Recommend Match and Safety Schools?

College Search & Selection
1

I’m currently a rising senior in Socal (LA) and I’ve been thinking about what universities I want to apply to. I find it difficult to properly label a school as a match or a safety, because even most UCs I feel have become reaches after watching people from my school with perfect stats get rejected from SB and SD. Anyone have any suggestions for which UCs or other schools I could divide into good match or safety schools? I want to major in Chemical Engineering.

Stats:
ACT: 35C (35E 35M 35R 36S) 10W
SAT Subject Tests: Bio 780, waiting for Math II scores and retaking Chem August (740 first try)
APs: Bio (5) / waiting AP Chem, AP Calc BC, AP English lang, AP Spanish lang
GPA: 4.0 UW, 4.67 W
Classes senior year: AP Comp Sci A, AP Stats, AP Physics
ECs: Piano CM for 11 years with senior medallion next year, do research at CSUN with biochem prof during the school year and right now, volunteered in Ukraine with refugees (my parents are from there), math honors society at school, president and co-founder of my school’s literary magazine (good LoR from adviser, she let me read it), in community choir for 8 years and on choir board, like 120 hours volunteering at community center

2

I would put UCI/UCD and UCSB into the Match category. UCSD is a High Match and UCB/UCLA as Low Reach just due to the low acceptance rate.

UCR would be a safety.

Based on your posted stats, you look very qualified for all the UC’s. I would add Stanford and Cal Tech into the mix.

3

Are you at a public high school? Your UW 4.0 will go a long way for UC admissions.