Hello, a bit of context, I would like to be an engineering major (applying to UCB, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, UCI, UCD). My unweighted GPA is 4.00, weighted is 4.27 and ACT is 34. I believe that this is moderately competitive for an engineering major, however, my Subject Test scores are poor- Math II being 670 and Physics being 680. Is it more detrimental toward my admission chances if I send these scores or if I don’t send? Am I better off completely omitting them?
Catch 22: Your subject tests are on the low side so they will not help your chances but to be a competitive applicant, the majority of applicants will be submitting their subject test scores. Since they are only recommended but not required, they will not have as much impact on your chances as your GPA and ACT scores.
Difficult choice and unfortunately I cannot give you good answer. I would probably not send them and hope your current stats will pull you through.
Thank you Gumbymom. This has me really worried. I might even declare a major other than engineering at this point.
I would submit the scores. You might be out of the running at Berkeley, UCLA, and maybe UCSD. But I think you have a decent chance at SB, Davis, and Irvine if you submit the scores. I was told last year by someone familiar with UCLA’s engineering admission process that they essentially normalize and sum up all of the quantitative measures to make their initial cut: GPA weighted and unweighted, ACT/SAT scores, SAT subject scores. If you don’t submit SAT subject scores, you get a zero in that category, which hurts you more than submitting low scores. I can’t swear that this is the true process, and it might not be true at all of the UCs, even if it is true for UCLA. But this is what I was told by someone who seemed to have access to the scoring process.
And I don’t think it makes sense to completely change your education/career goals in order to attend a particular campus. If you want to be an engineer, then it is fine to be engineer from UCI or UC Santa Cruz or from a Cal State school.