<p>Is it possible for a student to consider any of the top 3 UCs to be safeties or one should pick up one of UCD, UCI or UCSB as a super safety?</p>
<li>Is it UC approved courses UW GPA > 3.8</li>
<li>Is it UC approved courses W GPA > 4.3</li>
<li>SAT1 > 2200</li>
<li>2 or more SATIIs > 750</li>
<li>Tough courses with number of APs > 3, 4,5,6,7,8,9,10…</li>
</ol>
<p>or a combination of 1,2,3,4, or 5.</p>
<p>UCSD publishes their formula for admission. It's possible to get a pretty good idea of what the total score is for a given applicant, and compare that to prior years' cutoff scores. If there's an adequate margin between the score and recent cutoffs I'd think you could consider UCSD a "safety". UCB and UCLA are "holistic", so you can't really be sure, but a super high GPA, lots of college prep, AP and honors classes, and decent test scores make it pretty likely.</p>
<p>(Cross-posted with edited OP): 1, 2 and 5 are generally more important than 3 and 4 for UC admissions.</p>
<p>Thanx Kluge that is very helpful.</p>
<p>UCSD can be considered a safety if you're an ELC student (granted you aren't applying to a competitive program like bioengineering). Berkeley, and I'd think UCLA too, can't be considered safeties. At best, it can be a safe match, but you have to be pretty awesome for it to be that (1 and 2 are right at Berkeley's average, 3 isn't much above the average, 4 doesn't make much of a difference, and 5 is closer to the norm). You also need pretty good ECs and honors/awards if you want to distinguish yourself among the 45,000+ applicants. Not to mention really great essays are pertinent.</p>
<p>1590/1600
4.2 W GPA
All 3 SAT IIs = 800
8 APs with 5s and toughest courses
made me a spring admit at Berkeley (meaning presumably borderline).</p>
<p>^^ though your numbers are great--hell, amazing--I think that goes to show there's a lot more than numbers to Berkeley admissions.</p>
<p>Agree with others: SD is a safety if you are ELC -- they accept close to 90% of elc applicants. Davis, SB, and Irvine accetpt over 95% of elc apps = super safety. </p>
<p>Cal and UCLA only accept 60% of elc apps; essays and HS API scores matter. But, do the math -- if Cal accepts 60% elc, and their overall acceptance rate is xx%, then non-elc is yy%. </p>
<p>cherokee: they must not have liked your essays much, since your stats can't get any better.</p>
<p>You're probably right about the essays, but to be fair my UW GPA was only 3.69 and my W rounded up from a 4.17. I was playing up the strengths to keep its reputation for selectivity high :)</p>
<p>Honestly, with a high GPA, it actually can be a non-engineering safety.</p>
<p>Judging from my school's history with UC's, Berkeley is very safe for those with a SAT score of 2050+ and 4.5/5.0 (which is roughly a 4.35 or so by UC GPA or all A's with max. number of AP/Honors courses). Good grades and average scores will probably get you in. As long as you don't fail your SAT II's and your essays, then you should probably be fine.</p>
<p>Way back when I applied to college, I applied to two reaches, and one school that was "pretty likely," even though the division I applied to accepted only about a third of its applicants. That approach made for an unnecessarily stressful senior year, even though I was accepted by the "pretty likely' school.</p>
<p>No matter how impressive Ivyhopeful's achievements are, he/she will likely experience a lot less stress while applications are pending if he/she applies to a least one school that accepts a higher percentage of its applicants than Berkeley, UCLA, or San Diego. The alternative may be repeating "I'll probably be fine" as though it were a mantra.</p>