Chances please!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Santa Barbara
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<p>Hey CC, i'm an out of state resident who really wants to go to school in California. Many of the kids in the honors/AP Curriculum at my high school end up going to U of I in Urbana-Champaign, and i'm looking for a new experience for college. Our school colors are even identical; orange and blue. I was looking at rankings as such, and many of the UC schools were ranked higher than U of I, and they're in California. Living in California beats living in Illinois anyday, and I speak from experience, as i went to junior high in Cali. Anyway i'm ranting now, so i'll stop. I'm applying to all the UCs who placed higher than U of I, so if you see this post copied on the other UC forums, :P. </p>

<p>UW GPA: 3.59
WGPA: 4.22
UC GPA + GPA rant: Not too sure how this works yet, someone gave me a link to a UC GPA calculator, and it said i had a 4.44 UC GPA, which makes no sense. My GPA shows an extremely significant upward trend. My freshman and sophomore years were nothing special, but my sophomore year was an improvement upon my freshman year. I managed to pull off straight As during junior year, and I hope to repeat the feat during senior year. I've taken the most rigorous courses our school has to offer. I've completed 5 AP classes so far, and i'm taking 4 AP classes this year. The rest of my classes, gym excluded, are at the Honors level. I'm planning to milk my upward trend in GPA, but my mediocre performance during freshman year really hurts. The UC GPA calculator told me to discount 9th grade, and input everything beyond 9th, and as i'm currently a senior, I entered my soph + junior grades. I've taken way more than 8 honors/AP classes, so i put 8 in the box that asks for AP/Honors classes, and hit the calculate button. I'm sure i did something wrong, as i've seen other students with a much higher UW GPA with UC GPAs lower than the one i got.
SAT I (superscored): CR: 750, Writing: 730, Math: 710 (2190 total)
SAT II: haven't taken these yet, but i should do okay on them.
ECs:
football (9,10)
wrestling (9,10,11, planning on 12)
tennis (10,11, planning on 12)
newspaper club (11, planning on 12)
student council (11, planning on 12)
debate team (11, planning on 12)
I help out at a homeless shelter every Monday during the fall/winter
I'm a three time participant of the Relay for Life cancer fundraiser</p>

<p>I'm applying to:
UC Berkeley
UC LA
UC Santa Barbara
UC San Diego
UC Davis
USC </p>

<p>I know UCB, UCLA, and USC are reaches because of my GPA, but do i have a shot? I've been hearing horror stories about how hard it is for OOS students to get into the UC schools. )':</p>

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<p>*WGPA is 4.19</p>

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<p>Well my GPA was 3.4 overall UW. And a 3.86 UW junior year. SAT was 2000 (did best in math) and SAT 2s were all over 740 (took 3). ECs were Debate club, and Model UN jr and senior years. And well I got into Biochemistry at UCSB. So I think with your ECs and much better SAT you have a clear shot here.</p>

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<p>@Ranka Thanks! That’s great to know, because USC was ranked 23 and it seemed like my UW GPA was too low for USC. Now i don’t feel so bad about it anymore. 8D</p>

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<p>I’d say you have a good shot at Irvine, decent shot at Davis and SB. In at Santa Cruz, if you’re interested. It’s a very laid-back, very “California” school, from what I hear.</p>

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<p>@Ranka: Whooooooooooops. Someone pointed out elsewhere that this was the UCSB forum! sorry, i posted a near identical post on the USC forums, and thought that this was my USC post. I replied with that assumption, sorrrrry. :frowning: But still, thanks for the info!</p>