Chance my son at the UCs and Cal States [CA resident, 3.53 UW, 3.63 UC capped, business or data analytics]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Looking for guidance on what schools are worth applying to, and what’s a true reach/target/safety for my son. Asking for reliable feedback and informed opinions on what chances he has to get into some schools, and which ones are definite safeties. With all of the different GPAs that LAUSD gives you, and the vague average GPAs and ranges that universities give you (and whether those GPAs are weighted/unweighted), I am no longer confident that we know what’s a reach/target/safety.

Demographics

  • US citizen
  • California resident
  • White/Caucasian, Male

Cost Constraints / Budget: Not a factor for this question

Intended Major(s): Business-focused, Data Analytics

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • LAUSD Unweighted: 3.53
  • LAUSD Weighted: 4.23
  • UC Weighted: 3.88
  • UC (Capped): 3.63
  • Cal State GPA: 3.63
  • Campus Rank (Weighted): 91/465 (Top 20%)
  • Campus Rank (Unweighted): 132/465 (Top 30%)
  • School Rank (Weighted): 56/381 (Top 15%)
  • School Rank (Unweighted): 93/381 (Top 25%)
  • ACT/SAT Scores: ACT (25 Composite); SAT (1230)

List your HS coursework

Taken a couple of college classes, mostly honors level HS classes, and I believe he has taken 8-10 AP classes. A’s/B’s in most of them, maybe 1 C.

Extracurriculars
He’s had a few extracurriculars, started a club at school, captain of school sports team and captain of sports team outside of school.

Essays/LORs/Other
I would guess his PIQs and LORs will be considered fine. Putting some work into them, but not paying for college counseling or essay prep, etc.

Schools
I am curious about which schools are absolutely not worth our time/money/FAFSA slot to apply to (almost certainly not getting into Berkeley/UCLA/UCSD, but is there even a small chance we would sneak into one?), and which schools are absolutely, definitely safety schools (no need to apply to 10 “safety” schools as long as we definitely get into 1-3 that he would be happy to attend). And then all those schools in the middle, which ones does he have a realistic shot of getting into?

For the UCs, we would consider all of them. For the Cal States, considering: SLO, San Diego St., San Jose St., Pomona, Long Beach, Fullerton, Northridge, Fresno.

Thanks in advance. First post so apologies if I did something wrong!

  • Assured (100% chance of admission and affordability):
  • Extremely Likely:
  • Likely:
  • Toss-up:
  • Lower Probability:
  • Low Probability:
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Welcome to College Confidential. Before any recommendations can be made, a few questions need to be answered.

  1. Are the College courses UC/CSU transferable and are they listed on the HS transcript?

  2. Does the HS include those College courses (if transferable) in the UC capped weighted and CSU GPA calculations? I am assuming not, so those need to be recalculated to determine the correct UC/CSU GPA’s

  3. Which Cal state is within your local service area? This campus could be considered a safety since local applicants get priority.

  1. If possible can you list his school courses and I am assuming he has taken a Visual/Performing arts course to meet the VPA requirement?

For the UC GPA’s (unweighted, capped weighted and weighted uncapped) use the 10-11th a-g course grades and give any AP/IB, UC/CSU approved and UC/CSU transferable college course an extra Honors point the GPA calculation.

Unweighted has no Honors points so maximum 4.0
Capped weighted has a cap of 8 semesters/4 yearlong Honors points so maximum is 4.4
Weighted Uncapped has no limit to Honors points so maximum is 5.0. For the UC’s, 1 semester college course gets 1 grade and 1 Honors point.

Here is the UC GPA calculator: GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

For the CSU’s, they only use the Capped weighted GPA for the a-g courses taken 10-11th grades with the exception of Cal Poly SLO. Extra Honors points are given for CSU/UC approved Honors, AP, IB and CSU/UC transferable college courses taken during this time but the college courses are handled differently. For each semester college course, the student gets 2 grades with 2 honors points up to a maximum of 8 Honors points in the calculation.

Here is the CSU GPA calculator: GPA Calculator | CSU

For Cal Poly SLO, they calculate their GPA using 9-11th a-g course grades with the 8 semester Honors point cap so you can just use the CSU GPA calculator and add in the 9th grades.

For the UC/CSU approved Honors courses, these can be found on this link: University of California A-G Course List

Also note that the UC’s and CSU’s are test blind so his ACT/SAT score is not used for admissions or scholarship consideration, only course placement.

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Why Fresno?

