<p>no. application period: nov. 1-30.</p>
<p>oh okay well i’ll just have to wait then. can any of you suggest a good pre-med UC school that i should apply to?</p>
<p>I am sorry but I get rankled when I see people putting the UC’s in “tiers”. First, people get into medical school based on how hard they work in college. If you went to San Fran or San Diego State, entered the honors program, and dug in, you’d be fine. My son is looking for a PhD program now (Biology but not premed) and the criteria is recommendations, grades, and how you made use of summer (in his case, research- I assume there is something similar that shows your drive relative to medical school). He has taken more hard classes than he needed to to get his major. Being a good ultimate frisbee player interests undergrad admissions, but of zero to little interest for grad/med programs (though I feel a couple B’s might have been A’s had he ignored a few tournaments, but so it goes. Gotta do something that makes you happy). </p>
<p>Your SAT is great, and if you took it again and could boost any one score into a 700 range (if you haven’t done so already) that would help if you have your eyes set on the top three UCS- and now let me qualify that… No one can claim (though plenty do) that one UC offers a better education than ANY of the others. No one can claim (prove) that admissions officers/employers automatically add a gold star to any candidates from these schools. Yes, you have to be absurdly smart to get into Berkeley. You also have to be into really small dorm rooms, an urban environment, and heavy grade point curving in your classes (not all). UCLA? Smart helps, but the UC’s pick a range so it screws everyone up when suddenly a kid with a lower SAT score than his friends gets in when the others didn’t. That has been our experience with the kids we’ve known from our HS with UCLA. San Diego? Well, like UCLA, it’s not become a “top” UC because they’re doing anything different- they are both in gorgeous places with gorgeous weather! Lots of kids apply, that has made it a “top” tier. If Santa Barbara had more dorms on campus and was easier to get to it could probably surpass either! </p>
<p>My D is entering Santa Cruz in a few weeks. She got into Irvine, Santa Barbara, Cal Poly. The only college she didn’t get into was San Diego (out of 9 total, including a private and a couple OOS). She didn’t even like San Diego. She liked Santa Cruz and Cal Poly best. Santa Cruz won because of it’s college system, and that beautiful campus. Not for an instant do we feel she will get a lesser education than any place else she could have gone. </p>
<p>That little D of yours sounds like a blip, not a pattern. Take the essay seriously. Choose a school that feels good to you, not it’s “ranking” on a list. Best wishes with that journey!</p>
<p>wow thank you! that was such a helpful answer. i’m actually pretty interested in going to UCSC myself. it’s a great campus and city.</p>