I'm a Junior, can you chance me for these UCs/Universities?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi guys, I’m a junior and I’d like to see which schools would be a reach, match, or a safety school of the following (my stats are down below as well). :

UC Riverside
UC Santa Cruz
UC Santa Barbara
UC Irvine
UC Davis
UC San Diego
UCLA
UC Berkeley
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
San Diego State University
CSU Long Beach
Syracuse University
New York University
UMass Amherst
Colorado School of Mines

Stats:

Freshman Year:
Semester 1: GPA (Unweighted/Weighted): 3.28/3.57
French I: A+
Jazz Band: A+
Algebra II Honors: D
English I Honors: B
PE: A+
Biology Honors: B
Marching Band: A+

Semester 2: GPA: 3.50/4.00
Geometry Honors: B
Jazz Band: A+
French I: A+
English Honors: B-
PE: A+
Biology Honors: B+

Sophomore Year:
Semester 1: GPA: 3.56/4.00
English II Honors: A
Jazz Band: A+
Algebra II Prep: A-
French II: A
AP Euro: C+
Chemistry Honors: B
Marching Band: A+

Semester 2: GPA: 3.66/4.16
English II Honors: B+
Jazz Band: A+
Algebra II Prep: A
French II: A+
AP Euro: B-
Chemistry Honors: A-

Classes Over This Summer:
PE: A

Junior Year:
Semester 1: GPA: 3.42/4.14
English III Honors: A-
Jazz Band: A+
Honors US History: B+
AP French: B
Honors Pre-Calculus: B-
AP Biology: B
Marching Band: A+

Semester 2 (Quarter Progress Report): GPA: 3.5/4.33
English III Honors: A-
Jazz Band: A+
Honors US History: B
AP French: A-
Honors Pre-Calculus: B-
AP Biology: B+

Credit Recovery After School Class:
Geometry: A

Planned Senior Schedule:
AP Calculus
Jazz Band
AP Literature
AP Spanish
AP Government
Honors Physics
Marching Band

Test Scores:
SAT: 1880 (Planning to retake for at least a 2000)
Taking the ACT in April.

SAT II:
German: 700
Italian: 720
Chemistry: 720
AP Tests:
AP Euro: 3
AP Biology: Aiming for at least a 3 or 4.
AP French: Aiming for at least a 4 or 5.

Extracurriculars:
4 years of Marching Band- I spend about 8-16 Hours a week
4 years of Jazz Band- 2-4 Hours a week
Pride Club- Every Thursday after school for an hour every week
French Club- Meets up during lunch on Tuesday
Community Service: 150 Hours at a local organization for kids with special needs

Leadership:
Low Brass section leader in Marching Band
Rhythm section leader in Jazz Band

Talents:
I taught myself how to speak pretty good German and Italian.
I’ve played piano since 7th grade and trombone since my freshman year.

So are the colleges I listed above realistic for me to apply? Any recommendations/suggestions/etc. would be great. :slight_smile:

2

Your GPA is going to hurt you for the UCs. What are you planning on majoring in? Which college (within a college, like Letters & Sciences, or College of Engineering) are you planning to apply to? <-- this is a pretty big deciding factor, because the CoE is more selective. Are you in-state?

Work on getting that SAT score up! And make sure you write a rockin’ personal statement. :slight_smile:

3

I’m not really decided on what to major in but I love foreign languages, linguistics, chemistry, and biology. But for now I think I might apply as undeclared.

4

Here is the link to calculate your UC/CSU GPA: http://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

I did a quick calculation and I get a UC/CSU GPA of 3.7. Along with your SAT score the UC’s would stack up as this with no major declared.

UCR/UCM: Match
UCSC: High Match
UCI/UCD/UCSB: Low Reach
UCSD/UCLA/UCB: Reach
This is just based on Stats. No essays or EC’s considered but the UC’s will review the whole package, so great EC’s and essays could give you a boost.

For the Cal states (except for SLO) they use the eligibility index to rank applicants by major.
(CSU/UC GPA x800) + (SAT Math + CR) For SDSU, you want around a 4100+ and CSULB around 3900+ to have a decent chance at an acceptance. EI’s thresholds will fluctuate each depending upon the applicant pool.

SLO uses 9th grades in their CSU GPA calculation and you get no extra honors points for 9th grade classes. You can use the same calculator. They also use a MCA point system, giving bonus points for extra Math/Science/English/Language/Art Classes. For SLO, you need to declare a major, undecided is not accepted. Here is a long post how the MCA points are awarded::::::::

The maximum GPA they will use is 4.2, even though you can have a higher calculated CP GPA. A 4.2 is worth 2250 MCA points. Thus, multiply your CP GPA by 535.7 and you’ll get your MCA points for GPA.

The next biggest thing is test scores. The odd thing, likely because they wanted it to total a nice round number, is that the max score is 1650, even though the max SAT score is 1600 (Math + CR) Multiply the total of your best SAT CR and your best SAT math by 1.03125 to get your MCA test points. If you took the ACT, they convert and vice versa.

The third largest section is the class rigor score, worth 750 points. In this section you get zero points for meeting the minimum admission requirements and adders for more than the minimum. The bonuses in order of power are (min semesters/max total semesters/bonus per extra semester/total possible bonus): math 6/10/125/500 (note: stats and finite do not count), lab science 4/8/50/200, English 8/10/50/100, foreign language 4/8/25/100, visual performance 2/4/25/50, no bonus points for social sciences or electives. As with GPA, you can actually score higher than the maximum, but 750 is the most they will count.

Finally, work and ECs, worth 350 points. Work (hours per week/bonus): 0/0, 1-5/20, 6-10/40, 11-15/60, 16-20/80, 21+/100, add 50 points if work is major related. ECs (hours per week/bonus): 0/0, 1-5/30, 6-10/60, 11-15/90, 16-20/120, 21+/150, add 60 points for leadership role.:::::::::::

SLO is a pretty tough admit for many majors, especially Engineering, STEM, Kinesiology.