Have you looked at this chart showing which majors are impacted at the different CSUs? https://www.calstate.edu/attend/impaction-at-the-csu/Documents/ImpactedProgramsMatrix.pdf CSUF, CSULB, SDSU, SLO, SJSU are all impacted for business. Maybe look at some of the CSUs that are not impacted. If he wants to live at home, CSULA or CSUDH are options. If he wants to move out, you might look at Channel Islands, Monterey Bay or SFSU.

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Also make sure you look at the statewide eligibility index. If you have a lot of A-G courses (particularly math/foreign language in 7th/8th grade) and 4 APs in 10th/11th grade then it’s possible to be statewide eligible even with a much lower class rank than 9% (eg it worked for my S23 who was about 25% class rank - 3.7UW/4.0W, he ended up at UCSC off the waitlist). It doesn’t count for much (it isn’t one of the UC evaluation criteria used by campuses), but would guarantee admission to UC Merced.

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I am just going to list some UC/CSU admit rate data and UC/CSU GPA data for Business majors/college or general campus information to help in making your list.

Campus Business admin or Business Ads. major CSU Capped weighted GPA
Cal Poly SLO Projected 22% 4.04-4.25 SLO GPA
San Jose State Various Business majors and concentrations Depending upon concentration a CSU GPA of 2.5-3.5 would meet Impaction Thresholds
San Diego State Depending upon concentration 31-35% Average Campus CSU GPA overall 4.06
Cal Poly Pomona Various Majors Minimum 2.5 GPA needed to meet major threshold except for Accounting which needs around a 3.3 GPA
Cal State Long Beach 31% Average CSU GPA 3.98
CSU Fullerton 86.8% for the College of Business and Economics Average Campus CSU GPA 3.68
CSU Northridge 92% overall campus admit rate Average Campus CSU GPA 3.43
CSU Fresno 94% overall campus admit rate Average Campus CSU GPA 3.70

CSU Dominguez Hills offers a Data Analytics Minor and Sacramento State offers a Business Administration major with a Business Analytics concentration worth looking into.

Campus Business admin or Business Ads. major
UC Berkeley 4% Business Admin HAAS// Unweighted 3.86-4.00 Capped weighted 4.20-4.30 Weighted uncapped campus 4.31-4.65
UC Davis Admission by College: 39.8% Managerial Econ. (New Business major Fall 2025 21% admit rate/ / Unweighted 3.80-4.00 Capped weighted 4.00-4.27
UC Irvine 11.2% Business Admin/22.9% Business Econ// Unweighted 3.83-4.00 Capped weighted 4.11-4.28
UCLA Admission by College: Business Economics 9%/ Unweighted 3.95-4.00 Capped weighted 4.20-4.31 Weighted uncapped 4.38-4.73
UC Merced Business Econ/Management 84% Fall 2026 New Business Administration Major// UC Capped weighted 3.41-4.00
UC Riverside Pre Business Admin 76%// UC Capped weighted 3.68-4.13
UC San Diego Estimated 13% Business Econ // Unweighted 3.84-4.00 Capped weighted 4.04-4.28
UC Santa Barbara Admission by College: 29% Economics/Accounting // Unweighted campus avg 3.91. Capped weighted 4.11-4.28
UC Santa Cruz 60% for Business Managment // Capped weighted 3.82-4.18

Only UCR, UCI and UCB have Undergraduate Business schools and the rest of the UC’s have Business adjacent majors such as Business Economics or Economics with exception of UCD and UCM. UCD’s Business major still has a heavy Economics emphasis and UCM has a New Business Administration major for Fall 2026.

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Hi, thanks for responding. Answers are:

  1. Yes, transferable and listed on the transcript/”Individualized Graduation Plan” (IDP) for LAUSD. College courses are - one year of foreign lang, one year of math, and currently a Psychology course.
  2. That I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that the GPAs I listed are coming straight from the school district/transcript/IDP.
  3. Cal States in our local service area: Cal State LA
  4. Courses - Honors World History, AP US History, College-Psychology 101, Honors English (9th), Honors English (10th), AP English Lang, AP English Lit, Algebra 1, College-Plane Geometry, Honors Algebra 2, AP Pre-Calc A, AP Pre-Calc B, AP Statistics, Honors Biology, AP Bio, Honors Chemistry, Amer. Sign Language 1, College-Amer. Sign Language 2, Spanish 1, Design (this is the Visual/Performing Arts), AP Micro Economics, Health, PE every year

Hope this clarifies everything! Thank you again.

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Fresno because he was interested after looking into it more and meeting them at a college fair.

Yes, we’ve looked at all the Cal State schools, impaction, etc. After doing that, he came up with the list above of the Cal States that he was interested in pursuing. So LA, DH, CI, MB, and SFSU are not on that list of schools that are tops on his list.

Thanks!

