It’s basically the same as yours, 3.82/4.24 and 32. That’s a little higher than I thought.
As you can see from naviance, UCI, UCSB and UCD are quite a bit lower. I think you are shoe-ins there.
I think you’ll get into SD too, though. Indian hurts, but female helps, so it’s probably a wash. Your rigor and ACT will help a lot. The 35 is stellar for any school.
Focus on your essay. It needs to paint a picture of you as an interesting person (not “just another smart Indian/Asian premed”), but not be a rehash of your resume or achievements, and not be boring. There are some great books out there to help. They helped my kids quite a bit. Harry Bauld’s old book is a must IMO, for an overview, and the “50 Essays that got into harvard” etc. type book, too, for some good examples.
Cornell, BTW, is by no means an “Everyone gets an A” type school. Much to the contrary, it’s more of a grade deflation school. Very tough to keep a high gpa there.
My friend’s daughter, btw, is a sophomore premed (bio-something) at UCSD. She was a math/science superstar in high school, 2300 SAT. She loves SD, but says it is very challenging.
@8bagels I’ll certainly be spending a lot of time crafting my essays, thank you for the book recommendations. If I was admitted to UCSD and slightly “lower-tier” UC’s such as Irvine, Davis, and SB, should I consider going to one of the latter 3 as it would be slightly easier to maintain a higher GPA which would be better for med school?
@8bagels Also, something that I am worried about is that though my 10-12 uncapped GPA is quite high (4.60) my capped is quite low (4.07) because I got some Bs and only 8 semesters of APs are counted. Have I wasted my time taking all these APs since it is capped? or will the admissions officers see the uncapped gpa as well?
They’ll recognize your courseload, I don’t think the APs are a waste. If you go to the UCLA, UCSD, etc. webpages you can see all sorts of stats, including the # of Honors/AP admitted students have taken. It’s quite high at the top UCs.
But there’s no use worrying about the GPA now. Do the best you can going forward. Your GPA is more than good enough for UCI/SB/D, and on target for SD. No use spending much energy worrying about it. You’re going to be a solid candidate, and IMO will get into SD.
If you get into SD, I wouldn’t go to one of the others just because you think you’ll get a better GPA.
I guess it’s true that there’s no use worrying now. I just find it strange that in the uc calculations, someone who takes 15 APs and 8 APs could potentially have the same GPA.
I read from many sources that the uc gpa itself is only used for calculating admissions eligibility, and for the admission review itself, the fully uncapped and unweighted GPA is considered.
@8bagels oh and one more thing…I am sure I’ll qualify for eligibility in the statewide path but I’m not sure about the local path. If I don’t qualify in the local path (top 9%) how badly will this hurt my chances at UCSD/D/I/SB?
Once again, the reason I may not qualify for local path is because I opted for rigor over ease, so while my uncapped 10-12 GPA is very high, my capped is quite a bit lower.
@wormholes the elc eligibility only matters if you get rejected everywhere and they have to offer you a spot at Merced. Don’t worry. With a 35 and a 3.8 you’ll get in just about everywhere. Don’t let CC trick you into thinking otherwise. There are a lot of people who love to say that the UC schools aren’t a safety for anyone but Naviance disagrees. My son got CHP at UCI and Regents at UCSB with similar stats. If your Naviance shows the scatter plots you’ll see that 90% or more of the kids with your stats get in everywhere except UCB and UCLA. Even those two would probably be 75%.
If I was a premed kid looking for a high GPA and maybe a little less competition, UCSB would look pretty good. Still prestigious but the geniuses and the grinders are more likely to pick B LA or SD.
@8bagels@gluttonforstress Thank you both for the reassurance. I’m still so nervous though :o I’m not too worried about Davis/Irvine/SB but the average UC GPA for UCSD is a 4.13 and I am only at a 4.07…This really worries me. I feel like I have little to no chance there as my UC GPA is so low in comparison to others.