I’m a junior in high school and I only take 2 IB classes (English HL Spanish SL) and the rest of my classes are average. I’ve gotten 4 As (one IB English) 2 Bs (One was Spanish) and sadly a C (I’m her bad at math,Algebra 3-4). I ended the semester with a GPA of 3.8. My dream schools are UCLA,UCSD,UCSC,LBSU,SDSU and UO.
I’m nervous I won’t be able to make it into these colleges with the grades I have and the classes I take. I make sure my average classes are at an A with the exception of science because of how my teacher is. I still need to take my SATs but I’m waiting until later because I need to wait as longs as possible so my math grade is higher (again-I struggle a lot).
My friends mom who has had her son go to a UC told me I wouldn’t get into any of the schools I listed above because I just take two IB courses and they’re not relevant to my major I wish to take (Physical Therapy-no more room in IB Bio class)
I’m athletic and I’m very fast and although I don’t want to rely on my athletics to take me places-it’s worth noting (UO has the fastest sprinters and I’m not sure I could compete)
Please give me as much insight as you can. I’m very nervous about applications and I’d be devastated to apply to the colleges and get rejected by all of them.
How is your HS course rigor in comparison to your fellow classmates?
UC’s and CSU’s do consider HS course rigor in the application review since they give extra honors points in the UC/CSU GPA calculation for AP/IB and DE courses taken 10-11th grade.
What are your test scores?
For the CSU's, all admit by Eligibility index and major except for Cal Poly SLO which uses MCA points.
Your Eligibility index is calculated as follows:
(UC/CSU GPA x800) + (SAT Math+CR) or (UC/CSU GPA x200) + (ACT composite x10)
For CSULB, you want an Eligibility index of 4000 SAT or 1000 ACT for the best chances
For SDSU, you want an Eligibility index of 4100 SAT or 1050 ACT for the best chances
SLO uses 9-11th grades in their GPA calculation with a cap of 8 semesters of honors points. Here is a link on how to calculate your MCA points.
For SLO, it is very major dependent so an MCA score of 4700 is solid for most majors.
If you were excluded from the IB Bio class because it was full, then you should note this on your application. There is a place on the application to explain circumstances that may have held you back.
I think that it would increase your chances, but just slightly, since it only involves one class that you weren’t allowed to take. But I think it is important to mention it because it relates to your major, and admissions needs to know that you wanted to take it.
A few years ago my S1 was accepted to the UC’s with only a few AP classes, even though his high school offers more than a dozen of them. I think one of the factors that helped him was that he explained on his application that the prerequisites that his high school required (but no longer require) for taking certain AP classes had kept him from signing up for some of them. I think the high school later changed its policy because they realized that their effort to protect kids from taking on more than they could handle was making it too difficult for them to compete with kids from other schools. I am always amazed when I see posts from students on CC that list more than one science or math class in the same year because his high school still doesn’t allow that.
One thing you might consider is taking a community college class in one of the a-g subjects over the summer. I think community college classes are regarded by admissions as similar to AP and IB. Sometimes it is easier to do well when you are just concentrating on one subject at a time.