<p>Hello everyone!
This is my first time on this board. It is very useful. I am currently an entering junior at a competitive high school. (4.0 will only put you in top 10 percent). I take pretty difficult course loads and get reasonable yet not great grades. </p>
<p>Frosh year I got 3.7 gpa. Courses band, Hon English, Hon Geometry, Spanish 1, Biology. </p>
<p>Sophomore year I got a 3.45. Course load = Band, AP European history, Hon Humanities, Hon Alg 2, Spanish 2, Chemistry, College Level Math at the local Junior college so I can skip precalc and go into AP Calc my junior year. </p>
<p>Junior year I plan to take AP English, AP Calc, band, AP art History, Band, Physics, U.S. History online, and a couple junior college courses again. </p>
<p>My senior year I will probably have a moderate courseload with 2-3 APs. My school had a practice SAT with the new writing and I got a 1700 my freshman year. I think I can study and bring that up to at least a 1900. </p>
<p>My dream schools are probably UCSC, Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, and USC. Will a 4.0 weighted gpa with a 1900 SAT score, and an excellent junior year be enough for me to get into these schools? Or should I fit in another AP to make my weighted gpa be a 4.1 or so? What would be good schools in California that I had good chances at? Thankyou for all your help
-John</p>
<p>for UCB/UCLA you should target around a 3.9+ UC gpa with a 2000+ SAT if you want to have a really solid shot. but a 1900 definitely wont put you out of the running. (assuming you're in-state)</p>
<p>Thanks. Anymore comments would be greatly appreciated. I just remembered another thing I wanted to ask though. During my sophomore year I got a C in my math. I read some other posts that said that you could retake the semester of math that you did bad in and they will accept the higher grade in the gpa and not the lower one. Is this true? Thanks again!</p>
<p>I hope you know that improving by 200 points on the SAT can be very hard (unless you start with low math and writing scores). But you'd stand a strong chance at all the UCs with a 1900 and 4.0, even though 4.0 is below average for some.</p>
<p>Thanks so much to everyone who responded! I still wonder if I retake the math course if the original grade would be erased and the new grade is the only kept.
One more question. For Berkeley, UCSC, and USC. What would be ideal numbers with regards to SAT and GPA that would give you a solid chance to get in each school.</p>
<p>If you're a CA resident what do u want to do in the future? AGriculture, Science, Law every UC has its specialty. By the way my above #'s might be a little high those would probably make u a match for the schools. One big word of advice I was in ur boat two years ago try to do summer programs like Junior State and an Economics Program called FTE if ur into econ stuff, i thought that helped me immensely then my essays were just mostly about my experiences there and what i learned about myself, u know bs like that, also look to volunteeer thats another thing to write about. I was in same spot as u i just studied for the SAT and volunteered, remember the grades for those first two years are in the past u can only change SAT and EC's now and thats a big factor.</p>