University of California Application HS Class of 2023

Parents Forum
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Hi there parents of kids applying to the UC’s this fall!

Our D23 will be applying (in-state) so I thought we might start a thread about the application process as it relates specifically to the UC’s.

The portal is days away from opening and this is a place to share all the good, the bad and the ugly as we make our way through the next 4+ months together until the big reveal in the spring!

This could include:

*Application tips/suggestions
*Strategies for helping your student with the UC app
*UC Rumors, gossip and stories of interest about the application process
*Rants about how stressful the UC process has become for kids (and let’s face it, parents too!)

And could also include your kid’s:

*Stats like UC GPA/interesting EC’s
*Desired UC’s
*Desired Majors (if declared)

Let’s talk!

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I’ll start us off!

Our D23 has a 4.1 UC GPA and solid EC’s

Desired major(s) - Marine Science/Marine Biology

Desired UC’s - UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis
Reach UC’s - Cal, UCSD, UCLA, UCSB

She’s been working on (last year’s) PIQ’s this summer (ready to tweak) as well as getting her activity list together and sorted out.

We’ve been told you can’t edit the activities section (move things around) once you put something in, so it seems important to get your most important activities in first - anyone else heard this or have experience with the section?

Every UC feels like a bit of a reach these days - we were told Davis is a ‘maybe’ with a 4.1, so strong PIQ’s will be really important to show who she is, though even those are daunting after reading the essay thread on CC.

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The UC’s will look at all 3 UC GPA’s so you should post all her UC GPA’s based on the RogerHub calculator: GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

The UC’s post the admit rates by the Capped weighted UC GPA in January/February for the prior years Freshman class.

Here is the 2021 UC admit data but it is overall so not broken out by major.

Campus 4.20+ 3.80-4.19 3.40-3.79 3.00-3.39
Berkeley 30% 11% 2% 1%
Davis 85% 55% 23% 10%
Irvine 60% 31% 14% 1%
Los Angeles 29% 6% 1% 0%
Merced 97% 98% 96% 89%
Riverside 97% 92% 62% 23%
San Diego 72% 25% 2% 0%
Santa Barbara 73% 28% 4% 1%
Santa Cruz 91% 81% 46% 9%

Does she have a few safeties on her list? UCD would probably be 50/50 but definitely spend time on the PIQ’s.

I suggest you look at this UCSB videos regarding PIQ’s and the Activities List for tips.

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These are great tips, thank you! We’ll definitely watch the video!

Her Roger’s Hub’s are:

Unweighted 3.79
Weighted 4.11
Weighted/Capped 4.11

I think I did it right - she’s on trimesters and has classes that were semesters to add in from other schools - all very confusing when trying to calculate apples and oranges.

Her desired major is Marine Science, which differs from Marine Biology - the former offered at Davis and Cal (among others) but surprisingly, not at UCSC - it’s been interesting for her to try to figure it out.

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My son will be applying. I’d have to calculate his UC gpa with his spring grades.

unweighted 3.71
weighted 4.62
ranked 7th in his class
UC ELC
research assistant related to his desired field
4 years varsity baseball
Hopefully college board national Hispanic recognition scholar

Struggling to complete essays, great writer, but only likes two of the questions.

Desired major- physics

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Also yes, she has safeties, and will apply to CSU’s and a couple of small privates, but mom & dad’s bank account is hoping for the UC lottery win :slight_smile:

(and apologies to Roger for the extra apostrophe)

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That’s funny! My daughter only liked 2 of the questions as well! :laughing:

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The activities and awards section should be created on a Word doc and copy and pasted onto the application. There are no arrows to move listings up or down after they are completed. The same holds true for the PIQ - they should be typed onto a Word doc and copy and pasted when you are ready to submit.

Davis has a nice marine biology program at Bodega Bay. I don’t think marine bio kids tend to apply to Davis so that might help. :crossed_fingers:

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Where do you think the marine bios mainly apply? We’ve read UCLA has a top program (of course) but even at UCSC it’s not even in the top 20 listed (areas of study listed by % of graduates).

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UCSD and UCSB

Are you from Hawaii? I’ve heard UH Manoa has a good Marine Bio program and it is a WUE school.

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Nope, CA and she did look at Manoa but wants to stay in state…

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My daughter will be applying in this fall. She took few A-G courses outside school ( community college and BYU).

When these course are included in UCGPA , the Weighted GPA goes up and capped GPA is going down. Her school doesn’t include outside courses in their transcript.

My question is should we list all these courses her application or not?

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You are required to list all A-G courses taken and will be required to send transcripts for all these courses once a student enrolls.

The UC’s will consider all 3 UC GPA’s in their application review so course rigor with these additional classes will be noted with the Fully Weighted UC GPA. Due to the 8 semester cap on the Honors points for the Capped UC GPA, after a certain threshold, the Capped weighted UC GPA will decrease due to the # of A-G courses.

Not reporting these outside courses could lead to being rescinded, once your student is accepted at any of the UC’s.

