Estimate your admissions decision from UCSC

rider730
Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:56:44 +0000

Here is a spreadsheet that shows all the factors for freshmen admissions to UCSC.

[Google Docs - ucsc score](http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pKB1yD5iQn_9t0gQqaob-SQ)

You can calculate the points that you will likely be given by the admissions committee, then see if it is close to the estimated cutoff for last year. If you are significantly below 6000 total points, you are a reach. If you are significantly over the 6000 estimate, this is a safety. The actual cutoff is set by the admissions commitee after giving points to all applicants and then ranking them in order. They pick the point cutoff that gives them the desired number of acceptances for the incoming class.

There are factors that have a big swing effect, which is why you will see some applicants with high stats not admitted and some with much lower stats accepted. For example, someone who did more than 40 a-g courses, got all As in one of the a-g academic areas for all four years, and has a heavy load with honors and/or AP classes scheduled for senior year could get up to 1000 points, which is the formula equivalent of a 1.0 bump in GPA or of earning perfect SATs.