UCSD Chance and Advice Please!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - San Diego
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<p>Please be honest and critical (I want advice and criticism; I won't take anything personally.).</p>

<p>Intended Major: Chemistry
Grade: 10th
Weighted GPA: N/A (school does not rank)
Unweighted GPA: 3.8 (this was my UC gpa in freshman year and will probably be the same this year too, since i'll probably get a B in 1 particular subject but As in everything else)
SAT: 1790 (640 M, 600 W, 550 CR) (Note: I did NOT take the SAT Reasoning Test yet, but 1790 is my diagnostic test that I took from Collegeboard. I will take it at the end of junior year and at the start of senior year, but do not plan to study soon since I am busy in the school year with academics, clubs, and volunteering. I will study for probably a few weeks in the coming summer.)
SAT II: Will take Chemistry (aiming around 700)</p>

<p>ECs:
-Over 100 hours of service freshman year (will continue to do 100 each year)
-Key Club (will stay in the club all 4 years; Web Master in 10th gr)
-Disney Club (will stay in the club all 4 years; Secretary in 10th gr)
-Sports Club (President and Founder; started the club 10th gr and will keep it running until i graduate)
-National Honor Society (Member; will stay from 10th-12th gr)
-Summer Chemistry Program (10th-11th; I took a chemistry course in the summer that just passed and will take another course (the final one of the program) the coming summer.)</p>

<p>Other Factors:
-Asian
-Income Bracket: Around 80k
-Neither parent attended college
-First Generation American (parents were not born in the US)</p>

<p>Question:
What can I do to improve my chances to get into UCSD? I REALLY want to go this school, but I don't have any family members who have been here or know about the school. Is there something in particular they look for that really improves one's chances?</p>

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<p>Another question:
If I write a letter of interest right now to the UCSD admissions office, will doing so strengthen my chances?</p>

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<p>Another factor I forgot to mention is that I’m instate.</p>

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<p>To be honest, you are mediocre. You don’t have an amazing GPA and neither the test scores. You need at least one of the above or you must have a very interesting life story that you can write on your personal statement.</p>

<p>Your community service + volunteering + club involvement aren’t that fascinating either. I’ve seen people with like you know better stats and still not getting into UCSD. Keep in mind that you have to compete with Asian applicants so that could be very difficult, unless you are African American or so.</p>

<p>What about AP course? Honors?</p>

<p>If I write a letter of interest right now to the UCSD admissions office, will doing so strengthen my chances?</p>

<p>ANSWER: No, people just don’t do that and I don’t think UCSD will even read it, because if you can do it, then other people can do it too.
If you really want to mention how you want to get admitted into this school, the only method is to write it down in your personal statement, but that can backfire you as well since all the UC’s share the same personal statement. And plus I’d recommend writing about your life rather than writing about why you want to get into UCSD.</p>

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<p>On the contrary, I wouldn’t say you’re mediocre, considering that you’re still a sophomore and have time to raise your GPA. I would suggest taking advantage of as many AP/IB/honors courses as you can.</p>

<p>Your projected SAT score is pretty low, but again, you have time to study and practice for the SAT so that you will have a higher score when you actually take it. I’m not sure if just a few weeks would be enough, but whatever works for you. Make sure to take a lot of practice tests, and aim for at least a 2200! It may not be necessary, but many of the other applicants will probably have SAT scores around that.</p>

<p>Exactly what kind of community service are you doing? Is it community service with Key Club only, or is it something consistent you are doing on your own outside of college?</p>

<p>Also, the personal statements are a very big part of the application. What you have here is nothing more than statistics that many applicants also have, so there isn’t really much that sets you apart. All the factors you’ve mentioned won’t help much either. You should really try your best to write a personal statement that will set you apart from other students. I’d suggest writing a draft and asking a few different people to look at it, especially your English teacher.</p>

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<p>@chainiwatmj
Just to clarify one thing that you briefly touched on which was inaccurate. It’s actually illegal for a public institution in California to admit someone on the basis of race, ethnicity, or gender (1996 Proposition 206). Being Asian or African-American, wouldn’t have any bearing on whether that person is admitted and ethnicity is only on the application for demographic purposes rather than to factor in for admission consideration. Potentially, the only way you may get it to play to your advantage is if you somehow wrote about being a minority in your personal statement and how you had to overcome discrimination or some other obstacle because of it.</p>

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<p>Keep up the hard work and you might make it. Recognize now though that it will be an uphill battle. You need stellar grades and a big bump in your SAT. If you don’t make it, don’t dispair, lots of successful people didn’t make it into UCSD. </p>

