I am headed into finals with very high As in my first semester of college, which probably means I will end up with a 4.0 this semester. However, I am very skeptical about how important GPA is because according to this link https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major only around 20% of stem majors get admitted. My counselor told me that only the top UCs (ucla and ucb) really look at extracurriculars and the essay, but I am still skeptical of his opinion. I suffer from bdd, so I feel like I won’t get accepted even with a 4.0 because I’m not good enough for anything. Any thoughts? Working really isn’t an option because I have a full load until next year. Do I even stand a chance of getting UCI with a 4.0 (computer engineering) with no extracurriculars?? The admission rates are scary the crap out of me even with a perfect GPA.
I believe your counselor is right re: STEM at UCLA and especially Berkeley. If you can have some major-related activities it helps. Having said that, despite all the holistic jargon, with UCLA and Cal, GPA will always be king (in concert with other things). And depending on major the admit rate at Berkeley might be as low as 8-9%. Twenty percent is optimistic in some cases.
I think it depends on your major. For instance, if your major is political science or communications you’d expect to see some ECs and involvement in clubs/etc. But if your major is comp. science and all you do is coding games in your room during your free time, then I think the lack of ECs is weighed differently. I’m a STEM major and most of the applicants I know have weak ECs, yet GPA is a solid 3.92-4.0. That means that those with high GPA and solid ECs (i.e internships, work experience in the industry) will probably have an edge. But still, the people with lower GPA will always have lower GPA than yours, no matter how good their ECs may look.
You can TAG into UCI with a 3.4 minimum and as long as you meet the TAG requirements, you are in.
College GPA is the most important factor for transfer admission to UCs.
However, the most selective campuses/majors may have lots of applicants with near-4.0 college GPAs, so other factors like essays and extracurriculars may be increased in importance to distinguish between them.
Here is my thought on UC’s overall
UC GPA= GPA counted based on UC transferable courses
Major GPA = GPA counted based on major pre-requisites that are transferable.
College cumulative GPA = GPA counted based on EVERY courses you’ve taken( yes, if you got an A in Yoga & Pilates, that’ll count. Don’t judge me, I took the course).
Here we go!
TAG:
UC GPA & Major GPA. That’s it. Most schools want above 3.2 UC GPA and 3.0 on major GPA.
Most L&S majors:
Major GPA & UC GPA > Extracurricular & Essay (& College overall transcript*)
*Like, say that you got all D’s and F’s in one or two semester but came back later with straight A’s and B’s… or if you started from ESL, that’ll be a great proof of records to show your personal endeavors and growth 
Capped majors & “STEM”:
Major GPA > UC GPA > Extracurricular > Essay
Capped majors like Public Health or HAAS’ Biz-econ at Cal. Or the red asterisk on UCLA’s profile of admitted students. Kind of baffled me to write “STEM” because they aren’t capped… however, there are majors that are as competitive as capped majors and the pre-reqs are very rigorous (all maths, all physics, all chems, all bios just to get into Chemistry Biology at Cal).
Engineering:
Major GPA > UC GPA & Extracurricular & Essay
I just want to point out that while the Major GPA is at the utmost importance- but you gotta have some overall kick-ass app to get into Engineering school. Look it up- there are 4.0 GPA rejects to EECS or Computer Sci majors etc. Just saying, you have to put everything at 100%.
This might upset some of you, but hey, take it easy on me please
^^^ good overview but a couple are off.
TAG: they only count cumulative UC-transferable GPA. They do not count a separate GPA for major coursework. Some colleges (departments) have a higher minimum UC-transferable GPA that is above the general TAG minimum. But it is cumulative.
The only UC that calculates major GPA in addition to cumulative GPA is UCLA. The other UCs do not. However, some very selective majors (Haas, Engineering, etc) will look at major GPA as you noted. It’s important, but don’t disregard the other courses. Take Haas, for instance: it has about 7 required courses. If the other 40 units aren’t up to par and close to 4.0 it’s highly unlikely you will get in. And they do accept the random C in Calc 1. Engineering is more spot on with what you say, and of course, most of the courses are for the major.
I’m not sure General L&S cares that much about ECs. They, like the essays, have the most weight if you’re borderline. And as to which is better, it would likely depend on the overall application.
I agree with most comments above regarding GPA and ECs, that’s how my counselors believe UCs admissions work as well.
Also, when some people claim: “lots of 4.0 get rejected every year,” I think they’re assuming that all those 4.0 applicants met all the required criteria for the major, but somehow had weak ECs/essays. They are not taking into account that, depending on the community college, only very few courses from CCC may have full articulation with UCB or UCLA according to assist.org. So, my guess is that there are plenty of stem transfers out there with 4.0 GPA who simply don’t meet the pre-requirements. So, it’s not because their essay was missing some indentation 
Thank you for the inputs!
@smsk totally agree. The issue is usually a requirement of some sort.
@Ohm888
Yeah, the 3.0 on major requirement thingy was kind of unsure. Because I wasn’t sure if it applied to the people doing the TAG.
But, certainly, there are majors that require B (3.0) or better on major requirements. And so I thought other UCs do major GPA calculation as well.
I used to be Pre-med/Pre-pharm and invested my time into preparing myself for Pharmaceutical Sci/Pharmacology majors. While I tried to TAG into either UCI for Pharmaceutical Science and UCSB for Pharmacology, I realized that they require 3.0 or better GPA on the major requirements (2.7 for UCSB). But again, I wasn’t sure if this applied to the people doing the TAG.
The major GPA requirement thingy did scare me, because I wasn’t sure if I was going to do well in OChem or not. UC Davis doesn’t have one for their Pharmaceutical Chemistry program- I was going to TAG here after finishing them Ochems… and also if I got rejected to Cal (that means staying at CC 1 more year - if Cal rejected me this April, I was going to stay 1 more year and TAG to UC Davis 
).
@spookybear oh I see what you’re saying. And yes, I apologize, because in that case you’re absolutely correct. The TAG requires you follow any rules laid out for the major, so if a major says you need this or that grade for a certain class or a minimum GPA for major courses, yeah that would play into the TAG, in addition to any general cumulative GPA requirements.