<p>If Geography applicants could state their info like the official decision thread I'd greatly appreciate it!</p>
<p>Decision: Accepted</p>
<p>Objective:[ul]
[<em>] UC GPA: Not sure, I have 18 years worth of college units and even the counselors had trouble picking through them. Over 40 A’s except and 1 B and 1 C.
[</em>] Major Pre-reqs Completed: All of them
[<em>] Intended Major: Geography
[</em>] TAP?: Nope
[<em>] IGETC?: Yes and CSU Breadth both
[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[</em>] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis) & Job/Work Experience & Volunteer/Community service: 15 years in Fire/EMS including fire mapping, Volunteer Firefighter, Volunteer EMT, Tutoring, Network Admin, Home Health Aid, and a bunch more. 35 years on this planet racked up a long list.
[<em>] Personal Statement: Detailed my fight to overcome a learning and later medical issue that hindered me early on.
[/ul]Other[ul]
[</em>] Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes, and from what they show on their, I’ll be getting a full scholarship!
[<em>] State (if domestic applicant): CA
[</em>] School Type: Went to LMU, and over a dozen Junior Colleges
[<em>] Ethnicity: White
[</em>] Gender: Male
[<em>] Hooks (URM, first generation college, research, etc.): First gen I guess. Don’t know if that ever came up.
[</em>] Attending Transfer Admit Day? (if admitted): I believe so.
[/ul]Reflection[ul]
[<em>] Strengths: 18 years of Academic excellence, 15 years of work in the field of my major, ability to overcome a severe learning disability and still get high marks
[</em>] Weaknesses: Lots of W’s on my transcripts from semesters where I had to drop classes due to fire season. Low marks on 1st year classes at LMU before learning disability diagnosis, and were later retaken for A’s.
[li] Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: A member of the UCLA review board came to my community college to speak and one thing she mentioned was that students who struggle early think that they can come back, put in a year of good effort and that’s good enough. They care about WHY you struggled. Were you partying? Were you just not serious? Showing just 2 or 4 semesters doesn’t show them that you’ve changed in her opinion. When she saw my LMU transcripts, she was not impressed, and said I’d need to do some major work to make up for that. When I handed her a giant stack of 16 years worth of A’s since, she looked at me and said, “THIS! Is what I’ve always wanted to see. Someone who can show not just a quick change, but steady proof of academic commitment.” That’s exactly what I gave her, as well as the medical documentation showing why I struggled before simple accommodations like graph paper were implemented. [/li][/ul]General Comments: I was told I was an iffy chance, even with the above. She said I was by no means a slam dunk and I had applied to UCSB, UCSC, UCLA, CAL State LA, SDSU and CSUN. UCSB, SDSU both said no. UCSC, CSULA and CSUN said yes. I really felt that with the UCSB rejection, I was probably going to be told no by UCLA too and I was probably going to settle for Cal State LA. I was pretty shocked, and happily surprised to see that I got in, and now I’m simply going to make the most of it. My advice to everyone is don’t ever let anyone tell you to quit. That you can’t do it. That you’re wasting time. I may be on the 20 year program, but I’ve worked hard, I’ve got 7 AA/AS’s, 4 Skill Certs, 2 Certs of Achievement and I’ll have my bachelors, and a masters in however long it takes. NEVER GIVE UP.</p>