<p>Hi everyone, this is my first time posting on any college forum so here goes <em>deep breath</em>. I am a community college student majoring in political science. This is my third and last semester in CC and I have a 4.0 =D I am already IGETC certified and including ap units from high school I have 55 units. After this semester I will have 69 transferable units and will have completed the TAG for UCSD and done all my preparatory coursework for my major. Most likely <em>knock on wood</em> I will still have my 4.0 at the end of this semester. I have just gotten accepted to UCI for the Winter quarter of 2009. However, I have recently talked to someone who transferred from CC to UCLA with a 3.7 and that got me thinking about UCLA myself. The only problem is UCLA only takes applications for the fall. So basically I would be sitting around for the first half of 2009 if I were to wait for an acceptance letter from UCLA. Also, I understand it would not necessarily be a guarantee. My question is should I take UCI's acceptance for winter? I would have two extra quarters to complete my junior and senior year lowering my coursework considerably. Or should I wait half a year and apply to UCLA in the fall? UCLA is my dream school but I'm not sure if I should take the gamble and wait. Even though I have a 4.0 I have no honors units (I didn't even find out they had honors until it was too late) and I have no real ECs besides working for a few months and some community service/sports back in high school. Do I have a good shot at UCLA? Good enough to wait? Also, can I go to UCI but apply to UCLA anyway and if I get in just go there? I guess I had more than one question haha. My ultimate goal is to go to Stanford or UCLA or USC for law school. Would it be better to potentially get a higher GPA at UCI or go to UCLA but possibly not get as high of a GPA and be more rushed with my work? I would be willing to wait for UCLA if I knew I could get in. Any feedback at all is appreciated at this point thank you. I apologize for the length of my question but as you can see it is quite a headscratcher.</p>
<p>Can you defer your acceptance to UCI?</p>
<p>Does defer mean put off? Because if so I was going to ask my counselor tomorrow haha. I should probably also add that I visited UCI and I liked the campus and the staff/students and I know people going there/in that area already. However, my dad went to UCLA and he loved it and I am sure I would love the campus/staff as well. I am going to visit there UCLA this month as well.</p>
<p>Might have to ask UCI instead of your current school counselor. Tell us what's the answer! I want to know too.</p>
<p>uci has bbqs at the res halls</p>
<p>im at ucla, its amazing though</p>
<p>Well, if you are going to a law school, I wouldn't recommend going to a top tier school for undergrad and getting a lower GPA than you would get from a so-so school. So if I were you, I wouldn't waste my time and just transfer to UCI. </p>
<p>And as for law schools, as long as you have a high GPA and a killer LSAT scores, then you should be fine.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your replies everyone. Would UCLA's name be a much higher edge than UCI's name when applying to law school? And would getting a higher GPA in poli sci really be easier at UCI than UCLA?</p>
<p>I would say that UCLA is generally perceived as much more competitive than UCI. Given that, yes it would probably be tougher to get a high GPA at UCLA because of the grading curve with your fellow students. I don't know how much of a role name recognition plays in law school admissions, but I do know that it depends on where you're planning on applying. I'm almost positive that UCLA is much more recognizable nationally as a competitive school, whereas UCI would probably be less so. Although this might be to a lesser degree locally. It's a difficult trade-off - good luck!</p>
<p>I'd go with the less competitive school, and make it easier to get a higher GPA.</p>
<p>At UCLA/Berkeley you get people that are so competitive, they've been known to steal the professors laptop... Such classy institutions.</p>
<p>if you plan to go to grad school you'd probably want a really high gpa from uci over a mediocre one from UCLA especially for a major as popular as polisci.... id say just go with the UCI winter option, esp</p>
<p>at least you have a school to go to. i know plenty of people with 4.0 polisci rejects to UCLA (yea it sucks there is no guarantee to UCLA, but if there was one, EVERYONE would go there, even underqualified idiots)</p>
<p>I'm definitely not gonna read that wall of text, but judging by other peoples' responses it seems like you want to go to grad school. Bottom line, it's probably better to go to the less competitive school (UCI) because the name of the school doesn't really matter much when you're applying to grad school, and you'll likely get a higher GPA (though this is by no means certain). And heck, no one said UCI was a bad school either; it's not like comparing UCLA to UC Merced.</p>
<p>I'd say its more like comparing UCSD to Riverside.</p>
<p>I have a question -
What if the two schools you had to choose between were Cal Poly Pomona or UCLA? I know the major probably has a heavy impact on which Grad schools will be more likely to accept you but what if you were uncertain as to what major you want to major in?</p>
<p>You guys seem to be saying that it is better to take the easier route via a lower tier UC and get a good GPA rather than go to a school like UCLA and get a mediocre GPA.
