<p>So_Delirious: i have visited both ucsd and ucsb recently.</p>
<p>san diego is a beautiful area. a lot of people bash ucsd, but i had a very nice impression. but that is kinda irrelevant now since you didn't apply</p>
<p>ucsb was very beautiful. it does have a big party school reputation. it's insane, everyone is ridiculously goodlooking, it's like they all came out of baywatch or something. no joke either. with the parties and sexy people > SO MUCH DISTRACTION, it's been said it's really hard to graduate in 4.5 yrs or so from there. but if you have good self-control and drive, it is not bad at all for academics.</p>
<p>you REALLY need to visit Berk if you get in- the young Republicans is one of the biggest clubs on campus, so it is not so left as you think. With your stats, you are way over-rated for Santa Cruz, unless of course you are into ......</p>
<p>so_delirious: i'm positive you'll get in at sb if that's your first choice. and you're right about berkeley - it may have one of the biggest republican clubs, but bear in mind that it's a huge UC campus and therefore the number of righties proportionate to the number of lefties will still be very small. the neighborhood is very liberal - hello, san francisco :D! that's why i love it, i suppose, but that's equally good reason for you to hate it. every stop sign there has a little "bush!" or "GOP!" written under the stop. "stop bush!" "stop GOP!" again, i was thinking of cheering, but i'm sure that sort of thing would irritate you, lol.</p>
<p>oh, and the UCs don't take your freshman year into consideration, so 2 of your Cs don't mean anything.</p>
<p>annnd you're also right about ucsd. i've lived in san diego 8 years and took summer classes there. my god, it's SO boring. all i can say about sd is that if you want a social life, you'll have to go look for it. while the city is beautiful, it lacks culture - we're all about strip malls and big zoos that i am sure you'll be sick of after 2 visits.</p>
<p>aspara: No, I didn't know her...there were about 500 girls at girls state. Did she like it? I loved it.</p>
<p>Laguna: Movies in TOK? I'm jealous! But I agree, the class is great, the essays aren't. </p>
<p>So_Delirious: SB is my first choice for the same reason. I want to get a great education, and I know I will at SB. But I also love to party (I live within walking distance of a huge party school). All of my friends at Santa Barbara love it, and the few that turned Berkeley down for it have no regrets. Who wouldn't want to spend four years in the most beautiful place in California?</p>
<p>wow, UCR invited me to apply to their honors program. they say they invite a selected 5% to apply. I dont know if that's actually true. I know it's definitely not a regents scholarship, but it's still crazy. I mean, look at my horrible SATII scores on the fourth post of this thread. I swear, I'm never ever going to get over how bad those scores are.</p>
<p>HS GPA: 3.98
UC-GPA: 3.82
SAT: 1300 (630V, 670M)
SAT2s: Writing (670), Math 2C (630), Chinese w/ Listening (700)</p>
<p>APs: Calc. AB (2 - Unfortunately I wasn't feeling too well until Thurs. of that week), US History (5), Calc. BC, Physics C (Mechanics and E/M), US Govt.</p>
<p>ECs: (nothing really stellar compared to the rest of CC)</p>
<ul>
<li>130 hours volunteer work at library</li>
<li>3 hours/week at the nearby church (Just FYI, I'm nonreligious)</li>
<li>Math Club (12th)</li>
<li>Award for my industrial ed. projects (11th)</li>
<li>Couple months of work experience (10th)</li>
</ul>
<p>Other stuff:</p>
<ul>
<li>So-cal resident</li>
<li>Asian male</li>
<li>Received straight A's 1st semester of senior year (first time since like elementary school) :p</li>
</ul>
<p>I already got accepted to the Cal states that I applied to (Cal Poly Pomona and SLO), however, I'm still hoping to see some acceptance letters from the UCs (otherwise my parents would be ****ed seeing as they want me to get into at least 4 or 5 of the 6 schools I applied to).</p>
<p>3 people from my school have already been accepted to UCLA, and it looks like 2 of them took the few "Asian spots" available. :p</p>
<p>Polarman - UC's don't have 'Asian spots', since they no longer use race as an admissions factor. UC's have huge Asian enrollment, not just a few spots-- a majority on some campuses.</p>
<p>Polarman, how can your UC GPA be lower than your HS GPA? You didnt take a single AP class, and got A's in PhyEd?
SOrry to say, but if it isnt a typo, it's a VERY bad sign..</p>
<p>Bubbles one waymight be if the high school recognizes an honors sophomore class that the UCs don't. I have heard of that happenning with English classes.</p>
<p>PM could also have received a b or c in an honors/AP course, which is a bonus point for HS transcript, but runs up agaisnt the 8 semester cap, so no bonus for UC calc</p>
<p>
[quote]
Polarman, how can your UC GPA be lower than your HS GPA? You didnt take a single AP class, and got A's in PhyEd?
SOrry to say, but if it isnt a typo, it's a VERY bad sign..
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Reread my post above; I am taking total of 5 AP classes throughout high school.</p>
<p>The way the UC calculates GPA will significantly lower your GPA if you took a load of honors/AP classes AND if your high school has no limits on the number of honors points given on a transcript. For the UC-GPA, only up to 2 semesters of honors points are given for classes with 11/12th grade content in the sophomore year, and a total of 8 semesters overall.</p>
<p>If you look around these boards, there are a ton of applicants who have their UC-GPA lower than their overall HS GPA.</p>