Chance CS major [4.00/4.36/4.82 GPAs for UC] CA student for UCs, CSU + more

Chance Me / Match Me
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1

Demographics

  • US resident
  • State/Location of residency: California
  • High School: SoCal public school, suburban area, non to moderately competitive (idk lol), ~3 Ivy leagues admit per year
  • First Gen/Hooks/Athlete: None

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)

For private schools like USC, would need merit scholarship on EA decision. ;’)

Intended Major(s)

CS, CS-adjacent majors also applied to such as: Math-CS, CS-Games, Game Design, CS-Business, Data Science and also CSE (basically the same)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted GPA: 4.00
  • Weighted UC GPA (10-12): 4.82
  • Weighted and Capped UC GPA: 4.36
  • Cumulative GPA (9-12): ~4.6
  • Class Rank: School does not rank, but identified as ELC (top 9%) on UC application
  • ACT/SAT Scores: SAT 1480 (one time) ACT n/a
  • AP Scores: Four 5s, Three 4s, Three 3s, all reported all passing! :slight_smile: 3 on comp sci though :((

List your HS coursework

(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)

Overall ~15/20 APs school offers, taken

  • English: Regular (only school offers first two yrs) AP Lang, AP Lit
  • Math: Integrated complete by freshman yr, Honors Precalc, AP Calc AB, AP Stats
  • Science: Honors Chem (freshman) AP Environmental, AP Biology, AP Physics 1 & 2 (school doesn’t offer AP Phys C)
  • History and social studies: AP Euro, APUSH, AP Gov, AP Econ
  • Language other than English: Regular LOTE, completed three years by 9th
  • Visual or performing arts: AP 2D Art and Design
  • Other academic courses: AP Comp Sci A, AP Comp Sci Principles

Awards

AP Scholar Awards

Honor Roll for 4 years

Origami Award (local fair)

Extracurriculars
Two internships, one based in UCSD the other in a fairly well known research center dealing with computers and technology, worked on business and technology oriented projects

VP of Asian Culture + Language learning club

Treasurer of Local Senior Center volunteering club

Volunteering at local hospitals by performing music

Part of a student-led app and website in writing and design

Non a-g credited courses but skipped levels of math, also foreign language courses at language school

JV Swim for two years

Essays/LORs/Other

Essays:

Hard to rate my own essays but someone I’m familiar with I had read over my essays (used to be UCs AO) said they were very strong overall

Wrote about passions in CS and tech, volunteering and club leadership, personal challenge, unique approach/thought process to things (hard to explain lol), soft arc of humanizing technology/combining multidisciplinary subjects STEM + humanities, helping and understanding others

LORs:

Two STEM letters (history teacher couldn’t write letters due to unexpected circumstance :(() loved being in their classes, and I had them for 2 years and I think they know some things to write about me

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if unsure, leave them unclassified)

If a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below; also, for colleges that admit by major or division, consider that in chance estimate.

  • Assured (100% chance of admission and affordability):
  • UC Merced (ELC, lol)
  • Extremely Likely:
  • UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz, SDSU
  • Likely:
  • UC Davis (?)
  • Toss-up:
  • UCSD (pls) UCI (dream)
  • Lower Probability:
  • UCLA, UC Berkeley
  • Low Probability:
  • USC on EA AND merit scholarship (probably ultimate dream) and Stanford (lol)

Please tell me if I’m under or over estimating myself, also please chance me! Thank you

2

I think you’ll be fine. Did you run the Stanford NPC as they don’t have merit aid ?

Best of luck but you’ll certainly have a home or a few homes with this list. Whether it’s UCI or UCD, I can’t say.

Best of luck.

3

Which majors did you apply for at each school? Specifically for UCSD and UCI, because from your list, you seem to be particularly interested in those two?

For computer science specifically, I would put both UCLA and UCB in the low probability category. This is not because of anything about you, it is simply that these programs have extremely low admission rates. Here is a screenshot from UC’s page on Freshman admission by discipline | University of California showing admit rates for Fall 2024 (the most recent year for which data is shown).

