"Okay" grades but a lot of EC's

Applying to College
1

<p>So far for my first semester of junior year I have a 3.0 GPA weighted which is horrendous. Semester ends in 5 weeks and I know my first semester grades won't be top notch. If I start volunteering a crazy load, and get a much better GPA in 2nd semester, will I be able to outweigh my bad GPA?
I'm trying to get admitted into UC Riverside or UC Irvine.</p>

2

<p>Instead of adding ECs for which you may not have much real passion, I would recommend that you focus on studying for the SAT.</p>

3

<p>No, adding volunteer work or any other EC will not help you. The UCs are formula driven in admissions - grades and test scores are the most important factors. Your ECs are incidental compared to these two things. Buckle down and get the grades up. If you have free time, practice for your SAT.</p>

4

<p>

No, and no. If you don’t fall into the top 9% of the statewide students then you won’t be guaranteed admission to a UC campus, which IMHO is your path to getting in somewhere. I think Irvine is out no matter what, your hope is Riverside or (more likely) Merced. But getting into either of those two depends on you being in that top 9% (google it for more info). According to [Strategic</a> Academic Research & Analysis: Student Profiles](<a href=“Institutional Research |”>Institutional Research |) this fall the admit rate for students with a GPA from 3.0 to 3.29 at Riverside was only 17%, and you’ll be at the absolute bottom of that. So kinda dicey.</p>

<p>Busting your buns to pick up 2nd semester grades won’t help since decisions are made well before those grades are out. And ECs play a small role at most UCs, certainly not enough to get a low-score student in. ECs play a big role at the higher-ranked UCs, but they use them to pick between well-qualified students and not to pull someone up from the bottom (unless your EC gets you recruited by a coach).</p>

<p>I’m certainly not going to tell you to give up, and I hope it works out for you. But in the event you don’t fall into the top 9% that gets promised a space somewhere, you should be giving serious consideration to your plan B. Which could be a CSU campus, or attending a CC for 2 years and taking part in the TAG program to get guaranteed admission to one of the UC’s that participates in the program.</p>