What are my chances for these universities? (UC's and Cal Poly)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello,

I am currently a junior who plans to major in chemistry in the future. I wanted to know how my chances are for all the UC’s (especially UCB, UCSD, UCD, UCI, and UCSC) and Cal Poly. I’ve been extremely worried about my chances because I’ve heard that future science majors must excel in math, but my math grades seem to get lower as each year goes on.

Here are my stats:

Unweighted GPA: 3.83
Weighted GPA: 4.0
New SAT: 1200 (R+W: 610 M: 590)
ACT: 23
Class Rank: 38/430
7 AP’s taken by end of senior year. (1 AP Soph, 2 AP Jr, 4 AP Sr)

Extracurriculars (This list will be what my final list will appear as by the time I finish senior year)
Badminton Team: 4 years (2 years varsity)
Author’s Club: 3 years
Chemistry Club: 2 years (President for 1 year; also founded this club)
Asian American Student Union: 3 years
California Scholarship Federation (CSF): 2 years
Freshmen Mentor: 2 years
I currently have 30 hours of volunteer hours from being a freshmen mentor/helping out at orientation. I’m aiming for at least 100 hours by tutoring students in chemistry club.

Grades

9th
Biology A/A
Geography A/A
Physical Education A/A
Geometry A/A
English A/A+
Spanish 1 A/A

10th
Chemistry A+/A
AP World History B/B
Physical Education A-/A
Algebra 2 A-/A-
English A+/A
Spanish 2 A/A

11th (current grades as of right now)
AP Chemistry A-
U.S. History B+
AP Psychology B
Pre-Calculus Honors B+
English A
Spanish 3 A-

(I’m struggling with keeping up with my classes. Particulary math because my math teacher doesn’t explain the concepts very well. My math teacher has a reputation of low quality teaching at my school)

(I also didn’t take that much challenging classes during my junior year because the B i got in APWH made me feel very pessimistic. I thought that I was terrible at history. But as I look back, I realized I could’ve done better. I just did not put in my best effort. That was also the year when I felt inferior compared to my peers and it led me to believe that I was not as capable of high achievement.)

12th (future classes)
AP Biology
U.S. Government and Economics
AP Physics
AP Calculus AB
AP English Literature
Acting 1

Thank you to those who took the time to read this and possibly respond!

2

UC’s and all CSU’s consider you a-g course grades from 10-11th in their GPA calculation. Cal Poly SLO considers 9-11th grades for their GPA calculation. Your senior year grades will not be available for admission decisions, but showing good course rigor can help. The UC’s and CSU’s have a capped weighted UC GPA of 8 semesters of extra honors points for UC approved Honors, AP/IB or DE courses taken 10-11th grade.

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

At the end of Junior year, you can calculate your UC/CSU capped weighted GPA, Fully weighted UC GPA and CP capped weighted GPA.

If you are targeting a STEM major, Math will be an integral part of doing well. You have solid grades so far, but your ACT score is on the low side for all the schools on your list.

SLO average for The College of Science and Mathematics was 30 and for the College of Engineering it was a 32 last year.

Also for the UC’s, your ACT score puts you at are below the 25th percentile for all UC campuses except UC Merced.

25th - 75th percentiles for ACT:
UCB: 30-34
UCLA: 30-34
UCSD: 29-34
UCSB: 28-33
UCD: 26-32
UCI: 26-32
UCSC: 26-31
UCR: 23-30
UCM: 20-27

What you can do is continue to work hard and get good grades in all your Junior year classes. You want to aim for a UC/CSU capped weighted GPA of 4.0+ to be a competitive applicant and somewhere in the 50th percentile for your ACT composite score. Course rigor is important especially to the UC’s, so make sure you are able to handle your Senior workload next year.

Do your best and come back next Fall with your updated stats to see where you stand.
Explore some majors that may not be as Math intensive and research what each school considers important in the application process.

Best of luck.

3

If you don’t understand the math concept, you can go to khan academy or another online tutor to get an understanding of a concept. Math concepts build on each other. You need to grasp one to understand how it will affect and apply in the next problem.

Oh, and don’t blame the teachers. When you get to your college, you will notice that a lot of professors know their stuff, but aren’t very good at teaching it.

4

UCR, UCM and UCSC are your best shots at a UC. CP SLO, probably not- CPP, probably. SDSU and CSULB are also worth an ap.