What are my chances for my top picks for college?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Demographics:
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: White
State: California
School: Public High School

Intended Major:
Either: Something business related (economics/finance) or med related
Academics: Weighted GPA: 4.35 (4.5 UC)
Unweighted GPA: 3.86
*huge upward trend 9th: 4.0 10th: 4.2 11th: 5.0
ACT: 31
*taking SAT in August
*no sat subject tests

AP World: 4
AP Comp Sci Principles: 4
AP Eng Lang: 4 AP
Env Science: 5
*Taking AP Psych, Gov, Econ, Anthropology, Bio, Lit, Comp Sci A all senior year
Extracurriculars: Volunteer for local homeless shelter
Volunteer at hospital
4 years tennis (3 varsity)
Special Olympics Coach
NHS
Other various clubs at school

Schools:
*excluding safties
USC
UC Berkley
UCLA
NYU
Amherst
U of Michigan
Notre Dame
Emory
John Hopkins

Be brutally honest! Thank you in advance

2

Your GPA is solid but the ACT is on the lower end of the scale for most of these. So I think:

Amherst: Reach
Hopkins: Reach
Notre Dame: Reach
Michigan OOS: Reach
Emory: Low reach
Berkeley in-state: Low reach
UCLA in-state: Low reach
USC: Low reach
NYU: High match

Move that ACT up a couple of points and those chances should improve a bit.

If you are happy with your safeties, you’re fine. If not, I would add a couple of true matches. For you, look at schools ranked about 40-70 in the US News National U ranking and about 35-65 in the LAC ranking.

3

UCLA/UCB are Reaches even in-state only due to the less than 20% acceptance rate. Bump up your ACT score to 33+ and it will definitely help your chances. As stated above, just make sure you will be happy attending one of your safeties.

Best of luck.

4

UCLA has >100,000 applicants per year. UCLA and UCB are high reaches for all. Don’t expect them to be low reaches. Just like the ivies, many a perfect score gets blindsided because of a more holistic approach. Read on the UC application webpage how they assess your candidacy.

5

From this year’s UC App Webpage: UC will do a <> That takes into account:
Grade-Point Average, Test Scores.Courses Completed/Planned Honors Courses.Top 9% Local Context (ELC)Quality of Senior-Year Program of StudyAcademic Opportunities in California High Schools, Performance in Academic Subject AreasAchievements in Special Projects. Improvement in Academic PerformanceSpecial Talents, Achievements, and AwardsParticipation in Educational Preparation ProgramsAcademic Accomplishment Within Life Experiences, Geographic Location.
This is a holistic approach, admission is not soley based on GPA and standardized test scores.