im a senior this year and ucla is my top choice but i’m really not sure i can get in. thoughts?
stats:
uw gpa: 3.37 (i know its bad i know)
w gpa: 4.5
act: 32 (but retaking!)
no class rank
APs:
i took 12 but i’m only reporting 10. 5/10 are 5’s and 5/10 are 4’s.
i hope this shows i challenged myself and did fairly well on all except 2 (but they won’t know that)
residency:
so TECHNICALLY i can get a california residency for tuition purposes because i’m a dependent of one of my parents who lives there, even though i don’t live there myself. will a CA residency hurt or help my chances of admission? money is no object.
ec:
i won a U.S. state department scholarship (NSLI-Y) to study russian abroad for 6 weeks over the summer
president of red cross club for 2 years (incl. this year)
150-200 volunteer hours at an iranian cultural center. i work with kids there, teaching them my native language and culture (persian), supervising them at cultural events, and helping organize community outreach programs/celebrations
other smaller things, like DECA (qualified for internationals), NHS, studied philosophy at brown university over a summer, teacher’s assistant internship
other things:
major is most likely going to be philosophy, with a minor in russian.
my mom left my sister and i around last year to go live in california. my dad works full time and therefore i’ve had to step in as my sister’s mother, including cooking/house chores/transportation/giving her an injection every day (she has a medical condition). now that i’m 18, i live alone (my dad moved away too lol) and am 100% responsible for my sister.
white but ethnically iranian - i’m fluent in persian and know spanish and russian as well
i feel like my uw gpa is going to raise major red flags, but considering the context of my home situation, course rigor, and my dedicated involvement in my cultural community, do i have a chance?
Welcome to College Confidential. Sorry about your home situation and it should be addressed in one of your personal insight essays. You do have good HS course rigor but top schools like UCLA expect you challenge yourself and also get good grades. If your UW GPA is 3.37, your capped weighted would be around 3.6-3.7, which is well below the 25th percentile. UC’s tend to be very GPA focused so this will definitely impact your chances. You have a solid ACT and some good EC’s but these will not overcome your low GPA.
Please calculate your UC capped weighted and fully weighted UC GPA to see where you stand: https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
Having CA residency will help with tuition costs and give you only a slight advantage based on acceptance rates. Below is more UC statistical data and I suggest you expand your college list and consider UCLA a High Reach.
Admission Rates for California Applicants:
UCLA: 11.8%
UC Berkeley: 19.2%
UC Irvine: 21.3%
UC Santa Barbara: 26.9%
UC San Diego: 27.6%
UC Davis: 35.5%
UC Santa Cruz: 42.5%
UC Riverside: 55.8%
UC Merced: 77%
Admission Rates for Out-of-State Applicants (Domestic):
UCLA: 16.5%
UC Berkeley: 17.1%
UC Santa Barbara: 38.7%
UC Irvine: 44.2%
UC San Diego: 59.6%
UC Davis: 62.8%
UC Merced: 72.4%
UC Riverside: 73.9%
UC Santa Cruz: 85.5%
You’ll need to calculate your UC GPA to get a better determination. UC GPA does not include 9th grade and only considers up to 4 AP classes for the purposes of GPA calculation.
thank you for your reply!! under the condit bill (https://www.ucop.edu/residency/exemptions-waivers.html) i’m “a dependent child of a California resident parent” and can classify as a resident for purposes of tuition/gpa!
thanks for the data!! it’s good to know UCLA is a reach – i may still apply but i’m going to focus on targets and lower reaches for now! my unweighted is still a 3.38 but my weighted/capped is 3.88, so i’m not quite up to par.
It looks like you’ve really taken a good amount of rigor in your soph-jr years; perhaps this contributed to your “downfall.”
I'm going to assume you're not 1st-gen and then underrepresented minority, and your high school is undoubtedly funded well. But you have had some hardship to overcome with your taking care of your younger sister. You can address this, perhaps even in your personal statement with added creativity or in the short topical essays.
You sound like the picture-perfect type who'd kill any CA community college you'd attend with a 4.0 or near to it. If you do this, be sure to go honors, etc., and I think that you might be be an ideal UCLA xfer admit a couple years down the road.
You’re certainly unique, because of your Russian expertise. So play this up as much as possible.
@firmament2x thanks for your response! i’m not 1st gen college attendee but im 1st gen immigrant/U.S. citizen and neither of my parents did their higher education in the U.S. i will most definitely focus on emphasizing my russian!
@pazhhalysta . . . I think they would generally word it as “if your parents haven’t had any college, then you’re 1st gen.” So with your parents having attended (and presumably becoming degreed), regardless of it being on foreign soil with respect to the US, wouldn’t qualify you.
Besides being 1st-gen encompasses somewhat of a nebulous formula for admissive purposes at UCLA. The admin at the University likes to promote its 1st-gen numbers, but there isn’t one thing that would get them in. Firstly, there will be many who will have excellent and comparable stats to the rest of the students.
Secondly, however, those it admits in a more holistically based way (read: those with lower stats) will most likely have attended really bad high schools because of the assumption of lesser education breeding worse educational opps. Race isn’t supposed to be a factor in admittance at UCLA and UC (and those of Persian background presumably as yourself aren’t considered URM), but the University’ll get its target numbers of race within this 1st-gen cohort by holistically targeting those of lower economic background who’ve consequently had to overcome extreme hardship.
As to how this applies to you negatively:
You obviously attend a very good, well-funded high school, so even if you were 1st gen, this wouldn’t apply to your seeming negatives wrt to your unweighted grades – and UCLA does look at uwgpa.
Positives:
However, you have overcome much adversity by being dropped off in the states for high school, and you’ve had to mature and take care of your sister, which obviously had a play in your grades;
You’re a very unique student with unique interests, which you said you would play up to.
Anyway, best of luck; I feel that you’d have a lot to offer UCLA, but it’ll be an uphill battle.
@pazhhalysta . . . let me try this again.
All the immediate in your family lived in one state in the United States of America, and up until a bit over a year ago in a state other than California. Your mother moved to California, leaving you, your sister and your Dad in this other state. We know it’s the US because you’ve alluded to taking a course at Brown along with the US State Dept funding your study of Russian. Your dad had to work long hours, leaving you to take care of your sister. But because your mom is a resident of CA now, you’ll have residency for UC and UCLA. (This sounds a little like David Hogg’s situation because he has CA residency (which he won’t use because he’ll be going to Harvard), though he attended high school in FL because his dad works for the State Dept.) Don’t tell us anymore info. Your dad moved out and has left you fending for your sister and yourself, which I presume to mean that he’s got some heavy duty work going on. Even if you didn’t have CA residency, cost wouldn’t be an obstacle. But If you indeed have CA residency, this will, of course, apply to the state’s community colleges which would be an excellent way to get into the UCs. Again best of luck and I’m all talked out.