US citizen, California
Small private HS known for rigor, Male
Major: physics
UW GPA: 3.83 up to the end of junior year
Weighted UC GPA: 4.32 up to the end of junior year
Note: Mostly As with a few Bs in 9th and 10th grades. Trending is good with all As/A-s in 11th grade. Is taking one of the most rigorous course loads at school
Class rank : School does not rank
SAT 1530
PSAT:1510, will be National Merit Semifinalist
Presidential Service award (silver) in 10-11th grade
Team captain for club sport team throughout high school; school varsity team member all four years
Robotics team leader
Took a college-level class the summer before 10th grade
Attended engineering camp before 11th grade
Accepted into a selective science research summer program before 12th grade
Essays/LORs/Other
TBD/strong writer
/ close relationships with teachers and counselor
Cost Constraints / Budget
No cost constraints
Schools
Safety: U of Colorado, Boulder, RPI
Match/reach: Purdue, UIUC, UMich, USC, WashU, UCB, UCLA, UCSB, UCSD, UCSC, U of Washington
Any other schools: ???
Liked open curriculum at Brown, but unlikely to get in due to GPA, student liked mid sized to large sized school
Congratulations on a competitive academic record and some very good EC’s.
Weighted UC GPA of 4.32, is that Capped weighted or Fully weighted since the UC’s consider 3 GPA’s during the admission review ie. Unweighted, Capped Weighted and Fully Uncapped Weighted.
UC’s are test blind so your SAT score will only be used for placement. Your NMF status can be listed on the EC’s but the UC’s offer no scholarships for National Merit.
2022 Admit rates based on the Capped weighted UC GPA.
Campus
4.00+
3.70-3.99
3.30-3.69
3.00-3.29
Berkeley
17%
3%
1%
0%
Davis
58%
20%
5%
2%
Irvine
35%
10%
3%
0%
Los Angeles
13%
2%
1%
0%
Merced
97%
97%
95%
85%
Riverside
95%
83%
42%
17%
San Diego
37%
8%
1%
0%
Santa Barbara
41%
8%
3%
0%
Santa Cruz
69%
45%
16%
4%
UCSC: Match
UCSB/UCSD: High Match/Low Reach
UCLA/UCB: Reach
If applying to UCSB for Physics, consider the College of Creative Studies. Also you might want to add Cal Poly SLO which is known to have a good Physics program and they offer $3K/year in scholarship money to National Merit scholars.
All UC GPA’s use grades from the A-G courses taken the summer after 9th to the summer prior to 12th grade. For the Capped Weighed UC GPA a maximum 8 semesters of Honors points in the calculation are given for UC approved Honors, AP, IB, DE/CC classes taken during this time. Maximum is 4.4. I linked the UC GPA calculator which will calculate all 3 UC GPA’s for you.
The Capped weighted UC GPA is the most common GPA quoted on the UC websites and is used for statistical analysis such as the admit chart above and also to determine UC eligibility.
Only 2 UC’s will list their Fully Weighted Uncapped GPA admit ranges: UCLA and UCB but all UC’s consider the 3 UC GPA’s. Fully weighted has no limit of Honors points given to the qualified courses taken during this time. Maximum is 5.0.
Here is the UCLA Freshman Profile for 2022:
GPA statistics for admitted freshman students
GPA Median. Middle 25% - 75%
Weighted GPA 4.58 4.40-4.73
Unweighted GPA 4.00 3.95-4.00
I cannot give any chances for Washington U or Michigan but as an OOS applicant, they are probably in the Low Reach/Reach category.
There are several out of state schools that offer very attractive packages for National Merit Finalists. I’ve linked to a few below. You might check out the National Merit Scholarships forum for more options.
This site lists colleges similar to Brown in one or more of their characteristics:
Several of the schools listed — such as Wesleyan University, Hamilton, CMU, Pomona College and the University of Rochester — offer excellent physics programs.
Case Western and Rensselaer Polytechnic might be two other schools to consider that have better odds of acceptance than most of the reaches on the list.
For the UCs those PIQs and activities and awards section are really important in painting a picture of the student and their passions. It’s hard to gauge just on stats. My son had a 3.75 uw, 4.64 fully weighted from a very rigorous grade deflating private school. He took the most rigorous classes and was near the top of his class. He applied as a physics major as well and chose careful safeties in and out of state. He was accepted at: Alabama, Arizona, Purdue, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal Poly SLO, UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and UC Berkeley (attending). I really think it was the PIQs and activities and awards that put him over the top. CC seems to be a magnet for unweighted 4.0s, but I don’t believe that’s the only way to get into a top school. To paint a fuller picture, my son was also a national recognition Hispanic scholar who took part in published research and he was UC ELC designated and a four year varsity athlete.
If being remote is a concern, and you consider Rochester, NY to be remote, then Purdue and UIUC should be removed from the list. Rochester has about 210k people and the airport is 5 minutes from the university. Purdue is about a is a 1h10m drive from its closest airport and West Lafayette’s population is 45k. Urbana-Champaign has a similar population size to Rochester (about 220k).
Where does that place him in his class? Also, 3.83 in a high school known for grade deflation is not the same as a 3.83 from a high school with grade inflation.
You are right. Both Purdue and Rochester are pretty remote. Since we are in California, travelling to Rochester will take longer than traveling to Purdue.