Chance Me - CA, Low-Income, 3.96UW/4.2 W for Ivy Leagues/UCs (Business OR Biology)

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • US Permanent Resident
  • Genderfluid/non-conforming
  • CA
  • Public high school
  • White
  • Low-income (family of 4),

Intended Major(s): Biology, Business, or Mech Eng (yes I’m all over the place I don’t know for sure what I want to do)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • HS GPA: 3.96 UW / 4.2 W | UC GPA: 4.0 UW / 4.22 W (GPA is probably dropping to 3.94 UW this year, physics teacher has it out for me)
  • Class Rank: 5/33 (likely 3/33 by the end of the year)
  • ACT/SAT Scores: Not taken, looking at 1440-1550 on practice tests.

Coursework

  • 16 dual enrollment classes, completed IGETC requirements (basically associate’s degree).
  • 6 honors classes (school offers no AP/IB)

Awards

  • Questbridge College Prep Scholar
  • Principal’s Honor Roll (9th-11th)

Extracurriculars
[REDACTED] County Student Advisory Board - Board Member

  • Led group of 5 other students, created PowerPoints and worked as a team.
  • Surveyed and interviewed people with chronic diseases to create a plan to improve well-being.
  • Presented solutions to improve lives of people with chronic diseases to state legislation.
    Raised awareness of resources for people with chronic diseases in and in the county.

[REDACTED] - Youth Advocate

  • Spread awareness about services that are accessible in schools/colleges/community centers.
  • Understanding stigma and burnout.
  • Underwent training on how mental health affects the body.
  • Addressed how social media impacts mental health.

[REDACTED] - Book Reviewer

  • Read and reviewed books based on target audience, themes addressed, sensitive content, and gender/racial inclusivity.
  • Reviewed over 50 books and read books aloud to students via Zoom.
  • Helped in raising money towards donating more books to schools, improving financial literacy of their students.

Family/Misc

  • Wrote resumes for my parents and helped them apply for jobs, did grocery shopping/expenses, made lunch every day and carried out household responsibilities
  • Made game thumbnails using Blender 2.79.
  • Coached, made strategies, and reviewed gameplay footage for VALORANT Premier teams, causing the team to win VALORANT Premiere Beta (1/218 teams)
  • Run a personal poetry blog on Tikok/Tumblr with around ~9,000 followers.

Essays/LORs/Other
My writing skills and recommendations I would say are pretty good. I’ve been rejected/waitlisted from all summer programs so far and I intend to work a job this summer if the trend continues.

Cost Constraints / Budget
-1500 SAI, 0 EFC. Probably can contribute nothing unless there’s a campus job.

Schools

  • Likely: Cal Poly Pomona, UC Riverside, CSU Long Beach
  • Match: UCSC, UCSB, CSU Fullerton, I honestly have no idea. Please drop suggestions based on my stats.
  • Reach: Yale, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Duke, Brown, Berkeley (Optometry track)

Notes: My “reach” list is so big because I’m applying through Questbridge. I’m applying through RD because I have commitment problems, haha. My parents refuse to let me go out of state except for a few name-brand schools, or whatever they think that is, which is also another reason my list is large. Please help me narrow down schools based on my stats and chance me!

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For CPP, you can see the competitively-determined threshold scores for last year at Freshman Student Profile . Mechanical engineering was highly competitive, while biology was somewhat less so. Business was one of the least competitive majors. Multiply your weighted-capped GPA for UC/CSU* by 1000 and add 450 to get your score to compare with CPP’s thresholds (but thresholds can change from year to year).

Which CSUs can you commute to? They are likely to be very low cost for commuters, although historically their financial aid was not increased for resident students (like with UCs). You may want to try the net price calculator on each school’s web site to get a financial aid estimate.

*Use GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub to calculate.

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UC Riverside, CSU Fullerton, and Cal Poly Pomona are commutable for me. Honestly, I’m only applying to them for my parents, I am barely interested in any of them, UCR possibly. Maybe it’s selfish of me, I’m hoping to get a full ride through Questbridge where they’d cover my housing/transport/etc. I don’t want to commute or live with my parents. Re my GPA, overestimated my GPA, sorry. I was told it was 4.5 W UC by my counselor, from this calculator it comes out as a 4.22. This comes out as 4670 for CPP Index, right?

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update again lol I did it wrong
image

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Your GPA is excellent! I am assuming you will get into all your safety schools, I think that maybe a match for you would be uc san diego and uc davis

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Optometry is a professional school at Berkeley. What do you mean when you say “optometry track”?

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applying for bio in berkeley and then their optometry school afterwards

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You don’t need to go to Berkeley for undergrad to apply to Berkeley’s optometry school.

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i get that, i’m aiming for a UC school because I’ve finished IGETC requirements which would mean only 2 years of undergrad. i like the campus and their biology ranking is very good, it’s a reach so i’m not putting all my hopes and dreams on it

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Berkeley is a reach for everyone but optometry doesn’t have to be a reach.

If you are serious about becoming an optometrist, it is important to go to a school where you can get all of your pre-req courses (this can be difficult at Berkeley) and earn the best grades possible.

I would look at Davis. Davis has an excellent College of Biological Sciences and one of the best Pre-Health Advising departments of the UCs.

UCI is another good health sciences school that isn’t on your list. It will be closer to home, but far enough away that you won’t be living at home.

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UCI looks really promising, thank you! never really considered it. do you recommend i do my undergrad at uci and go to berkeley for optometry?

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@lkg4answers and @Gumbymom

This student family can contribute $0 to their college costs. Which Cal States or UCs will be affordable for them?

