I’m currently a senior in high school and I’m close to finishing my college applications. I have 3.8 unweighted GPA and a 4.25 weighted, I’ve done dance for three years and am President/Vice President of two clubs (and member of 2 others). Additionally, I have almost 200 hours of community service (mostly tutoring elementary school children in Math, English, and Science; as well participating in activities like Link Crew and Political Associations every year that encourage political involvement in minority communities. I’m a first generation Hispanic (Mexican-American) female and have pretty great essays overall (according to my AP English teacher anyway lol). I’m applying to four UC’s (UCLA, UCSD, UCI, and UCSC) and a couple CSU’s but my dream school is UCI because I want to go into Criminology or Psychology. I’ve been stressing out over the fact that I don’t have a very high SAT, at least to my standards. I’ve taken it three times and the highest score I received was a 1280. I know it’s not a horrible score but I’m really worried it’ll completely throw off my application. If any of you have personal experience with this situation or simply have any insight on this, I would really appreciate any form of advice. Thank You!
All the UC’s consider UC GPA, Test scores, HS course rigor and Personal Insight essays as Very Important in their application review.
That said, if your SAT score is the only outlier from an exception overall application, then you still have a chance at most of these schools.
UC’s tend to be very GPA focused which is in your favor. Maintaining a competitive GPA over 3 years vs. scores on a 4 hour test is a better indicator of doing well in college.
Personal experience: My older son had a High GPA 4.0+ but lower test scores and was able to get several acceptances at the UC’s. Caveat this was 5 years ago and the UC’s have only gotten more competitive.
All you can do to present the best possible application, apply widely and make sure you have some solid Match and Safety schools on your list that you are willing to attend.
Best of luck.
2018 Data:
25th - 75th percentiles for SAT:
UCB: 1360-1540
UCLA: 1340-1540
UCSD: 1300-1520
UCSB: 1270-1500
UCD: 1220-1480
UCI: 1230-1490
UCSC: 1210-1450
UCR: 1130-1380
UCM: 1020-1280
You’ll get answers if you move this post out of this Non-Traditional Students section and into the What Are My Chances section. As a high school senior, you are not a non-traditional student.
It automatically posted in that category and since I’m relatively new to this website I wasn’t sure how to change it lol, thank you though.
Thank You!
i think you’ve got a decent shot at the mid tier UCs (like UCI) but, LA and SD are going to be a stretch.
I’d add UCD, UCSB to your UC Ap list - neither will be a slam dunk but, you are certainly competitive. UCR, is really likely to admit you. As far as CSUs, you’ll be very competitive most programs at all of them. SDSU and CSULB would be good targets
good luck