Chances for UCs and Others

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I know it’s early, but I’d love to hear about the chances for some of the schools on my wishlist.

Current junior.
CA resident.
Ranked 8 out of 531 students at my local high school.

GPA (grades 10 & 11)

3.94 Unweighted
4.39 Weighted
4.39 UC GPA

Classes

AP English, Language - grade 11
AP Physics - grade 11
AP Psychology - grade 11
AP US History - grade 11
AP European History - grade 10, scored a 4 on the test
Honors Algebra 2 - grade 10

Testing

ACT (1st sitting)
31 Composite
34 English
29 Math
34 Reading
27 Science
…awaiting Writing score…

Taking ACT again in April (and possibly June)
Taking SAT II US History and Math 2 in May

EC’s

My extracurriculars are my weak spot since club soccer took up all my team up until my junior year.

Club soccer from age 8 - age 15 (national competitive team at age 15)
High school soccer (grades 9 & 10, captain of JV team in grade 10)
Youth in Government (started in grade 11)
National Honors Society (grade 10)
Hospital Volunteer (started in grade 11)

Majors

My ideal lists of majors is

Data science
Interdisciplinary major which includes psychology and neuroscience
Neuroscience
Pre-Med

Schools

Here is my wish list of schools in alphabetical order. I’ll pare down the list sometime this summer.

Boston University
Brown University (reach school)
Carnegie Mellon University
New York University
Northwestern University (reach school)
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Davis
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Cruz (safety school)
University of Colorado, Boulder (safety school)
University of Chicago (reach school)
University of Miami (safety school)
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
University of Oregon (safety school)
University of Pennsylvania (reach school)
University of Texas, Austin
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Vanderbilt University (reach school)
Washington University in St. Louis (reach school)

2

Are you in-state for California? How much can your family afford to pay $amount?

3

Yes, I’m in state for CA. I don’t know how much my parents can afford, but they have told me not to worry about the cost of college. They don’t have a lot of money, but have been saving for college since I was born. I think they want to ask for aid, and will deal with the rest of the cost after.

4

Oh, I’m caucasian.

5

You have a lot of out of state schools on your list, so many will be very expensive. Most OOS publics offer little financial aid to a non-resident applicant so those schools cannot be considered safeties… I would run the Net Price Calculators (NPC) on all the schools of interest to give yourself an idea of the costs and run these numbers by your parents before starting any applications.

Also, I would not consider UCSC a safety for the moment unless you bump up your ACT score a bit.

You are on the right track in terms of grades and test scores. You should have a decent chance at most of the UC’s on your list, but much will depend upon your test scores.

Any chance for being recruited for soccer?
EC’s are not bad but nothing stands out. I would start with the affordability factor first and work from there.

6

Make sure you score 5s on as many AP exams as possible; that can bolster your academic appeal.

7

Thanks!

Let’s say that an out of state school won’t be an issue. My dad just told me that he has saved enough to cover any school I want to attend. In fact, he says he wants me to go out of state. He says that being further away from home will allow me to experience life more and learn how to take care of myself more quickly compared to staying close to home. What are my odds at those out of state schools?

Soccer is a no go. I stopped playing after 10th grade. My club team, the national travel team, was going from two, 2-hour practices a week to three, 3-hour practices a week. I decided that I didn’t want to play in college and the new schedule was for those players that did.

I fully intend to raise my ACT composite to 33 or 34.

My father has hired a tutor to get me scores higher.

8

Also which of this schools consider demonstrated interest? My parents want to take me on a college tour.

9

OOS schools not my expertise, so I will pass on making suggestions. Regarding schools that consider demonstrated interest, you can google the common datasets for each school and look under section C7 for Freshman admissions. Here is the link for Univ of Colorado, Boulder.

http://www.colorado.edu/pba/cds/cds16/index.htm

10

I’m surprised that UCSC is not considered safe. Have they tightened up admissions?

11

^ Yes, UC Santa Cruz has definitely become more competitive in regards to admissions, you should definitely be in there.

12

I would consider UCSC a low match but not a safety although OP’s stats are very competitive. Much will depend upon the major. Each year all the UC’s continue to become more competitive and the average stats are always creeping up. Few applicants are shoo-ins for many of the UC’s except maybe UC Merced (ELC eligible).

13

How does the ELC work? Is that the guarantee for the top 9% in your class?

14

ELC only guarantees that if you are in the top 9% of your HS class or top 9% in the state, you will be given a spot at a UC (UC Merced by default if there is room), if you are not accepted into a UC of your choice. I do think you are a competitive applicant, but UC admissions can many times be a crapshoot so I like to err on the side of caution.

15

Bump

16

Are you sure you calculated your UC GPA right because since Algebra 2 H isn’t UC weighted you’re regular weighted GPA shouldn’t be equal to you’re UC weighted GPA

17

Ah…you’re right. My UC GPA is 4.28.

18

I also plan on taking the following classes in my senior year:

AP English Literature
AP Government/Economics
AP Calculus AB or AP Statistics
AP Spanish
Physiology
Military History

I need a fine art to graduate, so I’ll either take AP Photography or take a similar class at the local community college this summer.

19

Also, what is more valuable? An “A” in AP Photography or an “A” in Beginning Photography at my local community college?

20

So I made some errors and omissions in my initial post and made the corrections below:

Current junior.
CA resident.
Ranked 9 (unweighted) / 15 (weighted) out of 522 students in my grade

GPA

3.97 Unweighted
4.17 Weighted
4.31 UC GPA

Classes

Freshman Year
English 1 PreAP - A/A
Intro to Social Studies - A/A
Geometry Honors - A/A
Biology PreAP - A/A
Spanish 1 CP - A/A
Girls Soccer - A/A

Sophomore Year
AP European History - A/A
Honors Algebra 2 - A/A
English 2 PreAP - A/A
Girls Soccer - A/A
Chemistry CP - A/A
Spanish 2 CP - A/A

Junior Year
AP English, Language - A/?
AP Physics - B/?
AP Psychology - A/?
AP US History - A/?
Spanish 3 CP - A/?
Pre Calculus CP - A/?

Senior Year Schedule
AP English, Literature
AP Chemistry
AP Calculus AB
AP Government
AP Studio Drawing 2-D
Military History
*Spanish 4 or AP Spanish (taking at Halstrom Academy in the summer)

Testing

ACT (1st sitting)
31 Composite
34 English
29 Math
34 Reading
27 Science
27 Writing

Taking ACT again in April (and possibly June)
Taking SAT II US History in May
Taking SAT II Math 2 in June

EC’s

My extracurriculars are my weak spot since club soccer took up all my time until my junior year.

Club soccer from age 8 - age 15 (national competitive team at age 15)
High school soccer (grades 9 & 10, captain of JV team in grade 10)
Youth in Government (started in grade 11)
National Honors Society (grade 10)
Hospital Volunteer (started in grade 11)

Majors

I’ll probably apply as UNDECLARED, but the majors I’m in interested in are:

Data science
Interdisciplinary major which includes psychology and neuroscience
Neuroscience
Pre-Med

Schools

Here is my wish list of schools in alphabetical order. I’ll pare down the list sometime this summer.

Boston University
Emory University
New York University
Northwestern University
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Davis
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Cruz
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
University of Oregon
University of Texas, Austin
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Vanderbilt University

Thank you for looking at this again!