicants and # of target spots. The big question is yield since they will admit more students than spots which can vary each year.
Regarding CPSLO, it has been said in the past that its bonus point system for additional math and foreign language courses beyond the CSU minimum does not apply the CSU validation policy of assuming that a lower level course has been taken if a higher level course has been passed (e.g. algebra 2 validates algebra 1, and Spanish 2 validates Spanish 1). What it means is that applicants need to be sure to include high school level math and foreign language courses taken while in middle school on the CSU application in order to ensure getting any such bonus points.
For example, suppose a student took algebra 1 in 8th grade, followed by geometry in 9th grade, algebra 2 in 10th grade, precalculus in 11th grade, and calculus in 12th grade. Leaving out the 8th grade algebra 1 from the application will cause the student to get only two semesters of math bonus points at CPSLO, rather than the maximum of four semesters of math bonus points.
Fortunately the CSU application has improved over the past couple of years and it is much more obvious that a student should include junior high math (algebra +) and LOTE.