Hello,
I was just wondering for when applying to various schools in the UC chain, how closely related do the majors you apply for have to be? Would it be odd if I applied for CS for Davis and Business Admin for Irvine?
You can apply to a different major at each campus if you want.
@Gumbymom But do the majors I apply for all have to be somewhat related to each other? Can they vary immensely? Would UCLA be confused if I applied for CS for their school but Business Admin for UCI? My apologies for repeatedly using that example, those are the two majors I’m interested in.
@Gumbymom By the way, would you happen to know the average GPA for CS accepted applicants from this year? If not, that’s fine. Thanks for responding.
@bigballerbrand2: It look somewhat confusing if your EC’s are all related to CS or Business if you applying to different majors at these schools. UCLA will not see that major you are applying to at UCI.
Make sure you personal insight essays are more general and not specific for either school or major since these will be the same for all the UC’s you apply.
I have no data for CS admit stats for 2018 yet, but the UCLA Forum Champion quoted a 4.0 UW and a 4.4 Capped Weighted average UC GPA for the College of Engineering.
For UCI Business Admin 2017 data show a UC GPA Capped Weighted of 4.08. I would expect this number to be higher for 2018.
I’m not sure, but I think what OP is asking is, do the adcoms at the different UCs communicate with each other – or if OP applies as (for example) an engineering student to one campus, and a studio art major at another, would they have no way of knowing. It’s an interesting question that hadn’t occurred to me before! DO you know, @Gumbymom ?
As far as I know, the UC’s do not communicate with each other about applicants. I know this has been asked many times in regards to acceptances especially if you are accepted to UCLA, will you be also accepted to UCB. My niece just applied this past year to 3 UC’s and selected a different major for each and I know of several other applicants that selected different majors for each of the UC’s. I saw no obvious issues having them apply with different majors.
Hey @Gumbymom i know you’re the messenger in this but I’m sort of curious as to how the average for the UC capped GPA for UCLA Engineering can be 4.4. To get a 4.4 would imply all As over 20 semesters (assuming a fair amount of AP/Honors/DE classes). Typically a student is going to take 24 semesters in 10th and 11th grade. If you subtract 2 semesters for P-E that leaves a typical kid with 22 semesters of a-g classes ie maximum GPA is now 4.36. However, we all know that the top students find ways to take extra classes either via Period 0 or pure college classes. As an extreme example my kid had 31 semesters of a-g and that doesn’t even count his 2 semesters of PE and Robotics. So his max GPA would have been 4.26. Other schools have 8-class days (32 semesters) instead of 6-class days and thus the max GPA would be 4.25.
At the end of the day I’m guessing that the average capped GPA is closer to 4.3 instead of 4.4.
I suspect that the UCs communicate with each other wrt acceptances. No definitive proof though. My kid was receiving all kinds of welcome this and welcome that correspondence from UCD and UCSB, but as soon as my kid SIR’ed to UCB, that correspondence stopped. Coincidence? Maybe.
@ProfessorPlum168: The UCLA Engineering data I quoted was quoted by @10s4life whom is the UCLA Forum Champion, an EE major and student ambassador so I am sure he has some inside information that most people are not able to obtain.
In regards to the UC capped weighted max of 4.4, it is possible to have that average as you stated if an applicant only has 20 semester grades with a max cap of 8 semesters of Honors points. UCLA does use the unweighted capped GPA, but regardless of the weighted GPA average, the UW is an average of 4.0 so the bottom line it is very competitive. So as you have pointed out, the more a-g courses an individual takes, the more diluted the capped weighted UC GPA becomes.
Once an applicant SIR’s, the UC admission system is aware of that fact since applicants are not allowed to SIR to more than 1 UC by the May 1 deadline, so there may be a trigger in the UC enrollment system that notifies the other UC’s that this student has enrolled?? Only conjecture on my part.
@Gumbymom Yeah what you said was correct. But the unweighted is more important when looking at grades as that data combined with the course rigor allows the school to see how the students are actually performing in base grades without all the fluff. Many schools have switched to block scheduling and depending on how the classes are structured, will inflate the GPA calcs. There are also a lot of schools that limit the academic A-G classes you can take at a time. Ie ap physics can’t be taken with another AP science. The lower number of courses helps increase the magnitude of each 5.0. That’s why unweighted is more important. @ProfessorPlum168 I’d be happy to explain more if you’d like. Also I can confirm that the UCs do not compare and communicate acceptances. The admission processes are completely separate. Talking to AOs they definitely do not want to spend time communicating with the other campuses (haha they have lives outside of reading apps). The reason why so many do not get into both cal and Ucla is the chances of getting into 1 are slim so statistically the chances of getting into both (under two different interpretations of the holistic review) is very low. Once the deadline passes then the school assumes the admit did not want to sir. It seems the correspondence situation was just a coincidence.