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Maximize your Questbridge applications to include all possible schools, whether in or out of state. Your parents are not able to contribute a penny to college for you, from what you write, and Questbridge applicants with a household income of 16K/yr for a family of 4 (not to mention two in college at the same time) would surely get a full ride, unless your parents have major assets. So you should really consider every Questbridge-affiliated school, and make your list that way. You can consider the fact that your parents don’t want you going out of state unless the school is prestigious enough after you’ve been accepted, but since they’re not paying for college for you, you don’t want to be in the position of missing out on an opportunity for a full ride to a great school, vs having to borrow to stay close to home, if Questbridge doesn’t pan out because you limited yourself to only the most highly selective big name schools. You don’t need their permission to apply, and you can worry about going after you’ve made options.

Watch out about labeling yourself as having a mental health issue. You go to an online high school, and your “passion” appears to be mental health and chronic disease. This might raise a concern for admissions committees. I realize that this is important to you, but you might do better if you carefully consider what ECs you want to report to a school. The problem is that admissions committees are wary of admitting people with fragile mental health, or even people with revealed mental health issues that are well-stabilized. There is a mental health crisis on campus, campus counseling/psych is overwhelmed in most locations already, schools are terrified of being sued (as they inevitably are) if a student commits suicide. There are going to be those who advise you to just “be yourself” and not to conceal this, but the reality is that revealing a mental health issue is the kiss of death in college applications. You are not necessarily revealing such an issue in yourself, but the combination of having chosen online schooling and mental health advocacy do imply that.

Having attended an online school with a small class of only 33 students, and no AP scores to report in an application, you really need a very high standardized test score for highly selective schools that are not California publics. So probably the best thing that you could do for your application for your non-CA public schools is to prep like mad for either the SAT or the ACT, and get a very high score on that, since it validates your high GPA/rank from a small online school and indicates that you have the potential to do well in a highly competitive academic environment. A 1550/35 would do that. A 1450/33 would not. So you really want to prep for the highest score you can possibly get, and take it in time to be included in your Questbridge applications.

Working an in-person full time job that requires you to show up on a regular, daily basis and work 8 hour shifts might actually be a very good thing for your application, because is implies that you are in good enough physical and mental health that you’re ready for in-person college. An additional rec letter from your summer job supervisor, stating that you were always on time, had perfect attendance, were a pleasant and effective member of the team, did well in an in-person, customer-facing position, would fill in the gaps left by having attended high school online. So it’s definitely time to find that summer job!

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Since your HS is online, please make sure you will satisfy all A-G requirements for UCs and CSUs.

I agree you should apply to QB match, and rank 15 schools. QB app is due at the end of September and it is involved, so devote the time you need over the summer to do a great job on it. If you make finalist and don’t match you will be able to roll your QB app into the RD round at many QB partners.

When are you scheduled to take an ACT and/or SAT?

I also second the advice to get a job. Not necessarily for how it will look on the app, but to start saving money for college.

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@acidghost

For affordability, the CSU’s within commuting distance since there will be a gap in costs for living on-campus. Run the NPC’s on each campus.

The UC’s will be more generous but there still may be a small FA gap even with Federal student loans and work study. A Summer job could cover the rest of the expenses.

With merit aid, such as Regents, the FA package could cover full costs but definitely no guarantee. UCR’s has the most generous Regents scholarship amount of $10K/year and they offer $5K for their Chancellor scholarships so these are possible.

Again, run the NPC’s on the UC’s. Estimate your aid | UC Admissions

On school chances:
CSU Fullerton should go in the Likely Category. UCSB into the Reach category.

I agree in adding UC Davis, UC Irvine and UC San Diego. UC Davis could be a High Target. UCI and UCSD Low Reaches.

UC and CSU campus admit rates:

Campus Biology
UC Berkeley 12.9% for College of L&S
UC Davis 43% for College of Biological Sciences
UC Irvine 30.4%
UCLA 11% for College of L&S
UC Merced 93%
UC Riverside 66%
UC San Diego No major specific data but estimated <20%
UC Santa Barbara 32% for College of L&S
UC Santa Cruz 68%
Cal Poly SLO 13%
Cal State Long Beach 64%
San Diego State 32%
Cal State Fullerton 89% For College of NSM
Cal Poly Pomona CSU 3.8 GPA needed for Threshold

Good luck and hopefully you are Matched with Questbridge.

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IGETC is accepted as fulfillment of lower division general education requirements at UC and CSU (except for a few UC divisions and majors). It does not by itself necessarily mean that other degree requirements can be completed in two years (transfer students are also supposed to come in with major preparation courses completed).

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Gotcha. Thing is for the Questbridge Match, it’s binding so my parents will need to sign off on it before I submit. I am planning on applying through Questbridge RD which they say has the same benefits as the match, not sure how true that is.

As for the mental health ECs, yeah I understand the risk. I don’t have many chances for ECs because my parents can’t afford enough gas to drive me around. They’re the only ones I have so I put them on. I’ve been rejected from most summer programs so far, even the ones I’ve been waitlisted in don’t cover travel/housing and I can’t afford that. Do you have any suggestions?

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If I come in with only IGETC requirements and not major preparation courses, will IGETC still be accepted? I don’t mind going through three or four years of undergrad, just don’t want my time to be a waste.

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I’m on track to complete A-G requirements. I only have to complete English (2.5 more creds) next year. I’m scheduled to take the SAT June 1 and the ACT June 5. Both of them are for the first time. I don’t know how I’m supposed to study for both, I’ve tried to move them further apart but my counselor insists “I can do it.” I’m more confident in the SAT than my ACT.

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Just study content for the SAT and do the practice tests that are on the Bluebook app. Full-Length SAT Practice Tests – SAT Suite | College Board

You don’t have to study content for ACT separately, but I would recommend you do practice test sections, especially math. ACT is a much faster paced test (more questions per minute), so you have to have the timing down.

Good luck.

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