Low GPA lots of APs college chances
Hi I have a 3.14 uw gpa and I’m currently applying to some schools In California. I’ve taken 11 APs in hs and I’m from Washington state. I’m an Asian male from an upper class background. No standardized test scores.
APs:
Human geo (4), World (4), US history, US gov, Physics 1 (3), Physics 2, Physics C: mech, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Statistics, Psych, Comp sci principles (5), (Self studied environmental science (5))
Schools I’m applying to:
UCSB, UCSD, UCI, UCR, UCD, Cal Poly SLO, Cal Poly Pomona, SDSU (accepted), LMU, Pepperdine, and ED II Occidental college.
I applied for either bio or pre-health majors in all these schools. My extracurricular include biotech club, paleontology club, and tennis.
Also I had the extenuating circumstances for personal family tragedy and health issues during the beginning of my junior year.
Welcome to CC as a first time poster.
What are your 3 UC GPA’s? GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub
Can you afford to pay $65K/year to attend the UC’s and around $40K/year to attend the Cal states?
UC’s tend to be very GPA focused so having good HS rigor is important but also getting good grades in these classes are Very important.
Did you address your extenuating circumstances in one of the Personal Insight essays? Did you receive a Supplemental Review from any of the UC’s to explain further about your circumstances?
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Hi,
Yes money isn’t a problem when in my decision. I also forgot to mention I am in dual enrollment and have completed courses at the local college.
Dual enrollment: English comp, English Lit, biology, anatomy and Physiology, and art history.
Yes I mentioned the circumstances regarding my health and family death. I was sent an additional information questionnaire by UC Davis.
According to the cal state website I got a weighted 3.32 I believe.
If you later apply to medical or other professional school, be aware that all of your college courses and grades, including while in high school, count toward your record and GPA for the purpose of applying to medical or other professional school.
Note that medical schools also use BCPM (biology, chemistry, physics, math) GPA as well as overall college GPA, so it is especially important to earn A grades (on the first attempts) in BCPM courses if you want to go to medical school.
I don’t plan on using my dual enrollment courses for any credits when I apply for med school or any form of grad school.
You do not have a choice in this matter – the medical and other professional schools require all college courses and grades to be included with your application.
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If your capped weighted GPA is 3.32, then you would have not been able to apply to the UC’s since their minimum for OOS applicants is a 3.4. I estimated somewhere in the 3.4-3.5 range for your UC capped weighted based on your UW GPA. UC’s only use 10-11th grades in their GPA calculation like the Cal states but calculate college level courses differently.
SLO is the exception which uses 9-11th grades with an 8 semester Honors point cap.
DE courses for the UC’s get 1 grade/semester with an extra Honors point in the GPA calculation and for the CSU’s, you list 2 grades/semester with 2 Honors points.
UC’s do consider the fully weighted GPA (more than 8 semester of Honors points) but the Cal states do not.
Congratulations on SDSU, Go Aztecs!!
Here are the OOS admit rates for the following UC’s but not major specific. Biological sciences is impacted at the majority of the UC’s and Cal states.
Capped weighted GPA of 3.40-3.70 admit rates:
UCSD: 16%- Reach
UCI: 19%- Reach
UCSB: 13%- Reach
UCD: 36%- Low Reach
UCR: 76%- Match
Getting the supplemental for UCD is a positive sign but by no means a solid target school.
Cal Poly SLO has around a 10% acceptance rate for Biological Sciences. Middle 50th percentile for the College of Science and Mathematics was GPA 4.04 – 4.27 so a Reach school.
Cal Poly Pomona is probably a Match school for you.
For Cal Poly SLO, I applied as a Public Health major if that makes a difference. In any case I’m likely to attend SDSU since it was one of my top choice schools. Thank you!
Public Health had around a 20% projected acceptance rate at SLO, but the GPA range for the College is still the same.
SDSU is a great option and my younger son is a proud Aztec graduate. Best of luck.