<p>Will not being an ELC student (school is kind of competitive I guess, top 5% >_<) ruin my chances at UCB, UCLA, and UCSD? I qualified for the statewide if that helps.</p>
<p>I don't think it will hurt us non-ELC'ers too much.</p>
<p>My friend who goes to a less academically-challenging private high school is ELC (smaller, much less competitive environment), whereas those like my twin brother (who has nearly straight A's) didn't receive it at our huge public high school, which is ranked in the top 100 nationally. He did, however, qualify for it and received a pin or w/e you call it. Literally hundreds of kids could qualify for it at the school I go to, which is why only a handful are, and were, given full ELC (and apparently some who were less-qualified than others, received it)...</p>
<p>IMHO, being ELC doen't matter much when competing for admission to UCLA and UCB. The admission rate of ELC is higher, but that's just an artifact of how many ELC students also have great stats.</p>
<p>it depends a lot on your HS. At podunk HS, only the Val/Sal may get into the flagships, but schools like Lowell (SF) place plenty of kids into Cal/UCLA, much deeper than ELC.</p>
<p>LOL I know people from last year in my school that didn't get into ELC and got into MIT and similar caliber schools, not to mention top level UCs.</p>