Chance me: CA resident, Female, Asian, GPA Weighted 4.0, SAT 1360 – Bio Major [3.77 unweighted GPA, 3.96 for UC]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Hello! I am a high school senior looking to apply to mainly UC this fall (I included all my top contenders in the tags). I am a US Permanent resident in CA. My intended major is Biology, and looking for Public University only.

Female/Permanent Resident/CA

My GPA is 4.0 weighted and SAT is 1360 (M-660, E- 700).

High School Academics

5 AP Courses (Bio, Stat, Eng, History)

5 honors Courses

2 College Courses (Spanish, Economics)

AP Score – US History(5), English(5), EU History(4), Stat (Planned), Bio (Planned)

Extracurriculars:

Library volunteer (50 hours)

High School Model Union – Vice President (2 years), President (1 year)

High School Science Club – Vice President (2 years)

Medical Research – Paper Published in Young Scholar general

Book Club and Teen book review website – 4 years

Participated Science Olympiad

High school swim team – 1 year

Model UN District level honorable award

Recommendations: very Strong

Schools
Safety: Cal Poly SLO, UC Davis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, San Diego State, NC State
Target: UC Irvine, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UIUC, UT Austin,
Reach: UCLA, Gtech, UMich, UC Berkeley, UNC,

Thanks for reading!

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Are you an international student with residency in CA? That’s what your post sounds like.

If so, do you have the financial resources to be a full pay student at those out of state public universities on your list…

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@Gumbymom knows most about the CA publics, but I’m curious that you have Cal Poly SLO as a safety given the freshman profile there . Are you in the local area?

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OP said permanent resident, which is a green card holder (assuming they mean it in the legal sense of LPR). So will be counted as a domestic student.

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CA resident, immigrated to States when I was 1 year old.
Financial constraint - none

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You have a green card?

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yes

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Thank you for the clarification.

That being the case, I like your list, but I think Wisconsin might be a target not a sure thing. NC State probably is a target also.

@AustenNut

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Have your calculated your weighted capped GPAs for UCs, CSU and SLO?

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yes weighted Capped GPA is 4.0

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Ok so SLO (takes 9th grade into account, is it the same?) is probably a target to low reach for STEM unless you have one or more of the MCA factors in your favor.
Same for Davis, not a safety.

UT Austin for out of state is a reach. I think it’s something like only 8-9% of the intake is OOS.

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Do you mean Model UN? You don’t really have a safety.

That’s my concern.

I’m not saying you don’t get in anywhere - but there’s no safeties - not even SDSU or NC State or UIUC.

I’d like to see a safety

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Thanks, Appreciate the feedback.

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One other question - why only publics?

When I say safety, like a Miami Ohio or Kansas (top Honors) - great schools that are safe for you - as a just in case - and frankly there’s many many more if we know what you are seeking.

You also can pick a WUE school - like Colorado State or UNR, etc.

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Any recommendation for the safety school?

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Depends on what you want - but it seems mainly large and in society looking at your list - so Arizona comes to mind - fine school. UNR as mentioned plus Colorado State - both WUE if a permanent resident qualifies. UMN is another top school but would be a safety for you and it’s urban.

If you’d go private and are willing a mid size school, U of Denver would fit.

Good luck.

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Arizonas are auto admit at a 3.0 GPA so true safeties (not sure if any secondary steps to declare major)
Cal Poly Pomona if CPP index is same as last year would be a likely/safety for biology - the cutoff was a 3.78 GPA. Not sure it’s the same vibe as some of the other schools you’re looking at. Possibly some of the other CSUs.

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It is highly worthwhile spending time finding 2 or 3 safety schools you would be able and be excited to attend. Biology is offered everywhere, so factors like school size, school location are going to be pretty important.

In CA perhaps Merced could work as one, possibly UCSC and Riverside. In the CSU system there are many that might work for this if you exclude SLO, San Diego.

Edited my post to remove budget considerations. If there are no budget considerations, then you can go out of state for even non-WUE schools.

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What is your home CSU campus? That may be a safety. Check the far right column here:

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Welcome to College Confidential.

Neither Cal Poly SLO or UC Davis are Safety/Very Likely schools. SLO is in the Lower Probability (20-39%) category and UC Davis is in the Tossup category (40-59%).

SLO’s Biology projected admit rate was 13% and the SLO freshman profile was linked showing the SLO GPA admit range was 4.12-4.25.

Note: SLO uses 9-11th a-g course grades with the 8 semester Honors point cap instead of 10-11th grades. You should recalculate for your SLO GPA.

UC Davis admit rate for Biological Sciences was around 43% and the admitted GPA range was 4.07-4.28 so your Capped weighted is below the 25th percentile.

Below are the Biology admit rates along with the Capped weighted UC GPA or CSU GPA admit ranges (25th-75th percentile).

Your UC GPA is below the 25th percentile for several campuses.

Campus Biology GPA
UC Berkeley 12.9% for College of L&S 4.13-4.29
UC Davis 43% for College of Biological Sciences 4.07-4.28
UC Irvine 30.4% 4.12-4.29
UCLA 11% for College of L&S 4.22-4.32
UC Merced 93% 3.60-4.15
UC Riverside 66% 3.87-4.22
UC San Diego: estimated 25% Selective 4.13-4.29
UC Santa Barbara 32% for College of L&S 4.14-4.29
UC Santa Cruz 57% BA 68% BS 3.90-4.23
Cal Poly SLO 13% 4.12-4.25 SLO GPA
San Diego State 33% 4.04 CSU GPA average

I see no real Likely/Safety on your list and although GPA is only one factor for admissions, it is still an important factor especially for the Cal States since they do not consider EC’s in detail or have essays.

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