I am currently a sophomore in high school. I am fearful of receiving two B’s my first semester of the school year: in Accelerated Algebra 2 and Spanish 3-4.
I will be working towards getting all A’s next semester, but I am fearful that these two B’s will highly affect my chances.
Outside regular academics, I participate in Speech and Debate, and went to both State and Nationals my freshmen year, and placed top 20 at the State Championships. I am hoping to qualify again this year, along with the rest of my high school career. I am planning on running for Vice President when I am a junior and President when I am a senior. Speech and Debate is my main extra-curricular.
Although I am usually strong in academics, this semester has been a whirlwind. Do UC’s like seeing improvement in grades? What do you think my chances are of being admitted into a UC (so far)?
UC’s only use 10-11th grades for the a-g course requirements in their GPA calculation, so there is no way to gauge your chances with just having 1st semester 10th grades completed. 2 B’s is not a downward grade trend so just continue to work hard and strive for the best possible grades you can get. There are 9 UC’s with varying ranges of selectivity. If you continue to do well, take a rigorous HS schedule, get competitive test scores and continue with your EC’s, you should be a competitive applicant. There are thousands of colleges in the US, so there will be many schools out there for you and not just the UC’s.
I currently have a 3.8 unweighted GPA…don’t UC’s focus on GPA more than they do EC’s? I fear that my EC’s are much more competitive than my GPA
Yes, the UC’s do focus on GPA, test scores and essays more than EC’s but if all things being equal between applicants, EC’s can set you apart. As your HS course rigor increases, you may see a slight decrease in your UW GPA but for the UC’s it can be made up with the course weighting. UC’s turn down many applicants with 4.0 UW GPA’s so that alone will not get you into any of the top schools. At this point, do your best and then at the end of Junior year, figure out which schools will be a good fit.