<p>UCB admissions selectivity varies by division, and major within its College of Engineering. Bioengineering, EECS, and engineering undeclared are reputedly the highest selectivity majors to apply to, probably in the reach-for-everyone category. UCLA probably also has variations in selectivity by division and/or major.</p>
<p>Northwestern is also a highly selective reachy school. Most of Texas’ admission spots are taken by top 7% rank students from Texas, making it a reach for everyone else. Note that Texas uses class rank, not GPA, in frosh admissions.</p>
<p>UCSD, due to its holistic admissions reading process, should not be considered a safety, although it may be low match for some applicants. UCs generally put a high emphasis on GPA – but recalculated by UC’s method (unweighted, weighted with up to 8 semesters’ of honors/AP courses, and weighted without that cap). Since your high school’s weighting method may differ, your high school’s weighted GPA does not help anyone assess how realistic your chances are (4.13 weighted GPA may be based on a 4.0 unweighted GPA, or a 3.4 unweighted GPA).</p>
<p>The UCs, while they may be glad to take OOS money, are said to look favorably on applicants who write convincing essays about overcoming adversity or hardship. While officially need-blind in admissions, that admissions criterion can correlate to what appears to be need-awareness, but in the opposite of the usual direction. (Of course, the needy OOS students can’t afford them, except in unusual circumstances like rare large merit scholarships.)</p>