Intended Major(s)
Business Administartion / International Business Management / Finance / AI (AI I’m not sure of)
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.87 *
Freshmen: 3.76 (1 AP + 1 Post AP Class)
Soph: 4 (1 AP + 1 Post AP Class)
Junior: 3.85 (3 AP + 1 Post AP Class)
Weighted HS GPA*: No weighted system at School, but UC Weighted is 4.17
UC Weighted:
Freshmen: 3.96
Soph: 4.2
Junior: 4.25
Class Rank: N/A (We don’t have any)
ACT/SAT Scores: 1450
Coursework
AP Japanese - 5
AP World History - 4
Just finished:
AP Physics 2
AP Computer Science A
AP Seminar
Math and Foreign Language:
Currently in Adv. Pre Calculus (Right before AP Calc AB and BC) | Will Take BC in Senior year
Foreign Language is post AP and is the highest level our school offers (level #: 6509)
Awards
School:
Excellence in Programming (2022)
Excellence in Design and Innovation (2022)
Extracurriculars
COSA Member 2hr/w, 3wk/y
Swim Ref (2022) 7h/w, 12wk/y
School Honor Tutor ~5h/w, 25wk/y (2022)
School’s Business Club Leader (2023-)
Robotics Team Captain and Club Leader (2021-2025) 12hr/w, 32wk/y
Internship at J.P Morgan (2022): Got it through a family memeber
International Logic Olympiad (2024)
International Olympiad in Informatics Top 10% (2022-23)
Winner of ANA (All Nippon Airways) Business Pitch
Intern and Volunteer at Cambodian NGO (2023-) 30hr/w, 3w/y
Top 0.4% in a Japanese Business Competition *8/1738 (2022)
Opinion Article Published on Top 3 Famous Japanese Newspaper Company About Cram Schools(2023)
Essays/LORs/Other
Essay: I’m a junior so I’m starting right now
LOR: Very strong from AP Seminar Teacher and AP Comp Sci. A Teacher
Cost Constraints / Budget
No Constraints
Schools
Safety*
Keio University (English-Based Degree)
Tokyo University (English-Based Degree)
Waseda University (English-Based Degree)
Likely *
Boston U
UC San Diego
UC Davis
UC Irvine
UC SB
US SC
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
University of Washington
Reach
USC (EA)
Columbia (EA)
UPenn
UCLA
UC Berkeley
Harvard
Stanford
Princeton
Yale
UChicago
Cornell
NYU
UMich
Duke
Brown
Boston University
None of the universities on your “likely” list are likely, if only due to acceptance rates.
In addition, quite a few universities on your list don’t offer business or finance majors.
You need to find universities with acceptance rates in the 25-35% range to have a few targets.
Are you open to other majors than business? (Applied math, Economics, Organizational Psychology, Labor Relations…? Note that none of these is exactly the same as Business/Finance so what makes you interested in Business?)
Are your parents truly okay paying 400k for college or are they expecting some sort of merit scholarships ?
Also we’re applying to scholarships outside of school and also am gonna try to get scholarships from schools, so truly we aren’t “unlimited” in the amount.
What makes these safeties? From a quick googling of the acceptance rates, they look like targets, at best. I am not familiar with Japanese universities, though, so maybe there is something beyond my cursory understanding.
Neither of your LOR writers are considered to be teachers of core classes by many schools, so you may want to check your list for schools where that will be an issue.
I’ll admit I am a bit confused about how you generated your application list. If UCLA represents the sort of college you like best, you have a lot of Reaches that are not very much like UCLA at all.
You also do not seem to have a category for Targets, aka Matches. Many kids end up going to a Target so this is a very important category. People here could be good at helping you identify great Targets, but I think they would need some clarity on what sort of undergrad experience you are really hoping to get.
I love that UCLA has a nice culture and the campus is really open and warm. I love those parts so I would say schools in the reach part of my list, some of them, are just in their for the prestige.
Many of the schools on your list don’t have business.
If you want to study business, you need to redo your list.
Since you want to go to UCLA (not sure why, they don’t have business), I suggest you add other publics that are more realistic. Many who go to UCLA find U of Arizona as a fine sub - and the Eller School of Business is very good.
If it’s International Management you want, then check out U of South Carolina, rated tops in the country.
Indiana Kelley is often the “safety” for kids with your stats that want an elite name. How they’re viewed coming from a school outside the US I’m not sure.
So do you mean warm physically, or that the student vibe is friendly?
Anyway, since you didn’t mention things like overall size and big time sports, and originally included a lot of smaller and not-very-sporty colleges on your reach list, I think there are many options for colleges that will be friendly, and indeed physically warm if that appeals, and that actually have business.
