<p>I'm barely in the top 25% of my class due to poor grades in the 8th and 9th grade (88 gpa for those two years. 8th is counted because i took high school-level Spanish and science that year.)</p>
<p>In the tenth grade it went up to a 94 and in the eleventh I'm at a 93 w/ several APs and honors courses.</p>
<p>Collegeboard.com says that 100% of admitted students were in the top ten percent of their class. Does this mean that I shouldn't bother applying for the 2011/2012 school year?</p>
<p>“100% of admitted students were in the top ten percent of their class”</p>
<p>Don’t mistake correlation with causation. Being in the top ten percent does not make you “in” at UCSD, rather, the students who generally get in are of a high enough caliber where they (as in this case) are within the top 10%. I’m not in the top10% (I’m 12.5%) and I have a decent shot at admission. Overcompensate for your GPA by beasting your test scores, racking up leadership, and community service hours.</p>
<p>I agree with EnemyUnit. You have time to make up points in other areas. Take lots of A-G courses, study hard and get as high a score as you can on the SAT/ACT and put in lots of volunteer hours. Work on leadership, If you have a special talent, work to improve it and enter some competitions. Other factors such as low-income, family hardships, first generation all factor in. </p>
<p>My son applied and he only has a weighted 3.55 gpa and is in the top 25% of his class. He may not get in, but he is in the point range for UCSD according to their rubric. (depending of course, on what the cutoff point is this year…). </p>
<p>Anyways, if you want this school then do lots of research and work hard to get there.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>^ What do you think the point cutoff this year will be? 7780 (my guess)?</p>
<p>^ I am really not sure what to think about the point cutoff this year. I’m hoping it’s less than 7900. I’m really curious to see how things turn out. I’ve been researching UCSD for my son for the last 2 years and we’ll see if it pays off. His UC app was totally geared towards getting into UCSD, so I’ve got my fingers crossed for him. UCSD is his #1 choice, the only drawback is the UC costs as compared to the CSU’s. So, we’ll see.</p>
<p>Is UCSD your #1 choice too?</p>
<p>I’m actually debating between a career in engineering and a career in medicine, so I applied primary major as bio (impacted), and secondary as electrical engineering (non-impacted). If I get in, for either one, I think I will probably end up going there. I have acceptances from engg schools OOS (GaTech, UIUC, UMich), and they’re all in top 5, but UCSD is sooo much cheaper, and undergrad doesnt matter that much anyway (and UCSD EE is rank 16 so not bad at all)</p>
<p>I think as far as points go, I don’t remember the calculation I did, but:</p>
<p>If they convert my ACT using one of the two ways possible that results in it being lower than the other, then:</p>
<p>worst case -------- best case
7914----------------8010</p>
<p>If they convert my ACT using the more beneficial way</p>
<p>worst ------- best
8260-----------------8410</p>
<p>My worst/best scales are based on points that I would receive for subjective things such as leadership and awards. For example, in my worst case (7914), I have 2 awards, one of them is 1st place in a tournamnt, second one is “regional finalist” (NHD), which means that I placed between 1st and 3rd, but seeing as they’re stringent about accepting only “places 1st-3rd”, I might not get the extra 150 pts =/
And for leadership, I have one president position, one site leader position (research project), tournament chair, and treasurer, so I think that is 0 POINTS. Which sucks.</p>
<p>@ OP- don’t forget that UCs only count grades in tenth and eleventh, even if you began taking A-G classes earlier. 93-94 is about a 3.9, which isn’t that far from UCSD’s average. And if you’re saying you brought the 88 up to a 93, your GPA’s likely even higher.</p>
<p>Aim for SAT scores somewhat higher than average, and there’s no reason why you wouldn’t have a decent shot.</p>
<p>Thank you guys! I don’t know if I’m going to take the SAT because on a practice test I only got a 1800, but on the ACT practice I got a 31.</p>
<p>Guess I’ll just keep on raising everything up and we’ll see where that gets me.</p>
<p>^ You should still take both SAT and ACT. They will only count the higher score. My son definitely did better on the ACT though. </p>
<p>^EnemyUnit, I think you’re in. Your points calculation seem conservative and should be high enough to get you admitted. Congrats on your other acceptances! We also have some concerns about how the points will be calculated for my son such as: how many points will he get for his ACT, will he get points for his academic preparation program, and I don’t think he’s going to get any points for leadership because he only really has one thing. According to my calculations he should be somewhere between 7900-8000 pts based on getting the points that I think he should, but we’ll see.</p>