<p>Hello,
I am new to this site and new to the college system in USA.
I am excited to see such a helpful forum to give me some direction.
My son is going to junior this year , in 2012. He would be graduated in 2014. We are resident - California state. He currently have a 3.07 GPA for his A-G courses. His diagnostic and practice tests in Princeton SAT Classes are around 1400 / 1600.
I am wishing him to stepup to get into Cal Poly Pomona, CSULA ,CSULB, UCI or UCR for majors: Electronics engineering, computer science or computer engineering.</p>
<p>How can I find what eligibility index we should expect for these colleges? Any idea what his chances look like? (I know this information is not enough to judge as the test scores are not real). I am not able to findout how others in various forums are telling how much score and GPA is accepted for a major. Is there a website that give the parents or students that information so that we can plan ahead?
Thanks for your response.</p>
<p>I can tell you right now that computer science or any engineering program is going to be hard to get into. Make sure your son has strong grades in his science and math classes (Bs and As) as well as decent SAT math and science scores. He does have a chance at any of those colleges but will have to have solid grades and tests scores as well as extracurricular activities. </p>
<p>I am a current student at UCLA studying Mechanical Engineering. My high school gpas, test scores, etc. are as follows: GPA: 3.89 unweighted, 4.6 weighted; SAT score:1850, super score 1950; Admitted schools: UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, UVa, Cal Poly SLO, Columbia;
Rejected schools: MIT, Princeton, Stanford</p>
<p>Colleges are getting more and more competitive every year so please don’t get discouraged if your son doesn’t get into all those colleges you listed. Btw those practice tests don’t accurately measure how you’ll actually do. My friends took courses like those and scored well on the practice tests but scored lower on the actual test. I didn’t do any preparation and I did the best in my class although it wasn’t very good in my standards. Anyways, just make sure your son is on track to graduate, has some activities here and there, and a solid gpa and test scores. Colleges really do look at everything, trust me I’ve been to screenings of applications.</p>
<p>Does your son’s high school use Naviance? It is a website where it shows graphs of SAT scores and GPA and whether students were admitted or not. They might, but you might not know it yet. Parents at my son’s school didn’t have access until sometime in junior year. It was very helpful. The data plotted are specific to the school, so account for grading trends (e.g. Grade inflation, etc.)</p>
<p>P.S. I don’t see UC Santa Cruz on your list. They have a strong CE/CS department (world leader in the area of human genome analysis) and the university is pretty close to Silicon Valley. It is also one of the easier UCs to get in to.</p>
<p>Lab had a very high UC-GPA. The Calif publics weight GPA much higher than test scores so that their schools aren’t filled with upper/upper-middle class kids.</p>
<p>* He currently have a 3.07 GPA for his A-G courses. His*</p>
<p>Your son’s CSU/UC GPA is the problem. The better CSUs/Cal Polys/UC expect higher GPAs. And, the engineering programs are often impacted and are much harder to get into. Include Fullerton, but that’s also hard to get into.</p>
<p>Have you calculated to see what his UC GPA will be if he does very well this year? I think only grades 10 and 11 are calculated. </p>
<p>Be sure to apply to some other schools (privates like maybe USD) to as back ups. The privates will sometimes weight test scores higher than GPA. </p>
<p>From your post, it sounds like you’re an immigrant to the US. Is your child a resident/US citizen? </p>
<p>@Glido post #5 – not sure if you are addressing me, but the reason I suggested Naviance is because the Naviance data is specific to the high school, and generally a better predictor of admit/reject/waitlist than the average GPAs, etc. posted on a university’s website.</p>
<p>Thank you!
Yes, you guessed right, I am an immigrant to US just few years ago, so not much savings to spend on college.Also, due to his immigrant status , my son can not fill any kind of forms for aid (as he don’t have SSN). I won’t consider my self as Upper middle class!! I consider only as just middle class.
I did not calculate UC GPA… in fact, I don’t know how it is different. I will find out and to the math. I am less optimistic on UCs, but will give a shot.</p>
<p>Thanks to LBowie to suggest me a new college. I will explore more. I am basically in SOCAL so limited my range only to SOCAL. Yes, he had Naviance. I can use it.</p>
<p>I am very thankful to one and all!!. I am not disappointed, but motivated to encourage my son to do much better in his 11th grade to improve his GPA.</p>
<p>Veek, does your son have a green card? Is it your intention to pursue permanent resident status here? If so, I would suggest getting the process going.</p>