This will be problematic at highly rejective colleges. I agree with niceunparticularman’s post. Also agree UIUC and UW aren’t safeties. Are you ok attending Merced? If so, then only applying to reaches is ok. If not you will need to expand your list.
What does this mean? Does this person work at your school? Are they submitting all the counselor documents beyond rec letter?
I think VP is vice principal?
@SunSteel you’ll get more valuable advice here by honestly evaluating your application as it stands, including the lower GPA. No AO (particularly at highly rejective schools) will overlook that so why are you? Your stats and accomplishments are very good so embrace that; there is no need to exaggerate your ECs.
You should calculate your UC CSU GPAs using the Rogerhub calculator. @gumbymom can provide admissions rates by UC by GPA range so you can assess your chances.
There are very good schools that will love to have you as part of their community. And, by the way, very good schools exist in the T150+, not just the most popular/selective T20. I’m not from CA but I do know that all the UCs are respected; however, I think that you will regret a Merced or bust shotgunning strategy. Most people want to have choices so I suggest you develop your list to ensure you have choices next spring. Hopefully one of those choices will be a reach, but if not, that’s okay too! Make sure your list includes those likely target schools where you’d be happy.
Best of luck to you. 
I would think plausibly solid Targets, however, given that the OP is Linguistics and Math (and not like CS or Engineering). I’m not super expert on admissions to those colleges, but I believe the observed admissions rate in those cases would be in the 40s or so (even OOS), the OP’s GPA would seem to be in their normal competitive range, and the test scores would be on the high end. At least the way we do things, that would make them presumptive Targets for the OP.
OK, so if this is right, between the UCs and those colleges, you have a Safety UC, a couple OOS Targets, and then whatever the other UCs would count as.
As I noted before, to me this is a plausibly complete list. You could add more if you wanted. But I would not see it as necessary.
If you are ok with UC Merced ( you say you are assured - are you 100% sure about that)?
There are schools you’d be guaranteed - fine schools - Iowa State, Arizona, Arizona State - but U Wash and UIUC would not be guarantees for anyone. You might feel they are likely but they are not assured.
For LInguistics and math, I’d say UW is likely and UIUC a match.
As long as you have 1 you are ok with, the rest don’t matter - they can be what you want.
UCM doens’t have linguistics per se - would you do cognitive science?
Good luck.
Each year on this forum there are a few students who apply as you intend - to a list of mostly reaches with one or two safeties - who end up quite disappointed in the spring. In the fall these students think they understand the risks, and that they will be fine attending their safety school if none of the reaches work out, only to realize too late that they aren’t fine attending their safety and wish they had more options. This is a particularly risky strategy in your case, given that AOs of your reach schools who can fill their classes with students with perfect 4.0 GPAs and perfect test scores would have to chose you over one of those 4.0/1600 students. It’s possible of course! But another very possible - maybe likely - scenario is that you don’t get into any of your reaches.
You lose nothing, except for some time, to right now add in 2-4 target schools that you are excited about, and that you’d be happy to attend. If you end up getting into one or more of your reaches, you’ll be happy and won’t regret that you “wasted” some time applying to targets. But, in the event you don’t get into your reaches, odds are that you’ll be really glad to have more options to choose from in the spring.
You taught yourself Topology and BC calc over a weekend? Why are you bothering with college at all?
It’s claims like this that really seem to stretch reality. Does your math teacher agree that you’ve completed the BC Calc curriculum-- whether in one weekend or two?
I couldn’t read that long. Great point.
Plus he wrote a lot and asked questions but wasn’t really interested in a response as he says I’ll just go UCM.
Nothing anyone would say would impact this student’s path
I’m fairly certain that the top 9% of students in CA are guaranteed admission to a UC. That is typically Merced.
They are.
I’m simply saying - the student wrote out an entire thing asking for opinions.
Some offered opinions and they eschewed them with - I’ll just go to a UC.
If you don’t really need the opinion, why ask a question?
OP- I don’t know your HS.
But in my part of the country (Northeast) kids with your profiles who aren’t happy with their “auto-acceptance” (or close to it) at their own flagship U typically look at Vanderbilt, Emory Wake and Tulane as U’s which LOVE high scores even if the GPA is lower. Other options include Villanova, BC, Fordham, (Catholic but have robust populations of non-Catholics); GW and American if you want some DC options, Temple and Drexel if you want Philly.
Don’t know if you’d prefer Merced over these.
You have been given so much solid advice, from so many wonderful moderators of this forum. I hope you take the time to really hear what they are saying. I am not an expert but I strongly recommend you reword your EC’s in your college applications. You are definitely not coming off as authentic in your EC’s. Your GPA is what it is, it is pointless and a waste of everyone’s time to chance you without taking GPA into consideration. Wishing you all the best in college and beyond. Where you go to college does not define you!
I think the question is whether the OP is certain that he’s in the top 9% given that he indicated that there’s a lot of grade inflation at his school, making his GPA potentially low-ish compared to his classmates. Is it still high enough for top 9%? Hopefully so, but in that case maybe his GPA isn’t that (relatively) low after all? There’s a bit of a contradiction within what OP writes on the matter…Or he could mean state 9% rather than ELC, not sure what the state GPA cut off would be.
You need to be much more careful with your EC descriptions on your aps because unbelievable claims will raise red flags which could well get an otherwise potentially successful application tossed into the rejection pile.
