I have a 3.9 uw gpa and 4.2 w
(4.0 Uc uw gpa and 4.4 w Uc gpa)
I want to major in psychology and am struggling to choose match schools! I so far have ucla, ucb, and Stanford (it’s worth a try) as reaches and Santa Clara, u of Oregon, and uwash as safeties… I want to stay in the west preferably in California because that’s where I live right now. Any advice would be great thanks!
Test scores? EC’s? How much can your parents afford each year? Home State is CA?
Whoops! I’m clearly new to this!
Psychology majors
Uc weighted gpa: 4.36
Uc unweighted gpa: 4.0
Act: 31 English, 29 math, 32 reading, 30 science
31 composite
Senior year classes: Advanced Stage Design, AP Lit, AP Chem, AP Calc, Local College class, journalism
Past APs: AP World (3), AP Enviro (3), APUSH (3), AP LANG (4), AP Chem (), AP Lit (), AP Calc AB ()
Extracurriculars:
Shift Manager at restaurant for 1.5 years
Editor at Large for School Newspaper (1 year)
President of Animal Rights Club (1 year)
Vice President of Jewish Club (3 years)
Secretary of National Honors Society (3 years)
Community service:
Coach for local Kids soccer team (100+ hours)
Volunteer at Jewish Elderly Home (20+ hours)
Awards:
Employee of the month
National Honors Society
High Honors Roll
Essays: Personal and relate to my major
Recommendation letters: both should be pretty good!
Here are some potential matches for you in the West:
I think UCB and Berkeley are high matches for you if you are in-state, and U of Washington is probably a match or a high match if you are OOS – so you might already have three matches.
Here are some more:
High match: Reed, Whitman, Occidental, maybe Pitzer
Match: Pepperdine, Willamette, Cal Poly (if in-state)
Thank you man! I really appreciate it? I’m just curious why schools like Pepperdine and occidental are matched if I’m in the 75th percentile for act and above average gpa?
First, let’s define Match as having a 40-60% chance of being accepted.
You can’t base your chances solely on the average test scores and GPA of admitted students; you also need to consider the admission rate of the school and whether or not you have a hook.
If you’re above the 75th percentile in GPA and test scores, but you’re unhooked, you may have an above-average chance of getting in, yes… but if the admit rate is 35%, your great stats may only bump you up into Match range. (40-60% chance).
Also, if the school offers ED and/or EA round(s) in addition to RD, there are different chances for each of those rounds: typically ED has the highest admit rate, followed by EA and then RD.
The truth is, none of us can tell you exact chances – the best we can attempt is an educated guess. I want my guesses to be on the conservative side – better to be cautiously optimistic than overconfident.
Really well said! I Really appreciate that thought out answer and the time you took to write that! Thank you!
Washington isn’t a safety, more of a match. Unless you are evangelical skip Pepperdine for LMU.
Just remember UCLA and UCB will probably not give you any merit aid but still are a great value compared to private schools. Oregon is crazy expensive OOS. Pepperdine is a beautiful campus but is also very expensive(over 60K). Also for UCLA UCB and Stanford, do you plan on taking ACT again? SAT score? Any hooks?
Santa Clara’s not a safety either. Is any selective holistic private college or university truly a safety?
I’d add more UC’s to your list.
Are you applying EA or ED anywhere?
I agree that UW is a match, not a safety. While almost 10% of the OOS students come from CA, bear in mind those 10% are at the top of the CA pool so it’s quite competitive. Oregon is crazy expensive for OOS and I’m personally not sure that’s worth the extra expense at all although it would definitely be a safety. I would choose Cal Poly over it in a heartbeat although that doesn’t address the lack of safeties.
I’d add Cal Poly, consider Chapman (low match, high safety). Consider University of Portland as a possible safety, gorgeous campus, yet close to the city so very easy to go back home for visits. I’d add more UC’s to the list as well.
Pepperdine might not be a good fit given your religion related ECs. Try to get your ACT up a few points to have a better shot at Berkeley and UCLA.
UC-Davis, UCI and Cal Poly SLO would be matches.
Your GPA implies that you likely have a guaranteed UC admit. Consider check boxing UCR or UCSC as safeties, maybe apply to SDSU as well (or community college with transfer).