I am a rising senior getting ready to apply to college and I wanted to know what kinds of schools I can get into with my current profile. I understand that essays and the way I convey myself can change the outcome, however, I just wanted a general idea. Please let me know if the school would be a safety, target, or reach. I am a California resident and would prefer California schools. I plan to be a CS major. I also will list my target scores for tests and would like to know how much that would change my college list.
UW GPA 3.95 W GPA 4.65
SAT 1320 Math 710 English 610
Math Subject 2 600 Physics Subject 570 ( I know terrible, however, I didn’t prepare or take the tests seriously and I do believe I can get my target scores)
Target scores: SAT 1530 Math 780 English 750
Math Subject 2 750 Physics Subject 750
Taking 19 AP’s next year ( all academic AP’s) however scores won’t come until after admission
AP Calculus 3 AP Human 3 AP US History 3 AP World HIstory 3
1000 hours of community service, Volunteer for the City, Key Club officer, CSF President (California Scholarship Federation), APEX member (Academic Program of Excellence) Newspaper President, Founder and President of Chinese Club, Started tutoring program at school. Love to code and learn math and physics in free time, and teach others about it and why I love it.
No one at my school has in recent years has had a profile as good as mine (whether or not it is good, to begin with) as my school is not competitive at all. I tried to start a math club but failed to get people interested as almost no one at my school enjoys math. I am low income and all my AP test are free; this year I have started to study for them since May instead of a month before the test like last year. I am currently rank 1 in my school with rank 2 being a 4.3 W GPA ( a large gap compared to other schools and classes). Taking all AP’s as well as continuing community college courses that I have begun since 9th grade (4.0 at the community college).
Apply widely to UC and CSU campuses, since CS tends to be oversubscribed and therefore more selective than the campuses overall.
Use the net price calculator on each campus web site to estimate financial aid.
Have you calculated your capped weighted UC GPA (used by all schools) and your fully weighted UC GPA (used by UCLA/UCB)?
https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/
Definitely retake the SAT and aim for a 1400+ for the best chances at the majority of UC’s.
Agree with @ucbalumnus to apply widely since CS is a tough admit at all these schools.
Data below is not major dependent, but the more competitive the major, the higher the stats needed for the best chances.
Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 3.80-4.19 (capped weighted):
UCB: 14%
UCLA: 14%
UCSD: 44%
UCSB: 54%
UCD: 58%
UCI: 65%
UCSC: 85%
UCR: 94%
UCM: 96%
Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 4.20 or above (capped weighted):
UCB: 42%
UCLA: 54%
UCSD: 87%
UCSB: 85%
UCD: 91%
UCI: 94%
UCR/UCM: 98%
Even with my target scores, do I have a low chance of making it into UCLA, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and Caltech?
You should consider all these schools as Reach schools especially Stanford and Cal Tech, since the admission rates are low. UCLA/UCB seem more realistic that the other two.
Target scores are only that “Target” until you have these actual scores, chances are meaningless.
Also how are you taking 19 AP’s next year? Taking that many will not improve your chances especially if you do not do well in each and every one.
I’m taking 19 tests, not classes, and I plan to pass all of them, getting 5’s in the Math, Computer Science and Physics ones, 4 in the other sciences, and probably 3’s in everything else. I have been studying for these tests daily and regularly since May as opposed to April like I did last year.
Colleges would rather see you get good grades in an AP course than self-study and take a lot of AP exams. I personally think that it will be more detrimental than helpful for your application.
Well, I have been getting constant A’s in all my AP classes, and plan to get A’s in the AP classes that I will take next year (all my classes are AP). Also, I calculated my UC GPA to be 4.45.