I have semester classes and a get year long grade.
I’m challenging myself more than my peers and what I meant by a post-AP course is considered past the rigor of AP courses at my school. For example, the Japanese class I’ve been taking since freshmen year is more rigorous than the AP Japanese class, hence we call it a post-AP class.
But I do have a UC UW GPA of 4. Does that make it any better? Posting on this forum really made me feel like UCLA is a terrible reach.
It’s a terrible reach because it doesn’t have the subject you want to study.
As I see it, the fundamental issue is UCLA has really moved into what is sometimes called the “highly rejective” category. Basically UCLA gets so many highly qualified applicants these days it mathematically has no choice but to find ways of rejecting most of them. So even if you are highly qualified, at UCLA that does not rule out a very good chance of being rejected, unless perhaps you have something really special going for you.
Now that doesn’t mean UCLA is any WORSE than other highly rejectives. And it seems like there are more of them every year. But I think what a lot of us are trying to emphasize is that while you can certainly apply to a highly rejective you really like if you are in their range of qualified applicants, you cannot count on that actually working absent really unusual circumstances.
So part of what is going on here is just trying to confirm you are actually in their range. Assuming you are, it can be one of your applications (well, assuming it would also be affordable). But you will be well-advised to have more colleges you would also be excited about, including some that are not so rejective.
Here is the 2023 Freshman profile numbers:
GPA is the 25th-75th percentile range:
Unweighted UC GPA: 3.90-4.00
Fully weighted UC |Division|Applicants|Admit Rate|25th % for Admits|75th % for Admits|
|Humanities|12,190|11%|4.36|4.66|
|Life Sciences|33,299|11%|4.40|4.74|
|Physical Sciences|15,738|14%|4.43|4.77|
|Social Sciences|34,740|9.8%|4.33|4.71|
The College of Letters and Sciences does not admit by major. Overall admit rate for UCLA was 8.6% so 91% of qualified applicants are not admitted.
I may be biased since I was a math major in university. However it has occurred to me that there is something that finance, AI, and economics, particularly quantitative economics (econometrics) have in common. That something is of course that they all use a fair amount of applied mathematics. Just something to think about.
The most expensive universities in the US currently cost about $95,000 per year. If you just finished your junior year and will be a high school senior in the fall, then by the time that you get to university there will probably be schools that cost just about $100,000 per year. This of course increases each year.
Are you and your parents okay with spending $400,000 for your bachelor’s degree without taking on debt? If so, then you can ignore costs. If not, then you might want to pay some attention to what universities cost. Outside scholarships rarely make much of a dent in the cost of university in the USA.
Also, some of your potential majors are ones where some form of graduate degree, very likely a master’s degree, may be useful. This suggests that you might want to save some of your college $$ for a graduate program.
You have a very long list of reaches, as well as a long list of “likely’s” that are perhaps slightly lower reaches. It will be difficult to do a good job of putting together the applications for this many universities. For example, each application will require essays. I do not see how anyone could write this many essays and do a good job on all of them.
For any particularly school, if you can intelligently and thoughtfully explain “why is this school a good fit for you” then I think that this is likely to come across in your essays. This could in turn improve your chances for admissions. Also, if you spend time researching universities and figuring out which schools are a good fit for you, this is likely to increase your chances of ending up at a university that actually is a good fit for you.
This might be a long way to explain a recommendation that I have. I think that you should do quite a bit of research and figure out which of these universities will be a good fit for you, and why. One thing to look at is what majors they offer that are interesting to you. Look at what courses are required to graduate, including both major specific requirements and general requirements. Think about whether you want a large school or a small school, and whether you want to be in a big city or a smaller city or somewhere else (Stanford for example is more suburban). Do you care about whether you are on the semester system or the quarter system? UCLA will have very mild “winters” (or no winter at all from the perspective of someone who lives in the north, as I do). UIUC and U.Michigan will have very cold winters. Harvard is on the east coast in an attractive part of an interesting city with a lot going on right near campus, but with real winters (although not all that cold by UIUC standards). Some of these schools have relatively well defined campuses. Some are sort of located in the middle of a city.
Once you start to figure out which of these schools are a good fit for you, it should be possible to trim the list somewhat. I would try to at least cut the list in half.
They do!
Business Administration B.S?
No - they have Econ with a slight business twist. It sounds like you’ve not been to UCLA so it’s hard to call your favorite.
UCI, UCR have business schools. Davis is starting a major in 2025 in limited sub functions. UCB has various programs like a global business or an entrepreneurship/tech etc.
Many schools offer business / have a b school. Arizona Eller and Colorado Leeds might be good subs to UCLA. And there’s many more - including at Cal States. SDSU, for example.
It may be hard for you to visit schools but dig deeper to find schools that offer your major.
You say this about UCLA - but this describes many schools. As you say, you are really seeking a perceived big name.
“I love that UCLA has a nice culture and the campus is really open and warm.”
A big name doesn’t bring happiness. You may or may not like business but if it’s what you think you want, go to a school that offers it. Good luck.
https://economics.ucla.edu/undergraduate/current-students/majors-and-minors/business-economics
OP are you choosing these areas of possible study because they are areas of an academic interest or do you have a potential career in mind? If it is a career path what is it that you hope to do professionally (keeping in mind things change)?
Agree with all the strong advice here. I’m just going to observe that Columbia does not offer an EA option.
Yep. And OP should definitely apply EA to the non-UC public schools on her list- Illinois, Washington, and Michigan.
Basically, apply EA wherever possible. If applying to rolling admission schools, apply early.
Some schools fill up their classes or popular majors early.
hi! would you mind sharing the link to this data?
Here you are and you need to click on the UCLA college to get more details: https://admission.ucla.edu/apply/freshman/freshman-profile/2023
thank you so much!
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