I have a unweighted GPA of 4.0, a weighted GPA of 4.51 (I am ranked number 1 in my class), and ACT score of 34, an SAT MATH II score of 800, and I have taken many AP and college classes. Also, I have been playing the cello for 12 years, and am pretty accomplished (am first chair in all of the local orchestras, and was assistant principal cellist in a national orchestra that performed at Carnegie Hall). Also, I am an accomplished policy debater, winning many tournaments as well as the state tournament in Louisiana my freshman year. This is just a rough picture of me as an applicant.
The thing is, I was denied admission from UT Austin recently. I am in Louisiana, which is out of state, and I understand that getting admission to UT out of state is fairly difficult. However, this worries me. I really want to go to one of the UC schools (preferably Berkeley, to study physics). As is evident, I am an OOS applicant for the UC schools as well. I applied to Santa Barbara, Berkeley, UCLA, and San Diego. My question is, what are my chances of getting into one of these UC schools, given the fact that I am out of state, and given the fact that I was denied admission to UT? This isn’t so much a chances thread as an inquiry into how OOS students fair with admission to these large state schools these days.