<p>i was wondering if anyone could help me understand difficulty in getting into a UC school here in CA. I got pretty poor grades fresh and soph year, about 2.0, though i was taking almost exclusivly AP and honors courses. it wasnt that i was stupid, i just didnt care...</p>
<p>anyway, i have resolved to get off my lazy arse this year and am doin pretty good and hope to maintain a 3.5 this and next year (junior/senior). if i do this, will colleges look at my average for junior and soph alone, or will they look at grades by year, and perhapse see that i have really turned around. if i maintain a 3.5 and get a 2200 on my SAT(which i almost got), is there ANY chance in the world i could get into a UC, specifically UCSC? </p>
<p>Any information on college admissions would be extremely well appreciated.</p>
<p>dude UCSC? with a 2200 im sure you'll be fine. It's a good school and a great location but no offense it's not exactly the creme de la creme. That's not to say that wonderful people don't go there and they actually do have some very talented professors. I'm sure you'll be fine. and yes i do think the admissions people will notice the turn around</p>
<p>They do look at your freshman GPA, though your sophomore and junior year grades are most important and are the ones they use to calculate your GPA. As long as you're taking a rigorous course load and you have about a 3.6 W GPA, you should be good for UCSC, especially if you have a 2200 on the SAT.</p>
<p>umm, let's not be so hasty with the UCSC safety talk. A 2.0 Soph year and 3.6 Jr year might not even meet the minimum UC gpa requirement of a 3.0; UC eligibility would depend on the number of a-g courses each year. While Frosh grades are shown on the app, they are not used for the UC gpa calculation, which is only Soph and Jr years' grades, not senior. </p>
<p>However, bcos you are a strong test taker, you could become UC eligible by testing alone. You would need to average 690+ on all five tests (SAT + 2 subject tests).</p>
<p>Just remember: "eligible" and "admitted" are two very different words with two very different meanings. UCSC admit profiles are rising every year. The kids who can't into UCLA and Cal are pushing down into USCB and UCSD and UC Davis. That means the kids who used to use UCSB, etc. as a safety are often now attending UCSC. UCSC is going to be harder to get into in a year or two. UC Merced still has a lot of room to grow so he should be fine there.</p>
<p>OP: search CC for the admissions formula or numerical evaluation for UCSD and UC Davis. It is a chart that shows how many points you get for what and the threads give the point total necessary for admitted students. Also, UCSC publlishes their point system somewhere online or in their printed materials. You can plug in your projected grades and see how you might do. You CAN bring up the gpa though...it isn;t easy but it can be done. You may want to take a college class or two IF you can get A's in them, because I think UC's weight them in admissions. Unfortunately, test scores don't count nearly as much as gpa at the UC's. Good luck.</p>