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You’ve gotten some good “chancing” feedback already. It seems to me that Riverside is the realistic reach to be hoping for. It has a true business school, with a business analytics major, and your son’s GPA is solidly in range. I think you’re correct that UCB/UCLA/UCSD aren’t worth bothering with. Irvine, to me, is the one that’s worth taking a flyer at even though it’s unlikely. (Although I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that Irvine would be a “better” outcome than Riverside.)

Business Analytics at SJSU is not one of the more impacted business majors (source: Freshmen Impaction Results | Admissions ) so this seems like a good option.

Have you considered OOS schools that participate in WUE reciprocity, and thus would cost about the same as a UC? For example, UNR, U of Utah, and Colorado State all have solid business schools. Would any of these be more appealing to your son than the “safer” options on his current list?

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Thanks for the reply. We toured Oregon and Oregon St. and Oregon St. is WUE. That’s the only WUE option that we really looked into, but we can look a little further into other ones.

We are trying to find the right fit for him, so even if a school doesn’t have a dedicated business school, that’s not a hard no. Looking for the place he is going to be most likely to thrive. Right now San Diego St. and UCSB are his top two CA choices, although we know he may not have the stats for either. Cal State Long Beach grabbed him when we toured it, and we’re going to see Fullerton this weekend. And it definitely seems like San Jose St. has a lot of good things for him, although we haven’t gotten up north to tour any of those schools yet.

It’s just tough with that nebulous nature of will you get in or will you not, and hearing of friends that had no business getting admitted to a real reach school so it makes sense to pay the application fee to roll the dice (for a place like Irvine or Santa Barbara). And then you have the other side where you don’t want to assume that you’ll definitely get into a specific school so you should hedge you bets and apply to a few. All of a sudden you’re pushing 20 applications!

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I LOVE this attitude. I think it’s likely to lead to successful outcomes for him (and your family).

Can you share more about the characteristics that you think will help him thrive? Knowing what those are can help posters in suggesting additional options to consider.

I understand that he has already looked at various Cal State options and determined which ones currently interest him the most. One question, however, is how much does the campus culture impact his preferences? For instance, most of the Cal States are commuter campuses, but Chico, Monterey Bay, and Sonoma State are residential campuses with more of what some think of as a “traditional” college experience. Would that impact his thinking?

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I didn’t lead with Oregon State because they don’t give the WUE rate to everyone, only to the top 30% of geographically-qualifying students. I don’t have a sense of what stats make that cut. (They still give smaller merit awards to those who don’t get WUE.) Did he like OSU?

UCSB and SDSU both have an upbeat, fun vibe - is that why they stand out to him? Is a coastal location particularly attractive? A couple of my daughter’s friends had great experiences at CSU Monterey Bay (one was a stats major who is now a teacher), and they have a business analytics major; that one would be an admissions slam-dunk.

It’s a stressful process, and UC admissions can be particularly opaque. I personally don’t think you need to lose sleep over UCB/UCLA/UCSD “FOMO” - just let Santa Barbara be his UC “reach.” (You haven’t mentioned Davis - any interest? It’s a different environment from UCSB but, in my mind, they have a relatively fun/happy vibe in common.)

Good luck; it seems like you’re developing a balanced list and he should have good options!

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Its not just that UCs are opaque but they are also very late (mostly in March). Many CSUs aren’t much better. It is hugely reassuring to have an admission in the bag early. ASU and Arizona are great for that (with responses in a week or two), even if they are more expensive than they used to be.

I agree with looking at WUE options beyond OSU, including Utah and other options in the Mountain West, especially if he likes outdoor activities. They can be similar cost to UCs with a lot more certainty of admission. And often don’t even require essays if you aren’t applying for Honors.

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We heard from ASU in 4 days. It really is nice to have “something” in the bag. U Arizona is no longer rolling.

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NAU got back to my kid in a couple of days. It is $40 for a simple application and gave my kid piece of mind.

As others have mentioned, give Monterey Bay a look. I would also visit Merced. When you say “all UCs” I’m not sure that Merced would be a good fit for a kid who is interested in SDSU or UCSB. That said, UCM added some new business majors and have announced that admissions decisions will be released in December.

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At this point, he would probably choose a big school, residential/on campus feel rather than commuter, good sports program (to go to games, he runs track and field but probably wouldn’t make a D1 team), really likes the idea of schools that prepare him for work after college (that’s one of his most often recollections to anyone asking what he likes about a specific school - he heard it on a San Diego State tour). And honestly, I think he is definitely swayed by the name of the school, what his friends think, where they are going, etc. He would rather say he’s going to a bigger name school than some other university that doesn’t have the name recognition or cachet.