He may want to not mention the covid vaccination/booster drive, someone may see that as controversial
In the context of this web site, UW usually refers to either Washington or Wisconsin, although Waterloo also comes up from time to time. None of the three are safeties. There are lots of other universities that might be abbreviated UW, but it seems less likely that you are referring to any of them. Wyoming might be a safety and is also a WUE school (and you are from a WUE state), but I am guessing this is probably not the school that you are thinking of.
UIUC is not a safety.
You should take a few days and assume that you will only get accepted to your safeties, which might mean UC Merced. UC Merced is a good university. Then think about whether you are okay with this, or if you should have added additional safeties. As many have said a lot of what you have mentioned in this thread look like reaches.
University of Wyoming has assured admission for frosh applicants with HS GPA >= 3.00, according to Admission Requirements | Undergrad Admission | University of Wyoming .
At the UCs it won’t be issue - until quite recently, COVID vaccination was mandatory for attendance here, so promoting and facilitating vaccination wouldn’t be controversial. Can’t speak to other areas.
Don’t understand why it would be controversial anywhere. Even anti-vaxxers can appreciate the amount of work and initiative involved in a large public health effort.
ELC local or statewide has the same guarantee that if you are not admitted into your choice UC campuses, then your application will be referred to UC Merced and in some cases UC Riverside.
Definitely calculate out all 3 of your UC GPA’s. UCLA and UC Berkeley focus on the Unweighted and Weighted Uncapped more than the other campuses.
Below are some major specific or general discipline admit rates along with UC GPA’s in the 25th-75th percentile to see where you GPA stands.
All the UC’s use 13 areas of criteria so although GPA is important, your overall application will be taken into consideration.
| Campus | Applied Math/Math | Linguistics |
|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley | 29% Math/ Math-Physical Science Capped weighted GPA: 4.17-4.30 Campus Unweighted 3.89-4.00 Campus Weighted uncapped 4.31-4.65 | L&S does not admit by major. Social Science 9%/ Capped weighted GPA: 4.14-4.29 Campus Unweighted 3.89-4.00 Campus weighted 4.31-4.65 |
| UC Davis | 60%/ Capped weighted GPA for Math-Physical Science: 4.00-4.26. Campus unweighted 3.80-4.00 | 38% Social Science Major/ Capped weighted GPA for Social Science: 4.00-4.25 Campus unweighted GPA 3.80-4.00 |
| UC Irvine | 33.3% Math / Math-Physical Science Capped weighted GPA: 4.07-4.28. Campus unweighted 3.83-4.00 | 42% Language Science major/ Capped weighted GPA for Social Science: 4.03-4.26 Campus GPA: 3.83-4.00 |
| UCLA | 14% for L&S Math-Physical science/ Capped weighted GPA: 4.23-4.32 Campus unweighted 3.90-4.00. Math/Physical science Weighted uncapped 4.33-4.77 | L&S does not admit by major. Social Science 9.8%/ Capped weighted GPA for Social Science: 4.18-4.30. Campus unweighted 3.90-4.00. Social Science Weighted uncapped 4.33-4.71 |
| UC Merced | 86%/ Math-Physical science Capped weighted GPA: 3.59-4.13 | No Linguistics. Cognitive Science 94%/ Social Science Capped weighted GPA: 3.40-4.00 |
| UC Riverside | 99% / Math-Physical Science Capped weighted GPA: 3.75-4.18 | 83% Linguistics/ Capped weighted GPA Social Science: 3.70-4.12 |
| UC San Diego | 32% for Math-Physical Science/ Capped weighted GPA: 4.13-4.30. Unweighted 3.84-4.00 | 23% for Social Sciences/ Capped weighted GPA: 4.08-4.28 |
| UC Santa Barbara | L&S does not admit by major. Math-Physical Science 40%/ Math-Physical Science Capped weighted GPA: 4.15-4.30. | L&S does not admit by major. Social Science 28%/ Capped weighted Social science GPA: 4.05-4.27 |
| UC Santa Cruz | 83% Applied Math/ Math-Physical Science Capped weighted GPA: 3.90-4.25 | 66% Linguistics/ Social Science Capped weighted GPA: 3.81-4.20 |
Submit both your SAT and your ACT - they’ll help, at schools that look at them. If you are in CA, and what you’re interested in is Linguistics and Math, then you want to be at UCLA or UCB (Ling powerhouses), but your grades are not going to get you in there. Back door - attend a community college that has a transfer agreement with them, if this still exists for UCLA and/or UCB. Community college will be very easy for you - you can get straight A’s with a heavy load. You get as much AP credit as you can, maybe CLEP too, depending upon what they and the targeted UC will accept, and you start this summer full time, taking a heavy load summer, fall and spring, then apply to transfer to UCLA or UCB during the summer, as you’re finishing up your associate’s, and you enter UCLA or UCB as a junior in fall '26. You then have lots of time to double major in Ling and Math. You will not get into UCLA or UCB any other way. Assuming that the transfer agreements are still in place, this is your best, cheapest path into two fantastic and cheap schools for you.
Safety for you - UMass Amherst. Fantastic Ling, and should be fine for math, plus you’ve also got Amherst college right next door. They’ll probably give you their max OOS merit money, which will bring it down to <200K for 4 years. Make sure you let them know in your application that you’re interested in Ling and Math, don’t even mention Comp Sci (way overcrowded in that dep’t).