HS Junior Natural/Life sciences local SoCal

Chance Me / Match Me!
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My son is a strong student—maybe a very strong student—but certainly not a “standout” student. He gets straight A’s, but when it’s time to apply to colleges, he won’t have 15 AP’s, has never been part of a sports team, has never held a leadership position, hasn’t traveled, hasn’t invented anything, and hasn’t started his own non-profit.

He’s just a nice, smart, quiet kid who loves to learn, has stayed curious, and loves to laugh. He has no idea what he wants to be or do as a career—I just don’t think he knows enough about anything to understand what his options are.

I’m questioning whether he would ever be competitive at a “selective” college? Even in spite of his grades. I know it takes more than good grades to appear attractive to the top tier schools. Should we focus our efforts on less competitive schools?

Demographics
White male; child of two college graduates
US citizen
California resident
Traditional high-achieving public high school; class size: 740 students

Intended Major(s)
Interested in Natural Sciences and Life Science but also Computer Science and would love the possibility of perhaps combining them (?)
Likely to apply “UN-decided”

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.14 *(incl. weighting system): not known
  • Class Rank: 20th percentile in a class size of 740 students
  • Superintendent’s Honor Roll each semester
  • ACT/SAT Scores: Not yet taken, planned for spring 2022
  • Excellent attendance

Coursework
-Accelerated math track; junior currently in Pre-Calculus, Calculus as a senior

-Third year foreign language (Spanish)

-First AP class (Biology) as a junior and doing well–likely to take additional AP’s (AP-Computer Science, AP-Physics) as a senior.

No interest in dual enrollment (although it is offered by our school)

-IB not available at our school

Has received 2 “character” awards at school…one for “Responsibility” and one for overall “Personal Character/Participation”

Extracurriculars
3+ years of participation in afterschool Drama Club Set Crew
NO leadership roles or acting roles.
He does NOT play a sport, play an instrument, does not participate in Scouts or in a church. He has school, loves to read, and one or two friends :frowning:
Without a doubt, this is his weakest area.

Essays
No Essays completed yet; He’s a solid writer, but my concern is considering his lack of life experience or any experiences at all really, he isn’t really going to have much of anything compelling to write about :frowning:

LOR
Anticipate this will be one of his strength areas. Has always connected more to teachers than to peers and has developed sincere and authentic relationships with a few teachers. He’s had several teachers across multiple years and they really have shown an interest in him and have had a chance to know him better. Based on the feedback I’ve gotten over the years, teachers really appreciate him for his level of participation and for elevating discussions in the classroom and I anticipate they will speak to the contributions he can bring to the educational environment.

Cost Constraints / Budget
Completely open on budget…don’t want to set limits at this time

Schools
This is where we need suggestions!
My son does not want to leave Southern California, but maybe he can be convinced?

University of California Irvine – first choice
San Diego State University
Soka University

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Has he visited any of the schools that are on the list? 2 extremes regarding schools on the list, 2 large public universities and 1 very small LAC so what is he looking for besides a SoCal location?

Undecided can be an issue with the large universities, especially if he may be interested in CS.
SDSU admits by major into the University and CS is highly competitive so changing majors later might be an option.

UCI admits into the University first and then into the major and will consider an alternate major however, if not admitted into a highly competitive major like CS, then the student will have to take pre-req courses, maintain a minimum GPA and if spots are available, then be allowed to change majors.

My advice if he is looking at UCI and SDSU or any other UC’s/CSU’s, to apply to CS or any another competitive major and then switch out to less competitive major if the original major is not something he would like pursue.

Some college suggestions: USC, Chapman, Occidental, LMU, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Long Beach, Pomona College (Claremont College Consortium), UCSD, UCR.

If he likes Soka, maybe look at Vanguard University- Costa Mesa??

HS course rigor is Very Important for the UC’s and Cal states so he will only have 3 AP’s by end of Senior year? This area may be lacking. How many AP classes are offered at his HS?

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In southern California, there are:
UCs: UCI, UCLA, UCR, UCSD, UCSB
CSUs: CPSLO, CPP, CSUB, CSUCI, CSUDH, CSU Fullerton, CSULA, CSULB, CSUSB, CSUSM, SDSU
Private: numerous

To get an idea of where he stands for UCs…

Recalculate your HS GPA with GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub . Use the weighted capped version for the table below.

