<p>Some low selectivity CSUs like San Bernardino and East Bay have low admissions rates; it appears that many applicants do not complete their applications, or are at the margin of CSU baseline eligibility and do not make the needed SAT or ACT score to even reach CSU baseline eligibility.</p>
<p>While CSU East Bay and UC Berkeley both have admissions rates of 22% according to some sources, no one would think that it is as difficult to get into the unimpacted CSU East Bay (where CSU baseline eligibility gets in) as it is to get into UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>Biggest thing to know about UC applications is that the deadline is REALLY early and the app is only done online. And don’t wait until the last day to submit the application. The servers invariably crash.</p>
<p>Best things about the UC app–no GC or teacher recommendations, no transcript requirement until you graduate from high school.</p>
<p>If you look at my link for UCLA , they list a “fully weighted” GPA. And for class of 2011, Cal Poly Pomona had a supplement that was longer than SLO’s! Could have been just for engineering.</p>
I don’t know what most people do but I assume that most would check multiple boxes at least, possibly approaching it from a safety/match/reach perspective as far as admission likelihood since some of the UCs are more selective than others. Of course, if there’s no way the person would want to go to a particular one then there’s no point in selecting it.</p>
<p>Also from CA here. Though as luck would have it my kids did not end up at a UC or CSU, but both applied to some of these schools. The CSUs (except Cal Poly SLO) do not have anywhere to list ECs–at all; the process is entirely numbers driven, as stated above. CSU mentor website steps one through it. (I found it a little annoying that one needed to reenter most of the information school by school, but all-in-all, easy apps for the student to complete (and in my case, for the parent to double-check.)) The UC app is more like the application for private colleges, with the exception that teacher GC recommendations are not required. Each UC decides its own “formula.” I would agree to apply (pay for) apps to as many of these as the student might care to attend, since as is stated above, the application cost pales with the cost of college. I know a student who, for instance, did not get into Cal Poly SLO or any of the UCs except–wait for it-- UC Berkeley. For some reason, his application was a good fit there. He is also from a Bay ARea location from a demanding high school, so perhaps the familiarity with the high school put the (non 4.0) GPA in context. At any rate, who knows, which is why applying sometimes even to that reach UC might be worth the extra application. The year my older D was applying, it was interesting to see who out of her cohort got into UCLA, who to Berkeley, which ones to both, as well as UCSD, Davis and so forth. Many times, she knew these very good friends’ gpas and SAT scores, and EC profile. It made me think that the essays must be critical, because it was impossible to predict!! Best of luck to the OP!</p>
<p>Mamita, my son applied to Cal Poly Pomona class of 2011, and there was a supplement with a place for EC’s an essay, and a few other questions if I recall correctly. I might have a copy somewhere if someone would like to see it. Other kids here onCC mentioned it that year, so I dnt think it was just him. . Was that only his year? Was that only school of engineering? For what it’s worth, I think it made a difference. And neither of my kids ended spat UC’s or CSU’s either.</p>
<p>In a word: eligibility. In other words, the purpose of the ‘UC gpa’ is to establish eligibility for admissions to UC (and to Cal State). If an applicant is below the weighted, capped, gpa (+test score) threshold, that applicant is ineligible to apply. (Or if one applies with a sub-threshold minimum gpa (+test score), its an auto-reject by the computer in Oakland. And this likely explains the non-100% acceptance rate at Merced.)</p>
<p>Application readers see all computer-calculated gpa’s: weighted-capped, weighted-ucapped, and unweighted. (App readers also see a class ‘ranking’ from all students who apply from that HS to a UC that year.) How the reader uses all of the info, however…</p>