Has UCSD ever released decisions on a weekday other than Friday? Or are decisions likely to be on Friday the 22nd along with UCLA?
@Karate111: The UC’s have 3 different UC GPA’s they look at when reviewing applications. The Unweighted UC GPA, the Capped weighted UC GPA and the Fully Weighted UC GPA.
The capped weighted is the GPA used to determine UC admission eligibility (3.0 minimum for in-state and 3.4 for OOS). The Fully weighted UC is important since all the UC’s place HS course rigor as Very Important in their application review so taking only 4 (Honors/AP/IB or DE) course will maximize your capped weighted UC GPA, you will be at a disadvantage for your Fully weighted UC GPA. Although only 2 UC campuses (UCLA/UCB) report admit stats based on their Fully weighted UC GPA, you can bet that all campuses will consider it in their application review.
Adcoms are aware that not students have access to AP/IB/DE courses at their HS, so you will be evaluated in the context of what is offered at your HS. However, if you do not take advantage of theses classes if offered, it will impact your chances. I am not saying take all classes available, but strike a fine balance in rigor and getting good grades.
@TechPlus: Yes, several UC’s have released decisions on weekdays and UCSB’s decision date is Tuesday March 19.
@Gumbymom Thinks for the clarification. Could I recap to make sure I understand this. All the UC GPA is calculate based on sophomores snd junior years only.
Freshmen GPA has no impact, even if a student took AP classes, and honor. I was the only freshman in my school that took honor pre calculus. I screw up during 1st junior semester with several B because I was taking too many AP/IB classes (6 and 1 online AP). which impacted my grade. However, I overcome this and managed to got A during 2nd semester, Right now, my weighted GPA is 4.65+. This is not the fullly weighted UC GPA,as it take into account of grade from freshman yr
I am worry that I will not get in UC just because of my grades
my daughter was waitlisted for Santa Cruz. Will she have any chance of getting into UCSD or UCSB?
UC gpa 4.11, 1430 SAT, 710 English, 720 Math, 32 ACT
4 years marching band and jazz band, one year of leadership, lots of volunteering for playing drums at fundraisers
@Karate111: UC’s use only 10-11th grades in their GPA calculation for the UW, Capped Weighted and Fully Weighted UC GPA. Freshman year grades are not calculated into the UC GPA however, you need to pass your a-g courses with a C or higher, so they will be looked at and you are correct that any Honors/AP/IB or DE courses taken 9th grades will not get the extra honors weighting. Capped weighted is maximum 4 year long (8 semesters of these honors courses) taken 10-11th grade with a maximum 4 semesters in 10th grade. Fully weighted is an unlimited of honors points for these courses taken 10-11th grade.
Senior grades are not considered unless they are required for a supplemental review (very small percentage of applicants are notified) or if they are part of an appeal or waitlist process. You however want to maintain good grades Senior year since all admissions are provisional. HS course rigor including Senior year is considered in your application review.
@Drummer1030: Each UC campus uses 14 areas of application criteria to review applicants but some campuses may emphasize some areas over others. Since each campus is looking for the right “fit” applicants, the decision of one campus has no bearing on the decisions for the other campuses. Your daughter is a competitive applicant but so are so many to the UC system. Her music related EC’s shows her passion so that could only help her chances.
@Gumbymom thank you! We will wait and see soon. I know there are so many competitve applicants for the UC’s, especially UCSD and UCSB with almost 100,000 applicants at each one. I know she will do wonderful wherever she ends up, I just would like to see her get into one of her top choices.
Chance me:
CS program (also @ UCLA and UCBerkeley)
OOS applicant
4.19 unweighted / 3.90 unweighted (school doesn’t have many APs → took as most as I can)
36 ACT
1510 SAT
790 Math II
Good ECs (Soccer x4 years, 2 as captain)
Volunteered regularly
Track 1 year
Soccer outside of school other 3 years
Basketball 3 years
Mock Trial 3 years (went to state one year)
Plays piano
Great Essays
Internship @ gov lab summer before senior year
Internship @ Lockheed Martin senior year 2nd semester
Both related to CS
Does the order in which you rank the residential colleges affect your decisions
no, you are accepted into the university first, then you are placed in a college.
Note that some of my friends received their first choice of college and some received their 5th or 6th. Feel free to ask me about the actual differences between the colleges if you have any 
I find it interesting how many people are asking to “chance me”. From my understanding of how UCs admit, you can NOT be chanced based on stats. The largest predictive indication is your ranking from your school. So if you are in the top 1% with a 3.9 GPA and mediocre test scores you are good for just about any UC where as you can have a 4.2 with high test scores and be @ the top 10% of your class and you are pretty much screwed for UCs.
@Drummer1030 Great Question. So here’s what I have learned so far from this experience. 1) there’s very little Rhyme or reason to this entrance process. Your kid could have stellar Scores/grades but depending on the major there are only so many spots open. 2) Mine got UCSC, but not USD or SDSU. 3) how many zillion apps are there? It seems that SDSU does things odd, and that USD no matter how close you are to them (being a local resident) doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a shoo-in. With all this Said. There’s just as good a chance for your kid as anyone to get into UCSB and UCSD as well. We all want our kids to get into their top choices, but honestly, Great Teachers are what you really hope for to convey information that can be used later in life. The school experience is important but I feel for what we are paying the instruction is the key.
You make great point @FlyYellow about a student’s class rank. What do the UCs do for students from high schools that don’t report class rank? My daughter’s high school is one of the top public high schools in California. They don’t report class rank.
@FlyYellow I have a similar question, my California public HS only has decile rankings, so even a kid who is in top 1% or 5% would be grouped together with the whole top 10%, maybe the high school has the specific 1% or 5% data but keeps it private?
Here is an interesting question for speculation. I understand that UC’s uses 14 factors for the admission process, but what is % weighting for each factor. GPA 60% ???Test scores xxxx% ?? Course difficulties xx to y%? EC - what is the weighting?? Does anyone have know? From my experience, it seem that GPA and test score is everything.
@FlyYellow Thats not necessarily true. The UCs have no limit to the # of people they can admit from one school, additionally class rank isn’t everything. For example, who would you admit? The #1 student with a 4.7 GPA 35 ACT with average ECs, or a student who ranks near to 5% with 4.5 GPA 32 ACT with ECs like internships, business founder, national awards, who also comes from a very poor background who is also the first to attend college. While my high school does’t rank, it really depends on your personal qualities and essays that get you into the UCs.
In retrospect, your story and ECs are way more important than a 0.2 GPA and a small standardized test difference. Once your GPA is around or above the average for admitted students, they don’t really care if you have a 4.42 or a 4.7, because you can go through high school taking worthless classes for the GPA boost. Your scores is the sufficient line to enter a UC, but your personal qualities, they are the necessities.
@Karate111 There’s no exact formula of how the UC’s weigh each factor, but UCSB has on their website that their evaluation of freshman applicants is 50% UC GPA, “a-g” courses and exam scores / 50% PIQ’s and Activities.
@berlintoast Thanks for the info, but what is PIQ’s. I learn more about college ad from CCon in the past days than my high school consular
@Karate111 PIQ- Personal Insight Questions which are the 4 essays you wrote.