Fall 2020 admission rates by campus and HS GPA range from Freshman fall admissions summary | University of California :

Campus 4.20+ 3.80-4.19 3.40-3.79 3.00-3.39
Berkeley 37% 14% 2% 1%
Davis 86% 55% 16% 7%
Irvine 60% 38% 9% 1%
Los Angeles 38% 8% 1% 1%
Merced 98% 97% 95% 88%
Riverside 97% 90% 65% 30%
San Diego 78% 39% 8% 1%
Santa Barbara 81% 40% 9% 2%
Santa Cruz 92% 82% 59% 26%

These are for the whole campus. Different divisions or majors may have different levels selectivity (usually, engineering and computer science majors are more selective).

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But you do want to figure out what the actual limit is and tell that to the student before he gets serious about making the application list. It would not be good if he had to throw away his original list and start over in November of 12th grade because his original list was all too expensive.

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Does he spend all of his time studying? If not, what does he do? Has he had a job? Does he cook dinner? Watch You Tube? Colleges want to hear what interests you and what you spend your time doing.

He received awards for responsibility and participation. What was he responsible for and what did he participate in?

Has he taken any UC approved honors courses? Look up his high school here

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Sceince is his thing, so he’s taken Honors Biology (9th grade) and Honors Chemistry (10th grade) and is now AP Biology (11th grade)…and next year is tentatively planning to take Physics (reg or AP, not sure), Computer Science (AP) and Biotechnology

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He spends a lot of time studying an the largest chunk after that would be his drama club commitment–anywhere from 8 hours/week after school to 15+ hours/week for productions (2x/year). Outside of that, yes, he is a typical teenage boy who spends a good amount of time on YouTube and sharing memes with his friends, video games, anime, and devours books an graphic novels.

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Our High School does offer a full menu of AP classes in every subject.
My son is an anxious kid and struggles with self-confidence, so has always been timid about over-extending himself by taking on AP-level classes (I somewhat agreed). He has always been on an ‘accelerated’ math track, but not necessarily “honors” math. This year, he takes pre-calc in 11th grade (while most kids take Adv Algebra/Trig). He is also challenging himself with AP Biology this year. He is absolutely loving it and it helps that he loves his teacher. He is holding an A :-).
I’m hoping that his success in AP Biology will show him that he CAN handle a more rigorous class and even enjoy it MORE than a ‘regular’ class bc it seems to be his is surrounded by other students who really want to be there to LEARN and not mess around.
For senior year, he is considering Calculus (AP), Physics (AP or reg), Intro to Computer Science (AP), and Biotechnology (identified as a UC “honors” course, but I don’t think it’s considered AP)

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It looks like his tentative Senior schedule is showing an increase in rigor which is favored by the UC’s and Cal states. UC Honors classes even if they are not AP will be considered rigorous.

Plenty of school options in Southern California. I had one son attend UC Davis (Environmental Science) and another at SDSU (Computer Science), both had great experiences, excellent academics and are doing very well post grad.

Both son’s mainly applied to California schools: UC’s and CSU’s with the exception of NAU (Northern Arizona University) which offered a free application and early admission decision. Both son’s had no interest in going out of state since California offered to so many options.

Definitely set a budget and try to get some school visits in before the application period to see his likes and dislikes.

The Cal states have not posted if they will be test blind for the 2023 admission cycle, but the UC’s will be test blind through 2025 as of now. Again decisions can change so having test scores can only help.

UC’s and CSU’s use 10-11th grades in their GPA calculation. Only exception is Cal Poly SLO which used 9-11th grades.

The Cal states use a capped weighted GPA calculation with up to 8 semesters of UC approved Honors, AP/IB or DE classes taken 10-11th grades.

The UC’s use 3 calculated UC GPA’s: Unweighted, Capped Weighted and Fully Weighted. The UC GPA calculator is linked in post 2.

UC Capped weighted GPA= CSU Capped weighted GPA (as long as no DE/CC courses are taken).

The CSU application is pretty straightforward. No essays, no EC’s considered (exception Cal Poly SLO where hours of EC’s are listed but not EC descriptions). If the CSU’s go back to using the ACT and SAT for admission purposes, then they admit based on an eligibility index: Calculation using SAT or ACT scores and CSU GPA. I will not go into details now until a decision is posted about the CSU test requirements for 2023.

The CSU’s give priority to local applicants (with the local admission area) so I have linked the CSU local area’s: https://www.calstate.edu/apply/freshman/documents/csulocaladmission-serviceareas.pdf

For the UC’s: GPA, HS course rigor and personal insight questions are considered Very Important.

If he finds that he wants to pursue CS in college, I would emphasize that he should apply for the CS major and not Undecided.

Best of luck to him and do not hesitate to ask questions.

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All of this is so helpful. Thank you for being generous in your response.

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