New Stats! Chances please!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - San Diego
1

<p>I've been working on my UC app and heres what I've gotten so far. I am in-state and a Filipino Immigrant.</p>

<p>UC GPA: 3.95
SAT: 1950 (1750-1950)
SAT II: Math II 620 (taking Bio and Lit. on Nov.)
A-G Courses: 44 (counted by semester)</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Community Service Hours: 400+</p>

<p>Non a-g Courses:
Christian Testament
Physical Education
Theology 1
Theology 2A
Theology 2B </p>

<p>Community Service:</p>

<p>Koryo Taekwondo [9th,10th,11th,12th] 2 hrs. per week, 52 weeks per year
Assistant Taekwondo instructor who teaches both adults and children the fundamentals of Taekwondo self-defense and Olympic sparring year round.</p>

<p>Pioneer House [11th] 2 hrs. per week, 8 weeks per year
Cared and supervised for the elderly (50-90 yrs. old). I read the news, fed them, walked them around the block and made sure they were comfortable. </p>

<p>Todays Youth Matters Camp [12th] 144 hrs. per week, 1 week per year
As camp leader, I cared for foster kids in a campsite at Santa Cruz Mountains. I cooked food, supervised them in the beach, the woods, trails and at night.</p>

<p>Awards & Honors:
Bay Area Open Gold Medal
Gold Medalist in Olympic-style sparring during the Bay Area Taekwondo Open Championships in City of Industry,CA. (121-130lb. 14- 17 yrs. old Blackbelts)</p>

<p>Int. Taekwondo Festival Gold
Gold Medalist in Olympic-style sparring during the International Taekwondo Festival in Los Angeles, California. (121-130lb. 14- 17 yrs. old Blackbelts)</p>

<p>International California Gold
Gold Medalist in Olympic-style sparring during the California International Open Championships in Los Angeles, CA. (121-130lb. 14- 17 yrs. old Blackbelts)</p>

<p>Kumon Place of Distinction
Placed 570 of 2657 students (top 20%) in a Math enrichment program. I was in this program for 9 years.</p>

<p>Taekwondo AAU Championship
Gold Medalist in Olympic-style sparring during the Taekwondo Amateur Athletic Union Championships at Silicon Valley,CA. (121-130lb. 14- 17 yrs. old Blackbelts)</p>

<p>Activities & Awards:
Martial Arts Club
I was the President of the Martial Arts Club. I taught the basics of Taekwondo such as its history, origin, style, and novice techniques.</p>

<p>National Honors Society Club
As a member of the prestigious club, we members help in school events such as being representatives of Jesuit High School for the annual Open House.</p>

<p>Pacific Asian Club
President of the club. Teach the heritage, culture and traditions of Filipinos. Holds a big annual Open Mic Night which has raised over $6500 for charities.</p>

<p>Personal Fitness
I personally train by myself at 24 Hour Fitness 5 days a week. I mainly concentrate on strength and endurance since I get most of my power from Taekwondo.</p>

<p>Taekwondo Training
Blackbelt teacher and practitioner of Taekwondo.12 yrs. experience of Olympic style sparring. Trained with Stanford, nationally ranked players and trains at UCD.</p>

<p>Chance please? I know its alot but please bare with my paranoia</p>

2

<p>anyone?
10 chars.</p>

3

<p>Comprehensive Review points based on your info:
GPA = 3950
Exams = 2056 + (Bio or Lit x 0.8)
A-G courses = 500
Leadership = 150
Achievement = 300
Community service = 150</p>

<p>Total = 7106 + (Bio or Lit x 0.8)</p>

<p>Add 150 points if Taekwondo teaching is unpaid, or if you can do an additional 40 hours of volunteer work during 12th grade.</p>

<p>Call UCSD and ask if Kumon counts as an “academic development preparation program.” If it does then add 300 points.</p>

<p>The cutoff for admission has been increasing each year, but for fall 2011 it will probably be around 7800.</p>

4

<p>How do they know how many hours of volunteering you’ve done? The hrs per week per year thing seems a bit skewed.</p>

5

<p>animal, thanks for the reply, but i am wondering why i couldnt get the full credit for leadership? i believe president for martial arts club, pacific asian club, and an assistant instructor for a taekwondo academy would attain me the full 300 pts?</p>

6

<p>You have better stats than me, for at least what you posted. What about ELC and AP scores?</p>

7

<p>no ELC unfortunately :frowning:
and for AP i only have a 3 in Art History
This year I am taking AP Phys, Calc AB, Micro/Macro Econ.</p>

8

<p>im also curious why he did not get the full 300 points for volunteering and leadership.</p>

<p>does it make a big difference if you volunteered for about two years then quit so you can get a job?
that’s what i did.
i volunteered from 9th to 10th grade, and then got a job.
(the total hours was about 400+)</p>

9

<p>No one knows how the point system works exactly at CC unless they work for UCSD. It’ll probably a rough estimate.</p>

10

<p>not being rude or low, but for my grandparents being severely sick, moms company closing and her heart disease that she has had (collapsed during work and parameds had to revive her). would that account for any points for special circumstances?</p>

11

<p>it would… but im not sure if that has a special section on the app.
what i mean is you have to talk about this in either of your essays or the additional comments.</p>

12

<p>I’d say in. Your gpa is extremely high, and your SAT scores arent bad at all.
As for the special circumstances you mentioned- did those affect you in your senior year? Because my grandmother died this year as i was beginning my college apps, and I wasn’t sure if I should write about it, even though it severely affected me.</p>