He’s a fine student (3.5-3.6 UW GPA) and takes plenty of honors/AP but not an over-achiever and certainly not a max effort/driven student, so there’s the risk of if he gets into a high reach he’d be left behind because he’s not going to push himself once he gets into a school. He doesn’t know what he wants to do (and neither did I, so I don’t blame him for that), but has a general idea of a business job that is in the sports industry (probably a good chunk of HS/college boys would like that kind of job if you asked them). I know that U of Oregon checks a lot of those boxes and has some sports-focused majors, but the OOS costs are brutal (not WUE), and I personally think getting a general Finance or Econ degree may be more risk-averse and could have more value than a niche Sports Marketing or Sports Business Admin major.

Anyhow, thanks a bunch for the reply.

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He did like Oregon State when we visited, but I think it’s fallen on his rankings the longer it’s been since we visited. And he definitely liked Oregon more so OSU is a little overshadowed.

I do think the SDSU and UCSB vibes add to his liking them. I just wrote a separate reply on a semi-brief breakdown of what he wants in a school. And those big, known universities fit the bill. He plays a lot of sports, but he’s not a nature-first, wanting to spend time in the woods/pastures kid at this point. We’ve yet to visit any of the northern CA schools, so he doesn’t have any first hand knowledge of those. A friend of his goes to Davis and I know it’s a great university, but that’s all he knows. I also think that the inland schools of Davis, Merced, Fresno St. automatically have a mark against them.

I think bottom line is that with his stats, he doesn’t get to choose from every school out there and decide that he wants to go there. So of the ones that he may have a shot of getting into, he/we need to weigh the pros/cons of each one because none of them are going to be “exactly” what he thinks he wants.

Thanks for the reply.

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Since you say no budget - when you tell me big school and I’m thinking more SDSU / UCLA, I think U of Arizona as a sub.

Growing up in San Diego, many who didn’t get into UCLA went to Arizona or Colorado - obviously the environmental landscape is different but not so much the school’s themselves - although the UCs are on a quarter system vs semester.

But Arizona is another close to home name to look at.

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Thanks! It’s not that budget isn’t a factor - it’s just that for my original main question of UCs and Cal States I didn’t want the budget to be a factor in the answers. But with the OOS schools of Oregon, Arizona St, U of Arizona, which are all still on his list of potentials, budget then definitely becomes a factor. Both from a what we can afford standpoint as well as a why are we paying OOS tuition to go to a school where you have these super great in state institutions.

Legitimate question - I have long held that the overall education at a UC or Cal State is going to match or exceed the majority of flagship universities in other states. Obviously there is nuance and “this school’s Computer Science program is one of the best in the country.” But overall, am I right that you’re going to get as good or better education at any UC/Cal State than you will at an out of state flagship school. Again, maybe this is my own coping and justifying staying in state, so if you/anyone has an opinion on that, I’m listening. Thanks!

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I personally believe that most flagships are substitutional. Sometimes a major matters but even then, it’s not like Arizona State is getting all the Supply Chain jobs and no one else is - because supply chain kids are getting hired from everywhere (even though they’re one of the top 2).

Is there a difference between SDSU, Oregon, Colorado, Oklahoma.

I think not.

Is there to Fresno/Bakersfield - yes - in the sense of the kids will be more local, less wealthy, etc.

Is there to UCLA - yes, as UCLA is on a trimester system and statistically, will have more smart kids - but smart kids are everywhere.

If it’s a pure $$ and sense game, then yes, in state is cheapest or schools that are cheap to begin with - like C Michigan is $28K all in. W Carolina is cheaper. Obviously, you’re not looking that far - but as an example.

U Arizona, with the GPA will be pricey but a Nevada or Washington State with WUE will be ok. Oregon State WUE likely not happening as this student wouldn’t be in the top 30% of applicants.

A U of Kansas would be mid 30s with $10K auto merit - all in - so there’s a flagship type that will equal or beat the price of local schools - just as an example.

Do I think it’s lesser than SDSU or UC whatever.

Personally I do not forgetting a high admissions rate. You still have to get through the classes.

I think the student, in the end, is the one that has to hustle to find jobs.

UCB is arguable the top ECE school in the country and it’s 2024 placement report shows 24% still seeking a job (not sure what the time snapshot is)…

If kids want to study hard, go to office hours or do research or simply learn - they can. And at some schools, you have Honors Colleges that will have smaller classes, that might be attainable where they wouldn’t be at the bigger name.

But I generally agree with what you said - exceptions of course - but not too many.

I don’t believe the Merced kid is necessarily disadvantaged like others who thumb their nose and UCR and UCM would have you believe - if the kid hustles and they’ll need to do it from anywhere.

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Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Pretty much tracks with my thoughts on everything.