Hi College Confidential,
I am a CC student in CA and I applied last fall, 2017 to UCB, UCD, UCSB, UCSD, UCSC.
My stats are
computer science major
total GPA: 3.7
transferable GPA: 3.5
IGETC+Lower Division CS Prerequisites completed
Personal Insight Questions 7/10
Many extracurricular activities. I even have taken upper division course online. I completed 80 units and I was on the way of completing 120 by the summer of 2018. The number of units I have done in exactly 2 years is equivalent to a Bachelor.
I got rejected by UCB, UCD, UCSB. I was aiming for UCB since I live 20 miles away. I worked extremely hard. I simply had no life. I was every single day at the library. 8 AM - 10PM . It is so devastating. I know some of my friends who had 4.0 CS majors and got in and others with 4.0 and got in. No wonder is UCB the top, because they have the students with the highest GPAs. UCB rejected me because of GPA. Every single one of my friends cs majors that had 4.0 got in even the international that can not speak english well. Any UCB advisors, please comment, I would like to hear your thoughts on this matter. Readers, if you have tips or ideas, please share.
Why are you crying?
You applied to some very difficult schools which were known to be competitive, especially if you did not have a 4.0, for a CS program. They all received a minimum of 90K applications.
Your grammatical skills usage, in these few paragraphs, indicate that your writing skills need some work. Those schools tend to like students who can write strong sentences.
Did you get help with your application?
I am not crying but rather I am disappointed. When you have such a goal and work for years harder than others to achieve it and eventually the outcome is not what you desired, it strikes as a failure. I received help from some people. 1 counselor, 3 graduates , English professor. I know about my essays and I have read my friends essays and I have compared between them. They were very similar, stories, hurdles and achievements.
If you’re going to tell me that it is because of essays, it is not. One can write the stellar killer personal insight questions and have 2.5 GPA while someone else with an average essay with 3.5 GPA, the chances of being admitted at 2.5 are by luck. Admission officers know the 2.5 will not able to handle the academics of the University. Now compare that in a smaller scale of 3.5 and 4.0. It is one principle. You can say what you want on the essays and describe the impossible but the GPA will still tell them how one is going perform on their campus. I reviewed the data on UC websites for the cs program. 25 percentile of students and above who were admitted had 3.89-4.0. 0-25 percentile is not shown.
I just learned that UCB had more applicants with 4.0 than they can accept.
I don’t know how you can say that you’ve worked harder than the entire class that applied to Berkeley.
As for 2.5 gpa’s, you don’t know what others have done, or how others’ lives have been impacted by life’s challenges. Maybe their high school SATs were 1500+. You also don’t know what the college was looking for in their formation of the new class.
I don’t know how you think you can predict what admissions officers will do.
Build a bridge and move on.
So…you did not mention getting rejected from these two. If you got in at UCSD Or UCSC. Pick one…and move on.
I really wanted to go to UCLA, but I got into UCB. Sometimes we don’t get why, but we take the opportunities that are given to us. Best wishes. You have a lot of ambition. If anything keep getting good grades and transfer from UC to UC. It’s not common, but possible.