<p>chance back please?
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-san-diego/1030563-chance-really-nervous-kid-ucsd.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-san-diego/1030563-chance-really-nervous-kid-ucsd.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

13

<p>yes, you should write about it in the optional 3rd promp in the uc app</p>

14

<p>u have decent shot of getting in, jst make your personal statement stand out as much as possible at this point</p>

15

<p>prompt 1: immigration, how my heritage drove me to be the president of pacific asian club which raised more than $6600 for operation smile</p>

<p>prompt 2: taekwondo, 12 yrs. experience (numerous national and international gold medals), teaches and coaches adults and students</p>

<p>prompt 3: impact of my moms company closing, and my ill-stricken grandparents.</p>

<p>do you guys think ucsd would account points for my special circumstance? or does somebody have to die? :p</p>

16

<p>UCSD uses a specific rubric for awarding points. They are very transparent about it, and the rubric has been posted many times in this forum.</p>

<p>When I asked UCSD admissions about points for the leadership category, they said 300 points are awarded for a “school-wide” position such as student body president or varsity sports captain, and 150 points for a more “limited” position such as class officer or club president. They didn’t give examples of positions outside of school, but the same rationale applies…it depends on the scope of your leadership (for example, how many students you teach, and whether you supervise other instructors). If you participated in taekwondo competition as part of a team, and you were a leader or coach of that team, that might qualify for 300 points.</p>

<p>AP scores are not a part of UCSD’s point formula.</p>

<p>For community service, you must specify on the application (either in the activity description or in your essays) that it is unpaid work. They calculate the number of hours for each year (number of hours per week times number of weeks per year), and then they take the two years with the most hours. The two years can be 9th+10th grade or 10th+12th grade or any other combination. If the total is 100~199 hours, then you get 150 points. If the total is 200+ hours, then you get 300 points. Assuming your taekwondo work is paid, then you reported 16 hours for Pioneer House in 11th grade and 144 hours for youth camp in 12th grade (though you may want to double-check the hours on that…it sounds like you were at camp for six days, but they probably wouldn’t count the time you were sleeping). 16+144=160 hours. So if you want the full 300 points, you would need to report an additional 40 hours of unpaid work. It can be work you’re going to do sometime later during senior year. This category of points (and any December SAT scores) are the two factors still within your control at this time.</p>

<p>“Special circumstance” points are very hard to get, and most applicants get zero points in this category, even though they may face various stresses in life. The circumstance has to directly affect your schoolwork or ability to achieve. If your mom’s company closing meant you had to work to help your family pay the rent (this is why they ask you what you’ve used your earnings for), then you could get points. If your mom or grandparents being sick means you’ve had to take time away from studies every day or every week to care for them, then you could get points. You would need to explain specifics in your essays (not just “it severely affected me”). And btw when UCSD reads your essays they don’t care about writing style or how “convincing” it sounds…they basically scan through it and look for specific facts that would allow them to give you points in various categories. (But if you’re applying to other campuses that use the holistic system like Berkeley or UCLA, then writing style and convincingness do make an impression on the readers.)</p>

<p>There is a separate category for family income. If your mom’s company closing causes the AGI on your family’s tax forms to fall under $60K and you report this on the application, then they’ll give you 150 points for that. If the AGI is below federal poverty level (and you’re attending private school on scholarship, for example) then they’ll give you 300 points.</p>

<p>Did you find out anything from UCSD about Kumon?</p>

17

<p>Thanks a lot ebpc!</p>

<p>Yes, I specified that I was unpaid for my voluntary teaching at Taekwondo so that should give me the full 300 pts.</p>

<p>Do you think UCSD will give me points for my 11th grade president position in Martial Arts Club? Because I am not president this year since it has become too stressful to manage while doing 3 APs, Taekwondo teaching, and studying for SAT IIs.</p>

<p>For my special circumstance, I did not write about the negative effects it has on me, but I stressed how it fueled my desire to be the best I can be, which can clearly be seen by my extracurriculars and upward trend in the difficulty of my classes.</p>

<p>Do you think I would get any points for that?</p>

18

<p>I don’t believe it matters which school year you served in the leadership position. UCSD did say they look for “substantial participation,” which may mean they want more than a single year in a single position. But you have more than one (Martial Arts and Pacific Asian) so it sounds like you should get the 150 points. Be sure to say what you accomplished as president of each club in the activity description.</p>

<p>The special circumstance points are meant to “level the playing field” for students who may not have had equivalent opportunities to achieve because their education has somehow been interrupted or interfered with by situations beyond their control. For example: a student who has lost a parent and needs to work many hours after school each day to pay living expenses and has little time left to study, or a student who has moved several times during high school because of their parents’ jobs and has had to adjust to the different environments and different curricula. Even if UCSD doesn’t give you points for the challenges you’ve described, it’s a good thing you included them in your essays because there are other campuses that will want to know about them.</p>

19

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>Last question though, shouldn’t my unpaid teaching (as assistant instructor) give me leadership pts too?</p>

20

<p>wait i have a question:
you said to state in the application that it is unpaid work…
so is this for things that fall outside of the “volunteer and community service” section/ i did not put “unpaid” word as i assumed that volunteer and community service is well “unpaid work…”</p>

<p>this is my volunteer activity under the volunteer section:
Bread For Life Rescue Mission
cooked and distributed food for homeless in shelter </p>

<p>i have above and beyond hours, but does it matter if you dont state “unpaid” work for this section?</p>