High School Freshman - Help would be appreciated!

UCs do list admission rates tiered by GPA range (UC recalculated weighted-capped), so you may be able to get a better idea of chances there. But some majors like engineering and CS are more selective than the campus overall.

Based on your extracurricular I’d assume you’re STEM oriented, but AP Physics for a freshman can be rough even for ppl with a passion for science. Also, if you take AP Calc BC sophomore yr, what math would you take in your junior and senior year?

I am very STEM-oriented, but I’m more into the biology field; I’m doing pretty well in physics because I took an advanced course for seventh and eighth grade (probably the equivalent of H/AP Bio in seventh, and H/AP Physics and Chem in eighth [I’m not even joking, I didn’t take the AP exams because my middle school had an afterschool thing that prepped more for the AP Exam but they stopped doing it my year so I decided not to take the test]) (Don’t take it the wrong way I’m not trying to brag)

@zombiekid I am planning to take AP Calc BC in sophomore year, AP Statistics in junior year, and HL Math in senior year (It’s an IB course).

HL Maths is the 2-year course and would be a good choice after BC, especially if you do HL Pure Maths, a new, very advanced course starting Fall 2019.
Anything 20% acceptance rate and below is reach for everyone. Meaning, everyone.
However calculating your 10-11 capped and uncapped GPA for UC’s does give you a good idea of how likely it is you’ll get into UCB/UCLA, then the other UC’s.

I will be sure to ask my counselor about what courses I could take, but I still haven’t found an answer for calculating a GPA that has an IB and AP class.

For the UC’s, here is the calculator and instructions on how the weighting is done for IB and AP classes:

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

If you’re shooting for admission into RSI, you’re best off throwing yourself headlong into finding a research lab to intern at both during the year and the summers leading up to your application. This is clearly difficult to do and has a ton to do with luck and proximity to a research university/a channel to connect to labs willing to take you under their wing.

Do you plan on taking advanced math courses at your cc anytime esp since IB math and AP Calc BC might be redundant courses? My school offers Multivariable Calc as a dual enrollment course, so maybe check with your counselor if you can do anything like that junior yr and stick to ap stats senior yr?
Also for the weight in your official transcript for your school (this affects your class rank) you need to check with your gc

Thank you for the GPA calculator (although it says not to include freshman year)

I will see if I can find a research lab I can intern at; I live in SoCal so I’m near a few universities.

I think I might be able to dual enrollment with a cc (Pierce?) because my GC already asked me if I wanted to take extra courses at one.

Also, I want to know what extracurriculars you guys all did (I’m trying to decide what to do)

I’m a sophomore and mine are deca, debate, and HOSA. I probably should have done more science extracurriculars but I took 4 science courses last yr and im taking 4 more this yr so I felt doing a science extracurricular as well would be super exhausting, but I’m looking for research opportunities for next summer.

And theres one aspect of scheduling most people completely overlook, and I think you are too. When you look at your classes, do you feel genuinely excited to study that material/ take that course? You’re still a freshmen, and I think you’re worrying just a bit too much about college

If you’re interested in pursuing admission to RSI, you’re best served by focusing on math/science related activities to demonstrate your passion. Getting into a research lab and conducting relatively novel research will likely consume most of your extracurricular time, but you can of course pursue maybe another activity or two in addition.

I personally pursued math/science (physics) competitions/research; during the summers I attended a math camp and a research program. There’s a wealth of knowledge on CC to look into which ones if they’re of interest (see the summer activities forum).

I love biology-related fields the most but so I would really be excited to go to a biology research program or camp, but currently, the only classes I take that I am interested in are Physics and Spanish (Math is whatever)

Bioinformatics is a growing field, at the intersection between Biology and “informatics”, ie., applied computer science.

I am more into medicine and things like diseases.

@K37275 check your pm

Look into camps dealing with Immunology, Epidemics, Prosthetics…

I will do just that!