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In case it’s useful, here was my daughter’s experience with applying to UCs (in state) last year:

UW GPA: 3.95
W GPA: 4.38
UC GPA: 4.22

12 APs: Euro (5), APUSH (5), Stats (3), Lit (4), Lang (4), Macro (4), Micro (4), Calc AB (4), Gov (3), Art History (3), AP Psych (didn’t take the test) Chem (didn’t take the test)

Note: AP Gov and Psych were taken online at UC Scout during summers. They were recorded on her high school transcripts and were not weighted bc of school policy not to weight APs taken outside of school.

SAT: 1470 (760M, 710R/W). Not submitted to UCs since they are test blind.

ECs: editor roles on school paper, years of theater and music performance, founded an anti-racism book club, leadership roles in a few other clubs, chosen to sit on our county’s youth commission.

PIQs: Wrote about…. helping to make her school paper better (leading a group to solve problems and overcome challenges); her “creative” side… was about music, singing, how it’s a part of her every moment; academic subject that inspires her, which was about literature and how the fiction she’s read has informed and shaped her experience across disciplines; and how she’s helped her community, which was about the anti-racism book club she started and grew.

Context: we didn’t think she would go to a UC. She had her heart set on going east. But she applied to UCLA, Berkeley and UCSB as a pre-political science major.

We toured Berkeley prior to the pandemic and walked around UCLA a bit during the pandemic.

She was accepted at UCLA and UCSB and rejected at Berkeley.

When results came in, she was disappointed by her rejections at a lot of east coast schools.

Rejected: Tufts, BU, Yale, Columbia, Penn, Middlebury

Waitlisted: Wesleyan

Accepted: Smith, Kenyon, Macalester, Fordham, UVM, Michigan, Wisconsin

When it came to deciding, we went to admitted students day at UCLA and she loved it. She chose it immediately. She happily committed to UCLA and has her orientation in a couple of weeks.

We were fully prepared to pay full freight at one of her east coast favorites. But the in-state tuition is a huge relief for us and it will allow us to pay for extras along the way and she can use the left over money in her 529 for grad or law school.

PIQ Lessons: the PIQs are a little less creative and more straightforward than other essays, but still use the opportunity to get across various strengths and interests that build on passions and reveal character. Use specific examples. Edit tightly for word count. Show well-roundedness across the 4.

Happy to answer questions if you have them. Not an expert, but I valued reading about others’ experiences last year, so trying to pay it forward. Good luck to your kids!

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Thanks for sharing @Wjs1107 . As confident as a student is when they are applying, a lot changes between November and May. Your story reiterates why it is important to take a second (or third) look at schools after acceptances are in hand.

I also have a child who is attending a school that, initially, she didn’t think she would like. By the time all acceptances were received, she decided that she preferred the major at the school she is attending over the majors she selected at (what she thought were) her top two schools.

My advice to those applying this cycle is to find the good in all schools. Help your children see themselves attending all of the schools on their list, especially the likely and safety schools.

Pre-pandemic, we started visiting colleges when my oldest was a freshman in high school. We toured and attended info sessions at all of the UCs (except UCR), several CSUs and several CA privates. We visited big schools, small schools, schools they were guaranteed to get into and schools they had no chance getting into. They had heard of some schools and knew where their parents, aunts, uncles and cousins had attended but they really didn’t have an idea of what it took to get into the different schools.

My oldest fell in love with UC Davis. We had heard good things about the school and everyone we knew who attended spoke highly about it. That said, it was a UC and we knew that it would be competitive. We found a CSU with a similar vibe where he was very likely to be accepted. We planned a visit to the CSU, met with a friend from HS who was attending the school, went to a nice dinner, found an unique ice cream parlor, a cute donut shop and hung out in the the college community. We helped our student feel what it would be like if he attended that CSU and helped him fall in love with it. We never referred to it as a safety and, whenever we talked about the school, we spoke about what a great experience it would be. It quickly became his 2nd choice behind UCD.

This is a big decision for young adults and they are listening to your impressions of schools and what you say to others more than you think.

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Yes, you must list all of those classes, whether they are on the high school transcript or not.

My son’s applications will be weird because he’s in a dual credit program earning his associates degree concurrently with his high school diploma. We have to list the college class, a single semester class, in lieu of the two semesters of the honors or AP class at his high school. This affects his weighted Uc gpa in strange ways. It is what it is though.

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Do you mind sharing what CSU you felt had a similar vibe to UCD?

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I hesitated to state because this was several years ago and with his stats and his major, he had a very good chance to be admitted to SLO. SLO is more competitive now so, if we were doing it today, I wouldn’t view SLO as a likely.

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Thanks for that answer, it makes sense.

But it does make me wonder if it still would be possible to make a list of each UC and then match it to 1-2 CSUs that are “most like” it. And then maybe do the same with WUE schools too? For example, “If you like UCLA, you might also like Cal State X and WUE school Y.” Maybe with comments about what they have in common (location, vibe, majors etc.)

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It is worth a try. I’m thinking UCSB and SDSU would be similar with respect to student lifestyle. UCSC and maybe Humboldt or Chico.

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