High SAT Low GPA

<p>This was my daughter’s situation as well. Luckily she was most interested in small liberal arts colleges -not big universities, because those are the schools most likely to spend a lot of time reading your application and considering ALL aspects, not just admitting/rejecting based on numbers. She applied to several very selective LACs in the northeast and did well.</p>

<p>Colgate, strong in psych, politics, and business and will love having your scores. Show them interest even tho they say it’s not considered. I’d try Penn, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, NYU, Chicago, Claremont McKenna, UVA, Clemson, Emory, University of Rochester.</p>

<p>Son was also accepted to ucla OOS, so give it a try. </p>

<p>Thanks everyone! I added a decent amount of schools on here to my list. </p>

<p>Most UCs prefer high GPA over high SAT scores. The exception is UCSB, which is lenient towards students with a 2200+ SAT score. As a result, UCSB is much less selective than UC Davis and UC Irvine. Unless if you want to go to UCSB, you should probably avoid applying to the UCs.</p>

<p>UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UC Davis, and UC Irvine will probably reject you, but you have a good chance at UCSB.</p>

<p>I think i’ll apply for UCSD, as quite a few students from my high school with significantly lower stats than me were accepted there. (I do not go to a typical public school haha)</p>

<p>UIUC?</p>

<p>^^^
???</p>

<p>Haven’t you already sent in your UC app? It was due a week ago. If so, which UCs did you apply to?</p>

<p>Maybe @ucbalumnus‌ can chime in here, but my gut tells me that the UCs more heavily weight GPA for instate students to give their residents who attend underprivileged schools a fighting chance to be admitted. However, such leniency isn’t needed for OOS students, so once past the minimum OOS GPA (somewhere around 3.4), maybe test scores can tip the scale? It would seem that being “score whores” for full-pay OOS students would be beneficial to the UCs in a variety of ways.</p>

<p>Oh clarification I’m still a junior!!! </p>

<p>Well then you can still improve your GPA before it’s time to apply!</p>

<p>Realistically I won’t get over a 3.8 this year, though that would manage to pull my GPA to a high 3.7, I don’t think 3/5 and 3.7 are a huge difference.</p>

<p>For an OOS UC applicant, there is a big difference between a 3.5 and 3.7…and also important for other schools.</p>

HI UPDATE so my grades went up to like a 3.9 for Junior year and I’ll have a 3.7-3.8 cumulative how does this change things??

Are you sure your calculations are right? A 3.7 cum with a 3.9 for Jr year means your cum after Soph year was 3.6. That means you previously forecasted a 3.3 for Jr year. A 3.8 cum makes that algebra even worse (you had a 3.75 after Soph year and forecasted a 3.0). And your Jr year isn’t over yet.

It’s complicated, but I switched my schedule around(I dropped an AP for a different one that I have no problem getting an A in, also giving me significantly more time to get the work for my other classes done)

I had JUST UNDER a 3.6 for my cum after soph year.

In addition, I take more credits now by skipping lunch and cutting some unnecessary electives in favor of some more core classes.

In addition, I have gotten nearly straight A’s this quarter which led to an average of almost straight A’s (1 B+) for first semester junior year. Assuming I can keep this up I should have straight A’s and 1-2 A-'s for junior year.