Filipino California student in Middle-class family and school
3.89 UW / 4.2 W GPA.
SAT: 1420 (Probably retake)
EC: Secretary of Chemistry Club, Treasurer of AVID and Robotics club
Taking Intro to CS 1 at UCLA currently and will most likely get an A
Internship at local community college
Programs robots in spare time
College Essays: Good
Any tips on making myself stand out and improve my chances?
What AP classes have you taken and their scores, and what AP classes are you taking for hr upcoming year?
I have taken AP Computer Science Principles (5) and AP English Language(4). Senior year I am taking AP Calc AB, AP Computer Science A, and AP Literature
Your UC capped GPA is probably in the 4.1-4.15 range. You currently probably have a 30-50% shot at UCSD as well as UCI and UCSB. You probably can improve your odds by raising your SAT 50+ points. I can’t remember if UCSD values demonstrated interest (I know UCI does) but that might help - take an official visit or 2 there and talk to admissions. Get on their mailing lists.
Finally, you’ll want you GC to mark your school transcript as “most rigorous”. Find out what that criteria is. Does your school offer a lot of AP classes? If so you may want to add more, like say a Science AP. If you are only planning on applying to UCs and CSUs, note that they don’t care about your 12th grade grades unless you are accepted. So IMO loading up on APs is a good thing if this is the case, assuming that you don’t get Cs in the classes.
I have asked this similar question to my GC but he highly advised me to stay away from classes that I do not care about like AP Lit or Gov/econ
Probably lower to get into the CS major, particularly at UCSD and UCSB, where the CS major is highly impacted.
Not applicable to UCs and CSUs, which do not use counselor recommendations, but applicable to other schools that do.