Screenshot 2025-12-01 at 10.12.34 PM
Screenshot 2025-12-01 at 10.12.34 PM1392×506 165 KB

Other than that, your three UC GPAs are certainly in range for any UC campus, so for UC, it will come down to holistic factors!

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I did not run the Stanford NPC actually, I forgot that they didn’t have need aid :’D Although, I don’t necessarily expect anything. Thank you though!! I would be happy with UCI and/or UCD :))

5

Both USC and Stanford have need-based aid. Stanford simply does not have merit scholarships. I agree that running the NPC for both of these would be a good idea just so that you have an idea of what to expect.

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@fuunaru have you thought about whether a small college might fit your social and learning styles? Well done, btw – your h.s. record looks very strong.

7

For UCSD, I applied CS primary but Math-CS as my alternate, and for UCI, I applied to either Software Engineering or Game Design primary (will double check) but for my alternate they had a Information and Computer Sciences/Undeclared so I applied for that one! For UCLA, UCB, and UCD I applied to just CS and CSE I’m pretty sure, I also forgot to mention I applied CS then data science at UCSB also. Thank you for the chart, I didn’t know UC had admit data by major! :0 I only found the one by high school.

8

Thank you so much!! ^^ I have, but I don’t have many ideas and would generally I think, like to stay in state for tuition and traveling purposes on most occasions. Although I do have the time to consider applying for more regular decision colleges..

9

My understanding is that UCSD admits to the university first, so if you do not get in to the CS major, you may still be admitted. I have heard of many students being admitted undeclared. So I’m glad you applied for CS there, since that gives you a chance to get in to the major, with a fallback option built in! (I was concerned that you might have applied for Math-CS primary. Math-CS majors have more limited access to CS classes and it might not really be the major you want.)

UCSB also admits to the university first and then the major. And I am not as familiar with UCI admissions, but I think they might do that, too.

For UCD, I have read here on CC that occasionally they admit to the alternate major… but we have seen a lot of CS applicants from our high school, and it seems anecdotally they are either admitted, denied, or waitlisted… not admitted undeclared or to an alternate. Since the admit rate for the CS major at UCD is in a similar range to UCI / UCSB / UCSD, I would consider it to be similar to the others in likelihood (rather than Likely, as you might expect from the overall admit rate).

Good luck, the UCs can be unpredictable but I expect you’ll have some good options in the end! :four_leaf_clover: :crossed_fingers:

10

Yes that was my error in terminology.

But yes OP can run the NPC if they haven’t already applied to see if it’s worthwhile.

11

That’s fine - but you would be less expensive at some out of state colleges with merit - some in the Southwest, Midwest and Southeast.

It doesn’t mean you need to apply to them but just letting you know there are less expensive schools for California residents with your stats, plus you can access WUE.

12

@fuunaru– I encourage you to pick a small college and run the net price calculator. There are several prestigious ones in SoCal, including Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Occidental, etc. You may be surprised how much they offer in financial aid, depending on your need. And maybe explore/read a bit on the pros/cons of small colleges vs. large research universities.

13

San Jose State University has good reputation in CS due to its location.

14

Congratulations on a wonderful profile.

UCSB also admits to the university first and then the major.

Regarding the UCSB comment, that is true for the College of Letters and Sciences but for Engineering, the college admits by major. If you are not admitted into CS and you list a major in the College of L&S, then you will be considered for your alternate.

The UC admission by discipline has 2024 admission data listed. I have only found 2 campuses with updated 2025 admission data so I will list them below:

UCLA: Number of CS applicants: 6,806
Admit rate: 7.3%
Admitted Weighted GPA (25-75th percentile) 4.64- 4.92

UCI admit rate for SE was 28.6% and Game Design was 13.7%. UCI admits by major and will consider your alternate major.

I would also group UC Davis into the tossup category with UCSB, UCI and UCSD.

Best of luck.

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15

CS is also the most selective major at SJSU. Recent admission cycles usually had a 4.30-4.35 GPA threshold (CSU recalculation is like UC weighted capped). There are some bonus points, like local area applicants getting the equivalent of +0.25 in GPA.

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16

However, frosh entering UCSD undeclared should be aware that changing into CS afterwards is unlikely.

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17

Yes, and that would be true of many of these schools if the student is not admitted to CS at the start.

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