I need a bit of help

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hey guys,
So before I get to the main point, let me give you guys a breakdown

SAT I: Didn’t take it
ACT: 34 (E-33, M-35, R-33, S-35)
SAT II: Bio M (760), Chem (Pending), Math IIC (Pending), Lit and US History (taking in June)
GPA (as of 1st Semester Junior year)
-UW: 3.64
-W: 3.86
School does not Rank
AP Tests: AP Bio (4), AP Psych (Pending), APUSH (Pending)(Note: School doesn’t offer APUSH class, took the honors course) , AP Chem (Pending)(Note: Took first year chem, did not take AP Chem.)
AP Courses: AP Bio, AP Psych, Planning to take APES, AP Stats senior year. (My school offers around 10 AP Classes, but, realistically, you can only take 7 of them because of the ungodly amount of restrictions) I will also taking AP Calc, AP Macro and AP Micro Econ online.

Extracurriculars:
FRC Robotics (Historian and Web Designer), Marching Band (Tuba Player, Hopefully Historian/Section Leader next year), Medical Youths Club (Co-founder, Events Coordinator, Hopefully VP next year), Taekwondo Club (member)

Volunteering: LAC + USC Medical Center (250+ hours)

Summer Program: JKCP Penn Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, NSLC: Medicine and Healthcare at UC Berkeley

Internship: Stem Cell research @ USC, starting this summer

Awards:
The President’s Volunteer Service Award - Silver - Healthy Futures, Taekwondo Black Belt - Kukkiwon 2nd Degree

Intended Major: Biotechnology/Microbiology/Something Bio related
State: CA
School: Suburban, Public
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: M

Colleges: USC (mother works there, does this matter for admissions?), UCLA, UCSD, UCD, the rest of the UC’s Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Boston University, Bucknell, Haverford, University of Rochester, Northeastern University.

I am also facing a bit of a predicament here. My school is really competitive. If my school ranked students, I would probably be in the top 40%, top 30% at best. For my senior year, I was told that if I transfer to a less competitive school for my last year, I would most likely be in the top 10%, maybe even top 5%. But if I do, I’ll have to leave a lot of things behind: friends I grew up with, teachers that could potentially write me recs, all my in school extracurriculars, and maybe a few more things that I didn’t account for and I’m not sure if I could handle it.

So in addition to chancing me for these colleges, could you guys tell me if the transfer is a good move? Any opinions would be awesome and if you have anymore questions, I will try to answer them to the best of my ability. Thank you!

2

Not sure I understand. If your school doesn’t rank students, how could you even report your percentile on college apps?

3

UC’s do not consider rank, so transferring to another HS will not make much difference for these schools. For UC ELC eligiblity, you need to be in the top 9% of your class or in the state and ELC only guarantees that you will be accepted at UC Merced if you are not accepted at any of your choice UC’s. Again, doesn’t make sense to switch schools. If you go to a competitive HS, this will be noted on the school report and really will not put you at that much disadvantage. Ultimately the schools will look at your UWGPA, calculate their own WGPA, EC’s, essays and LOR (if required). Enjoy your Senior year at your current HS. For the UC’s, calculate your UC GPA: http://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

Depending upon your UC GPA, you are competitive applicant for all the California schools. EC’s are great. Best of luck to you.

4

I honestly have no idea. What I put here is an estimate based on stats from class of '14 for my school. ('15 hasn’t been released yet)

5

Thanks for the info! I really appreciate it! Do you know anything about the other schools?
Note: For other users who might see this, my UC calculated GPA is 3.6.

6

Lots of competitive schools don’t rank. The thought behind this is to encourage the admission offices to look more holistically at the students and not to devise a cutoff below a certain % rank.

Don’t change schools as your ECs will be wrecked and your could be miserable. Your ACT should help a lot with admissions.

7

A UC GPA of 3.6 is not every competitive, so UCLA/UCB will be tough to get into.
ACT is very high and certainly competitive. It seems that you have done a lot of EC’s at USC, this may or may not help, I’m not sure, but I think you would have a decent shot there.

GPA is a huge factor in admissions, colleges will know that your school is competitive so they’ll give you some leeway there, but it’s going to be tough for Cornell as top 40% is not going to cut it (Sorry for being so blunt).
I don’t know about the other schools.
With that ACT I think you’re a lock for UCM and probably UCR.
Try to get all A’s second semester and see how your GPA changes, you still got a month of school left, so focus on your classes right now.

Overall try for USC, they have holistic admissions and you have done a lot of work there, so you’ll have the best chance applying there.

8

Did you check the Naviance data or talk to the GC about your GPA comparing to former graduates? It is indeed very low for upper and middle UCs.

9

Agree with @billcsho and @rdeng2614: UC GPA hurts your chances at all but UCR/UCM/UCSC. Maybe an outside chance at UCI. I also think USC will be a slight reach but since you have very competitive EC’s and SAT, they may tip the balance. Good Luck.

10

I definitely don’t think you should move schools since your school doesn’t rank anyway. However, I think your unweighted gpa might harm your application for more selective colleges. Other than that, I think your application looks great!