<p>Not everyone can be in the top 5%.Do your best and see where that takes you.</p>

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<p>ok so I’m now very frustrated because I spent like more than 5 minutes typing everything up but then once I clicked post then it was all gone. And now I will have to retype everything again.</p>

<p>I wasn’t saying that UCSD discriminates students based on their ethnicity. I believe that other institutions still see an African American student with 2000 SAT score as more impressive than a Chinese student with the exact same score. </p>

<p>Last year I learned about the point system from my ethnic class professor that UCSD used to use to admit the students in. Basically, if you came from an immigrant family, first college gen., lower income, non-white, things like that, then you get points which would eventually add up to your total points. Now the school no longer uses system but I still believe that UCSD still considers all the aspects of your life (as long as you mention them). So was the school trying to discriminate against whites or was it just affirmative actions? It totally depends on your opinion.</p>

<p>So, try to think of your hardships and write them down on your personal statement. I am not telling you to brag about them though but you get what I say. My personal statement was on the hardships I had too.</p>

<p>I mean there are certain subject that people do disagree because sometimes what the laws say and what is practiced in reality aren’t the same. While my professor (the same one) said UCSD female professors still receive an average of lower income compared to male professors, my psychology professor didn’t seem to believe that because why would people doing the exact same job get paid differently??? Come on this is not the 1800s. This doesn’t make sense at all and I totally got what he said. (But again students from ethnic studies major would argue)</p>

<p>Anyway, knowing this is not gonna help you get into college. What I suggest is that you should learn what your weaknesses and strengths are. If you aren’t good at one thing, then try doing what you’re good at. You don’t have to be a perfect applicant though to get into this school and I wasn’t perfect either. My SAT score was 1780 and I only took like 3 Honors and 2 AP’s in my entire high school career.</p>

<p>In my opinion, while you are not doing so well in one area, there must be something that is used to substitute your weakness though because in reality if you are okay in everything, it’s not impressive enough. While I sucked at SAT, I did pretty well in other areas.</p>

<p>To be honest, a lot of people just don’t get into college they want. UCSD wasn’t the place I really wanted to go at first. We all experience rejections though so keep in mind that it’s totally fine for you to want to get into your dream school but also give yourself more options.</p>

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<p>@chainiwatmj
The scenario you suggested epitomizes discrimination to a tee. If all the other aspects between two candidates are equal, like their SAT scores, and you give preference to one purely on the basis of a fundamental physical feature that indicates nothing about said person’s upbringing or quality of life IS discrimination. Regardless, the point being is that the UC’s no longer take into consideration ethnicity, gender, or race for admission purposes, which has been illegal for state-funded institutions since 1996. The reviewers are literally blind to the aspects of race, ethnicity, and gender on the UC application, so there’s no possible way they could be influenced positively or negatively by those aspects. They literally remove that identifying information from the application before it gets to the an admission officer, which is universal policy for all the UC’s not just UCSD, so that it can’t hold any weight in admission.</p>

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<p>Also, many institutions used to utilize a point system that arbitrarily awarded points to certain ethnic minorities, which is something that is no longer legal among US public institutions. In 2003, the US Supreme Court determined that such practice was unconstitutional in the case Gratz v. Bollinger, which reviewed admission policy at the University of Michigan who used to arbitrarily award extra points to underrepresented ethnic minorities in their admissions process.</p>

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<p>I believe it’s fair that the application reviewers are prohibited from seeing all the personal info regarding race and gender. However, many applicants would still mention about how being an African American (or other minorities) causes them hardships in life. I would say if you clearly mention that as part of your personal statement, then the admission officers would know about you. And to be honest, I also admitted that I was Asian in my personal statement as well.</p>

<p>I kind of agree that students should be admitted into college by their personal achievement and academic qualifications rather than what they are. However, I was just saying that it’s also kind of impossible to completely ignore other aspects that also contribute greatly to your life during high school. But by reading some articles, I can see that racently the UC’s have been admitting a lot less African American students compared to many many years ago.</p>

<p>other points of view
[Feds:</a> Don?t back off affirmative action - Libby A. Nelson - POLITICO.com](<a href=“http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/education-department-college-affirmative-action-97576.html]Feds:”>Feds: Don't back off affirmative action - POLITICO)
<a href=“http://voiceofsandiego.org/2010/03/10/why-black-students-are-so-scarce-at-ucsd/[/url]”>http://voiceofsandiego.org/2010/03/10/why-black-students-are-so-scarce-at-ucsd/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/30/local/la-me-affirm-action-colleges-20130701[/url]”>http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/30/local/la-me-affirm-action-colleges-20130701&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;