<p>I’m a little salty right now after getting rejected from UCLA, but I didn’t deserve to go there, so I should understand, but I have something to say about the UC’s and their application review criteria.</p>
<p>I was rejected, as were many people from my high school, from UCLA. UC’s are BS when it comes to actual academic achievement and now I realize that. I had the decision to go to a school closer to my house and get better grades. Instead I decided to do the IB program at a school that was a little further away. Guess what? IB doesn’t give you *<strong><em>, it *</em></strong>ed up my GPA and provided me with a false sense of confidence as I thought that it actually mattered to them. Also, their whole system of GPA is flawed. To max out on GPA you must have taken a combination of 8 classes over 10/11 grade, when most people take 12 over the 2 years. Well, you tried harder in school to do better and take more classes. What do you get? A lower GPA for getting perfect grades in more classes simultaneously. I’m not saying I got perfect grades, but there were people at my school going full IB who got like 2-5 B’s over those 2 years taking almost full classes and they didn’t even get into LA or even San Diego. I feel worse for my friends who got screwed over more than I did because I know I messed around in school and was lucky enough just to get into a UC. They need to allow for more weighted classes because people that actually try to get into top schols don’t take 4 classes a year or only 2 weighted classes a year.</p>
<p>If you took these IB classes just so you can beef up your college admissions, your fault. Same goes for anyone who beefs up their courses with AP just for college admissions. It doesn't matter what these students believe what these courses are, but more of what universities see it as.</p>
<p>I'm sure that GPA is not the only major factor in UC admissions. There ARE other factors as well, like the essays, your ECs, the rigor of your coursework, your school's history of admitted students, test scores, etc. You're making it sound like UCs only admit people based on GPA. Really, that's not the case.</p>
<p>If you took IB JUST to make your applications look better, then really that's your own fault for not, as King818 said, learning how to play the system. And really, whatever happened to learning just for the sake of learning? </p>
<p>Oh and p.s.: maybe you got rejected because you have such a terrible attitude.</p>
<p>Taking IB for the sake of boosting your app is a poor idea. Take it for the sake of learning, NOT b/c it "looks good for college" -- that attitude is such BS! I angers when I hear people in HS say that.</p>
<p>AP classes at my high school were about 50x more interesting than regular classes. The best teachers taught AP, simple as that. Sure, I did not get straight unweighted A's, but I sure learned a lot more and had a better high school experience. High GPA is overrated.</p>
<p>Who ever told you that UCLA was a school for "kids who took IB courses and got 2-5 B's"?
What makes you think UCLA is at that level? Perhaps UCLA wants kids who took IB courses and got 2-3 B's max. </p>
<p>I'm sure if you were accepted your post would have been completely different.</p>
<p>Regardless of what system a UC campuses uses, it will always come down to the fact that they cannot accept every great applicant from your school. Each campus likes a little geographic diversity, so they will accept that one applicant from Alpine County even if s/he has a 3.5. Also, please understand that the 8 max bonus points are only used for admission eligiblity. The UC app reader will have access to your uncapped gpa, as well. So the applicant that takes 6 IB/AP's Junior year will recieve a bonus point for all of them. As a result, class rank indirectly counts as an admission factor, even tho it is not supposed to be one. But equally important, UC will not penalize your transcript if you do not have access to AP/IB courses Junior year, since each app is read in "context" of your HS curriculum.</p>
<p>But, fwiw, at my kid's high school we heard last night that a kid was accepted to Stanford EA, but just rejected by UCLA. So, random "stuff" happens.</p>
<p>I somewhat agree with you and have actually heard similar opinions before from others about the IB program in general.</p>
<p>Though you should consider yourself fortunate, as my situation was perhaps a bit worse. I entered the "honors program" the middle of my sophomore year at a high school out-of-state. Senior year, I moved back to California and came to the realization that the fully loaded schedule of rigorous honors classes I had been taking would be granted grade weight identical to that of a non-honors course, and the two would essentially be considered equivalent in the eyes of the UC system. Thankfully the school I did manage to receive acceptance to was one I desired attending.</p>
<p>In retrospect, even though the great disparity in academic rigor had been considered worthless by UC policy, I learned significantly more taking the classes I did than I otherwise would have and feel I'm much more prepared to attend college. I believe that is what truly matters.</p>