My son took 7 ap classes because he was strapped for time. He had club soccer, high school soccer and was in high school four year computer pathway. Personally I don’t think they look at numbers of ap classes, instead more focused on rigor. My son took all cal an, bf, think 3 different physics, and two different comp sci (sorry details are a little blur, he graduated 21).
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I’ll share my son’s application approach, which seems to have paid off so far with the UCs (@tamagotchi My son has the exact same results as your son, although UCSB accepted him into L&S instead of engineering, so that’s automatically out).
My son has a 4.0 UW/ 4.25ish UC, and I think 9 APs, but no state or national awards or internships, etc. While he’s taken all the major STEM-related AP classes, he chose not to take the AP classes that didn’t appeal to him, like AP English or AP Economics. He’s not in a ton of ECs, but he focuses A LOT of time on Robotics. His school’s team is pretty young and much less funded than others, so they don’t make it to the national robotics competition level. But his best PIQ was about how their robotics team got absolutely crushed at the regional competition in his junior year, but how that just inspired him to take the initiative to make changes, learn more, and be a leader. Also, instead of taking DE classes that fulfilled requirements, he took a series of CC classes that got him a certification in computer-aided design (CAD), so he could help better design his robotic’s team robot this year. He also wrote a great PIQ about being a long-time volunteer for a local food bank, but not really understanding the impact of the organization until actually seeing people line up for food during the pandemic.
I worried he would get overlooked by the UCs because he doesn’t have all the “traditional” accomplishments I thought top students would. But his full application told a story about a kid who really wants to be an engineer, is passionate about the activities he’s involved in, and focuses his time directly on those things. I truly believe that storytelling approach has worked for him, and a reason I’m thankful for the holistic review of the UCs.
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Current applicant - applied to 5 UCs (Cal, LA, SD, Irvine, Santa Cruz).
13 APs, 4.0UW/4.67 UC GPA
Got into the following
- Cal EECS (early notification)
- UCSD CS w/ Regents
- UCI CS/Undeclared
- UCSC CS
I did have quite a lot of extracurriculars and awards. Outside of being in-state, I certainly believe I benefitted from having a clear direction with why I love CompSci and being upfront with my intention to major in CS and not choosing a random alt major which is seen as “easier to get into”.
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This is so awesome!
Thank you and congrats to your child. Again it’s encouraging to hear that his genuine interests were transmitted through PIQs; clearly there are admissions readers that are doing a great job. While I feel for the many many high-stats excellent students who were denied across the board (sadly I know quite a few!) I’m also impressed with many of these admissions stories that support a less random and more intentional admissions pattern.
And that 4.0 unweighted GPA is the icing on the cake! Sixty percent of UCLA admits had a perfect uw 4.0 GPA. Therefore it’s obviously quite key for UCLA admission anyway, statistically speaking. (Odds are) it’s necessary but not sufficient.
He was waitlisted to UCLA, which is the only UC so far that he hasn’t gotten an acceptance for. (Still waiting on UCB.) So that UW 4.0 only went so far! 
As for the CSUs, while he did get acceptances from SJSU, CPP and CSULA, there’s no word from CP SLO, which we’re taking to mean he’ll get WL or rejected. If that happens, it does kind of prove to me that the holistic review worked in his favor, as opposed to looking at his straight numbers.
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This is fascinating info. My son was admitted to UCD and UCSB (alt. major), waitlisted at UCSD but denied to UCLA and UCI. We are waiting on UCB results and I wonder how his application would land for UCB considering the mission statements of all the schools.
I know you are joking but I would add that the UCs are particularly sensitive not to judge one activity or award that might be available to those who have a higher income, over one that does not. That’s why, on all the websites, in all the videos, they say that it is not about the title of the activity but it is about what you did.
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Yes, I was joking as it seems exceedingly unlikely for any high schooler to be accomplished enough to win a Nobel Prize.
But it made me curious about whether a high school student had ever won a Nobel Prize. Turns out that the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize was…drumroll…Malala at age 17. Not sure if she was actually in school at that point, however.
And Greta was apparently a favorite for a Nobel when she was 16, but was ultimately not selected.
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From the Berkeley Admissions website. “Holistic review” refers to the process of evaluating Freshman applications where no one piece of information is weighted more heavily over another."
There is no minimum stat that eliminates a student’s application from being read.
One single activity or one single PIQ is not going to get a student admitted. My assumption about these students (and we will never know) is that they went into detail about attributes such as leadership, drive, initiative, compassion, empathy and community in their PIQ and A&A. They may also have spoke about personal family circumstances or overcoming obstacles that you may not know about.
Exactly! He not only wrote about the what, but also spoke about the why. Rather than saying what he learned in class, he spoke about what he did, and what he gained from taking the class. He was inspired and took initiative to make changes as a leader. He was part of a team. He showed sustained involvement and commitment to an activity. All of these A&A and PIQ helped to paint a picture of the student. He didn’t leave anything up to the reader’s imagination.
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But I think as importantly, didn’t they ace all these exams?
The challenges is that in many schools (i.e. our school) many AP classes are hard to get even a B in.
Yes absolutely! In looking at the (unofficial) stats of the very few Computer Science majors admitted to the most selective UC campuses, and not waitlisted/rejected, they seemed to have a string of all 5s on their multiple AP exams.
Super anecdotal but fwiw I only did 3 AP Exams (Computer Science Principles, US History, and Microeconomics) and only had one 5 (CSP) while the other two were 4s, so I wouldn’t say it is a necessity.
They may have aced the 10 exam’s but quite a few of those AP tests are taken senior year, way after admission decisions are made. (Plenty of kids in our HS had 8-10 AP’s but ~5 of them could not be taken until senior year.)
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UCs do not use class rank from the high school. Indirect use of rank (ELC or comparisons to other students in the high school) would be based on UC-recalculated GPAs.
Was this medical pathway more focused on other health care professions (e.g. phlebotomy, radiology technician, etc.)? Seems like if it were focused on those aiming to become physicians, it would be scheduled to avoid conflict with the most advanced science and math courses.
Well of course they don’t use the rank, but they use GPA from which the rank is calculated. My point was that if everyone from the school applied to the same College they’ll be many more people with a better GPA than her.
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