We’ll need clarity on cost constraints too, but just as an example, Santa Clara University has gotten a lot of mentions here recently, for good reason. I think it would classify as a Target with your numbers, they have an undergrad business program with Finance as an option (in fact it appears Finance is their most popular single major), they are very plugged into the Silicon Valley business scene, the student reviews I have seen are mostly very positive about the niceness of the student culture . . . seems like a great fit. If you can afford it.
In my opinion…prestige isn’t the way you should choose your college. There are a LOT of colleges with name recognition and prestige but some may not be right for you. Pick a college where you can see yourself for four years as a happy college student…that is affordable for your family.
Yes, generic “prestige” is not something I tend to value at all because most next-step gatekeepers tend to have a lot of specific knowledge and impressions of colleges that would not be reflected in generic prestige. Some people will just sort of casually assume the colleges that are most famous have the best placement in every way, but we know that is not true, that often less famous colleges can place on equal or even better terms than much more famous colleges in various fields, locations, and so on.
And it is definitely not helpful when investigating Targets to be focused on generic prestige. A great Target choice is unlikely to be a very famous college that many competitive students would strongly prefer (because then it would be a Reach). But it should have one or more qualities that make it a highly preferred choice for that specific competitive student.
And for that matter, great Likelies can, and ideally should, be the same way. Meaning chosen not just because they are Likely, but also because there is something special about them that connects to that individual applicant in a very personal way.
So depending on what you are looking for, Reaches can be kinda boring, in the sense that once you define your preferences, there are some pretty obvious Reaches. In contrast, the real fun can be in identifying the Targets and Likelies that would be great for that specific individual.
Are you planning to live outside of the United States after college? If that is the case, it may be a situation in which prestige/name recognition makes some sense as a priority.
Is your 4.17 UC Weighted GPA your Capped weighted or Fully weighted UC GPA? UCLA and UC Berkeley will focus on the Unweighted UC GPA and Fully weighted UC GPA while the rest of the UC’s will consider all three but will focus on the Unweighted and Capped weighted.
Since UC’s are test blind your SAT score will not be used for admissions or scholarship purposes. The UC’s give good need-based aid to eligible CA residents. No need-based aid and very little competitive merit aid are available for OOS applicants so expect to be full pay at the UC’s.
Admit rates for Business/Econ or related Business majors:
Business/Econ admit rates
Campus
Business admin or Business Ads. major
Economics
UC Berkeley
4% Business Admin HAAS
5%
UC Davis
No admit by major but by College: 39.8% Managerial Econ
No admit by major but by College: 37% for Economics
UC Irvine
11.7% Business Admin/19.2% Business Econ
21%
UCLA
No admit by major but by College: Business Economics 11%
No admit by major but by College: Economics 11%
UC Merced
Business Econ/Management 84%
81%
UC Riverside
Pre Business Admin 67%
89%
UC San Diego
No admit by major extrapolated <30% Business Econ
No admit by major guesstimate <25% Economics
UC Santa Barbara
No admit by major but by College: 32% Economics/Accounting
No admit by major but by College: 32% for Economics (pre)
UC Santa Cruz
39.3% for Business Management
63%
UC Irvine and San Diego should go in the Reach Category. UC Santa Barbara and UC Davis in the Target Category.
Good luck I agree too many reaches and you need more Targets and Safeties that are affordable.
Even then, I have now heard from several non-US people that the best “brand” names among US colleges in their circles are not necessarily exactly what you would get just marching down the US News National Universities list (or QS, or any generic ranking). So I believe you still need to do a serious investigation of what next-step gatekeepers in your target market actually think, versus assuming it tracks any given ranking not specifically derived from evidence about that market.
Capped weighted maximum is 4.4 so not sure how you got the 4.7 calculation. Weighted 4.7 would make sense.
Also note that only AP/IB and DE UC transferable courses are weighed in the calculation. HS designated Honors are not weighted for OOS applicants. 9th grade courses are not used in the calculation only 10-11th grades and AP courses are only weighted the summer after 9th to the summer prior to 12th.
Are you on semesters? Do you get 2 grades/year long class or only one?
According to your original post you have 6 AP classes taken 10-11th grades and what do you mean about post AP classes? If the 9th grade AP class post was taken the summer after 9th, then that is included in the calculation which would make it 7 AP classes.
Having the same fully weighted capped weighted GPA does not make sense since you have more than 4 AP classes listed. Capped weighted is capped at 4 AP year long AP classes but weighted would be unlimited AP classes. You enter in all grades and all honors points.
So you have a total of 12 year long classes from the summer after 9th to the summer prior to 12th and also only 12 grades?
Also UC’s do not consider +/- grades so an A- is an A.
Having a 4.0 unweighted UC GPA is very competitive. HS rigor will be determined within the context of your HS so are you challenging yourself in comparison to your peers?
The UC GPA’s are just another tool for comparison but it can help when you look at the UC admit profiles where most listed the Capped weighted UC GPA admit range.