/hijack thread</p>
<p>I do think getting a high GPA at UCI is going to be easier than getting at high GPA at UCLA. </p>
<p>That said, if you have a 4.0, the appropriate prereqs, and are IGETC certified, you are pretty sure to be admitted to UCLA too. Or Berkeley for that matter. So, if it were me, I'd apply again to all the schools of interest, explore some options, think long and hard, see where you get in, and make a choice to start in Fall 2009...</p>
<p>@kissingurami: If those were my choices, I'd go to UCLA for sure. The ranking difference is just way too big for me to feel confident about going to stanford/usc/ucla for law. Your goals may be different though.
So you guys generally feel it would be more beneficial to go to UCI and probably get a higher gpa than UCLA and possibly get a lower one since I want to apply to law school?</p>
<p>You should try posting this in the Law forums and see what responses you get.</p>
<p>As a UCLA student. I'm sorry but I have to say that its political science program is a joke in comparison to its other programs. Not so much the professors or TAs but it is fundamentally easier than any other program on campus. Of course, a school cannot make every program extremely rigorous. Lets just say I took an intro to poli course and only went to class during the final and passed.</p>
<p>If you're a natural test taker, ie high SAT scores. Then, when applying to law school, you should look and see which schools place a higher emphasis on LSATs and vice versa.</p>
<p>On another note, yes I would recommend keeping your GPA high if you wanted to go to a T1 law school.</p>
<p>Good advice grey I will.
Hmm interesting JPNguyen if you don't mind my asking what makes the poli sci program so much easier? Would I have to kill myself to get a 3.7-8 GPA? And would you say it is easy or just relatively easy compared to the other programs?</p>
<p>You shouldn't criticize Poli Sci JPNguyen. Some people on here still think it's a viable major, and totally worth the near 40K they'll be spending on it.</p>
<p>I'm just gonna go ahead and say it, I personally believe the people in the Poli Sci, Philosophy,etc. majors just don't have the mental fortitude to hang with the Chem, Physics, etc. majors. Your anecdotal evidence only helps to solidify this notion.</p>
<p>So take note you other science nerds applying to a UC this fall, when you see folk on here boast about how they have a damn near 4.0 GPA, remember that unless they received that GPA while prepping for a difficult major, it's really nothing to write home about... </p>
<p>Also, let me diffuse a point brought up last time I made this argument. Science Majors and Philosophy/Poli Sci/Art History majors do NOT take the same classes. While you guys can skate by with doing the bare minimum of science courses (e.g take only one semester) the majority of us have to complete the entire series. That makes for several semesters worth of filling up your schedule with difficult 5 unit courses. Which again, explains why our average acceptance GPA is a ~3.5 while you guys have to do roughly ~3.7. You guys are expected to have higher scores because your courses are easier.</p>
<p>Heck while you're at it, you should probably remove the UCLA criticism too. Some folk on here go to bed with visions of little UCLA fairies dancing in their heads.</p>
<p>sigh...</p>
<p>anchor is bitter 'cause UCLA rejected him 'cause his CC didn't offer OChem. It really is a pity though.</p>