I started off high school with a low GPA (3.34 for freshman year) because of personal problems and just overall not knowing what I wanted to do. I ended sophomore year with a 3.8. I am in my junior year currently, and I just ended quarter 1 with a 4.5, and I hope to keep this up for the rest of the year. I hope to end high school with a cumulative GPA of 3.8-3.9. Will my freshman year hinder me from getting into the colleges I listed below?
More Info:
Colleges I’m looking at: UCI, UCSD, UCSB, UCLA, UCB, SDSU, UCSC, USC, Cal Poly SLO, Georgia Tech., UT Austin, Florida State - OOS for all of these colleges
Intended Major: Game development, software engineering/comp sci. or Interactive Media Arts
Ethnicity/race: Asian in a small white dominated town in New England
AP/Honors Classes: Freshman year: 1 Honors, Junior year: AP Gov., AP Art, AP Comp Sci. Principles + all my other classes are honors, Planned classes for senior year: AP Comp Sci. A, AP Physics, AP Environmental Science, AP French, + other classes, not completely sure
EC’s: FIRST Robotics Team (subteam lead + chairmans), Art Club (lead), Honors Band, Volunteer at local animal shelter, Asian Culture Club, Tennis team (not good, mainly just for fun), self taught myself some java coding and C# + Unity
Awards: National merit award (top 10 and first in my state) for Reflections contest for middle school, some school wide awards, (plan to enter more art oriented contests)
Summer programs: Got invited into NSLC, not sure if its worth it but I might do it. Plan to apply to COSMOS.
As long as you didn’t fail any classes in 9th grade, the UCs will ignore it. 10th and 11th are what counts. Use the UC GPA calculator to figure out you estimated capped GPA (google for Rogerhub UC GPA). Since you are OOS, only AP/IB and maybe dual enrollment count as extra weight towards your UC GPA. Race/ethnicity is not taken into consideration, but there is somewhat of a cap now as far as OOS applicants goes. That percentage varies by each UC. I personally don’t think it’s going to be all that restrictive ie if you’re good enough to get in, you’ll get in. UCs love OOS students anyways as they are for the most part all full pay ($65K ayear).
I didn’t fail any classes in 9th grade. I know UC’s don’t count it when calculating your GPA, but do they look at/consider freshman year grades? And my UC GPA for sophomore year was a 3.88, and so far a 4.38 for junior year.
Also, average overall UC capped GPA for admits for UCB and UCLA will be around 4.25, something to keep in mind. UCSD, UCI and UCSB medians won’t be that much lower, maybe 4.10-4.15 IIRC.
UCLA and UCB are reach schools for me. I’m mainly looking at UCI because of family and the location and I think their average GPA is attainable for me as long as I keep my grades up this year, also SDSU and Cal Poly SLO because the tuition is much lower than the crazy amounts that UC’s charge. Thank you for your input!
Actually UC’s do look at your Freshman grades only to make sure you pass all a-g courses with a C or higher or as stated by @ProfessorPlum168, as long as you do not fail your Freshman classes, you should be fine for the UC’s.
If you are OOS for the UC’s and Cal Poly, just be aware that they offer little to no financial aid so expect to pay full fees at $65K/year for the UC’s and around $40K/year for Cal Poly SLO. Make sure you family is on-board with these costs.
UC’s also calculate your UC GPA differently if OOS so only AP and IB courses taken 10-11th grades will count for the extra Honors points in the GPA calculation.
Sophomore Year UC GPA: 3.88 - Junior Year UC GPA: 4.38 (so far) - Aiming for a cumulative UC GPA of 4.00-4.13. And I have talked about costs with my parents, they encouraged me to apply to California schools. I’m also apply to Florida State, UT Austin, Arizona State, and Georgia Tech. for more financially safe options. UCI is the UC school I’m aiming for, a few of my cousins go there, I have family that lives in OC, and companies that I would like to work for (Blizzard, Google, etc.) that practically hire off/live on the campus.
Taking my SAT in December, I’m aiming for around a 1400, but will retake it if I get lower. I did pretty good on my PSAT’s so I believe that is attainable.
For UCI Bren CS school you’ll probably want to be closer to 1500 than to 1400. Very very competitive. As an example, my kid got into Berkeley but only got waitlisted for UCI CS.
If you’re from New England, I would suggest that you apply to UMass Amherst. It would be likely cheaper and they have a very good CS program. Or even WPI. Why overpay?
The median GPA of the last entering class was 3.87. A rising GPA is a good thing in terms of forecasting a successful college GPA, but they don’t penalize students for having four years of consistently strong performance. Many other factors fit into the picture. Dean Kamen left WPI after two years with his first of many patents. This early medical device launched his career. You probably know he started FIRST Robotics.
It appears you would like to get out of New England! I live in Maine and we are currently enjoying an early winter. Go for it, but there are some very good programs in the NE. If your looking for a larger city environment to get out of that small NE town, check out BU’s program @ https://www.bu.edu/cs/undergraduate/
I was mainly looking at UC schools because of their location and abundance of game companies on the West Coast.
Im most likely applying to some schools near me (UNH, WPI, etc.) but my family wants to move to either Florida or Texas when I graduate high school so I’m looking at schools near there.
I’m a bit scared that schools like BU and WPI will penalize me for my overall low GPA. Even if I maintain a 4.2 GPA throughout this year I will still only be able to bring up my GPA to a 3.9 at most which I feel is relatively low for those schools.
Our college counselor discouraged my D from applying to UT Austin as they target around 90% of their incoming freshman class to be Texas residents. Just an FYI.
My oldest graduated in CS from UMass 2 years ago and is doing quite well in the work world, so yes I too can vouch for UMass. His GPA in HS wasnt all that fantastic so I think you should be able to get in there.
FSU seems to be an outlier on your college list, but my kid had a mentor who goes there for CS and the mentor thinks it’s a great school.
When you discuss GPA and use numbers above 4.0 you are using a scale weighted by your honors/AP course load. If you end up with an unweighted GPA of 3.9 you will be fine. If 3.9 is your weighted GPA you will still be a serious applicant in many colleges including BU or WPI if the rest of your application expresses your unique qualities and interests and demonstrates other skill sets. Creative people are not measured by one metric. An upward moving GPA is also evidence of positive growth which often continues on at the university and many admissions offices know that.
Take a deep breath and let those creative juices flow!
