gottofu

I am a junior wanting to apply to the following:
UCLA
UCB
USC

depending on the school, the majors I am considering are mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, business administration.

-class rank, I'm not sure but I'm part of the top 10%

-overall GPA: unweighted 3.92, weighted 4.1 --

-SAT I : SAT Subject Test
Literature 500
Mathematics Level 2 530
U.S. History 620
-SAT Reasoning Test (1st time taken in soph. year, plan to take next one)
Critical Reading 500
Math 440
Writing 420

-AP SCORES:
Calculus AB: 4
English Lang.: 2
US History: 3

-ECs:
Pacific Asian Club Internal Vice president 2007-2008, planning on-campus cultural performances
Pacific Asian Club President 2008-2009
Key Club Secretary 2007-2008
Key Club President 2008-2009
Associated Student body 2007-2008 Corresponding Secretary
Associated Student body 2008-2009 Senator
Science Club 2007-2009
Tennis (3 years, 2 years varsity, captain)

-Honors/Awards
Honor Roll ?? lol

-I'm planning to retake my SATs, as you can see my scores are quite low...

-Senior year, I'm not really sure what I'm taking because of the change of the traditional school schedule to 4x4 accelerated block scheduling. However I am planning to take:
AP Lit.
AP Cal BC
AP Stats.

and at a community college, Intro to Physics. Is this acceptable as a 3rd year laboratory science for colleges especially since i'm interested in engineering?

-I come from low income, low performing school, how does this affect my chances?

-Would it be better for me to attend the first two years of college at a Community college and then transfer? Or to a Calstate University?

JteH

You definitely have to raise the SAT's first.

gottofu

what would be a good score to raise my SAT scores to ?

Gabs91

Try really hard to get those SATs up. I know that the UCs are soooo number driven. I think USC is a little more lenient. Everything else looks great. I personally think that you should not do community college because you're stats aside from testing, are pretty good. Look at lower UCs and as you said, the calstates are pretty good too. Good Luck
1700s/1800s would good for the UCs (lower)
but for UCLA, Berkeley and USC you would need probably in the 2000s
Maybe try the ACT. I know it was much better for me.