<p>My junior year of high school ends on Friday, and my grades this year have been dismal. I take all AP's and honors classes, with the exception of math, but my cummulitave GPA is somewhere between a 3.28 - 3.30 unweighted, 3.65 - 3.70 weighted. My extracurriculars aren't bad and I just recently took the SAT, so I don't know what I got but I feel confident that it's atleast a 1950. Atleast! Anyway, I haven't got my heart set on ivy league schools or anything, I'd like to go to California, and I'd be applying out-of-state. I'm thinking along the lines of UCSB, UCLA, UC Berekely, USD, USC, LMU, CSULB perhaps if worse comes to worse, as well as the university of washington as an in-state option. I've heard that the UC system is difficult to get into, and that they focus on GPA quite a bit...I'm wondering if taking summer classes at a local community college to show that I am capable of getting A's would be of any help at all. I've heard that it can help, but is that really the case?</p>
<p>does that weighted include honors (not AP)?</p>
<p>I’m not quite sure, it’s the weighted GPA that my college councellor told me I had…</p>
<p>but if that includes honors, it will be lower for UC calculation since your OOS</p>
<p>you can’t take enough courses over the summer to boost your gpa enough for USC, Cal and UCLA. UCSB is a big reach. No Cal State is worth it OOS when you have U-Dub at instate prices.</p>
<p>well, i want to go to ucla law, to be an entertainment lawyer. they have the best program in the country for that. like 3 of the top 5 entertainment lawyers in the country went to ucla law, and isn’t it easier to get into a uc grad program if you attended a uc for undergrad?</p>
<p>Negative. UCLA Law does not care what undergrad college you attend – it’s all about the numbers (gpa+lsat). And, since UCLA Law is extremely competitve, you’ll need an undergrad gpa and relative test scores that are significantly higher than your HS record.</p>
<p>would make sense</p>
<p>well, big reach or not, i’ll at least reach. it’s not like ucsb is the only school i’m applying to…</p>
<p>good luck!</p>
<p>haha thaaaanks!</p>
<p>I don’t think colleges pay attention to “taking classes in summer to show you can get As”, I would take the opportunity to improve your SAT score</p>
<p>If I were you, I’d take the summer courses anyway for an old-fashioned reason: to learn. Choose summer courses that will help you do better in your senior year of high school and work hard in them. </p>
<p>If you spend your summer learning something worthwhile at a cc and work on improving your SAT/ACT scores, then you can be sure that you didn’t waste your summer.</p>
<p>GOOD LUCK!!</p>