<p>How can I get into USC? or any college in California? I'm a sophomore in high school right now from Virginia.
-3.5 GPA (unweighted)
-played Freshman Field Hockey in my freshman year
-played JV Varsity Field Hockey in my sophomore year
-participated in winter track and field in my freshman year
-currently in the Spanish Honor Society
-IB classes I'm taking in my junior year are IB English, IB Spanish and IB HoA (History of Americas)
-Pre-IB classes I've taken so far are Pre-IB Government, Pre-IB Chemistry, and Pre-IB World History.
-I plan to take IB Math Studies, IB Psychology, IB English 2 and IB Spanish 2 in my senior year.
-I have a leadership role in my church youth group
-I volunteer at soup kitchens frequently
-this summer I'm going on a five week missionary trip to Cambodia and Vietnam to help the poor that have leprosy, HIV/AIDS, and the people who are blind.</p>
<p>I plan to be a psychologist or a psychiatrist. And I know I have a whack plan but I also plan to take advantage in being in a college in California so I would have more opportunities to be in the acting industry. </p>
<p>mycollegeoptions.org suggested me to this college, University of California-Los Angeles and University of California-Riverside</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure most people who apply to the UC’s have 4.0’s as freshmen. My friend in my physics class had a lot more going on, had a 3.8, and he was rejected from all the UC’s he applied to. I’d say if you could get it up to a 3.9, you should have a better chance than he did. But you could probably get into UC Merced, Riverside, or UCSC. I’m not sure, though.</p>
<p>The easiest way to get into a UC or a private school here is by going to a community college here and transferring in. Most UC’s have something called Transfer Admission Guarantee (not LA/Berkeley except from some certain places). For LA, they have the TAP (Transfer Alliance Program). USC I think would require you to keep a 3.5 minimum at a CC and have some great stats. I don’t know what your money situation is but it is pretty expensive. That’s why they call it U$C. If you became a resident in California first you’d pay in-state tuition. I have to warn you though that the state of things in California is continually getting worse (32% hike in 2009, 16% in 2011, 6% potentially for this fall for UC’s). </p>
<p>Do some research. I would make sure your goals are economically sound if you want to take on massive debt coming here with OOS tuition.</p>
<p>I’m not sure the difference in quality of education and chances of opportunities are high enough for you to justify going out to California and incurring massive amounts of debt, vs staying in Virginia and going to UVA or VT, where you would be paying in-state tuition. Both UVA and VT are highly respected institutions.</p>
<p>It’s impossible to chance you without test scores, but your GPA is pretty lackluster, and UCs are “GPA whores” so yeah… Bring that GPA up! Anyway, do well on the SAT/ACT and you’ll be fine for places like Pepperdine and the low to mid-tier UCs. It sucks that your GPA is low-ish… I don’t think the UCs consider course rigor much, which sucks because the IB program is definitely rigorous. Just make good grades and don’t worry about anything else till halfway through junior year.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the UC system recalculates your GPA. You need to know your UC GPA. Go on the UC website and find out which classes at your high school are considered weighted classes by the UC system, use the online information to calculate your UC GPA. Then you can look at the information for this year’s admitted students and see where you stand.</p>