My chances for the UCs? (mainly UCSD)

Chance Me / Match Me
1

<p>I’m still a junior but everyone has been telling me to look forward. I’m really worried since UCSD is super competetive. </p>

<p>Pretty competetive high school in southern california, Torrey Pines High (dunno if you know it or not) When we DID have enough people take the STAR testing we scored like a 95 or something…or so I’m told</p>

<p>Freshman year: Totally messed up(UC standards), Overall GPA: 3.5,
Special classes: honors english 9
Sophomore year: Overall GPA:3.92
Special classes:Honors English, Honors History, Honors Alg 2/Trig
Junior year: So far one semester, I’ve dropped AP english 11 and first semester I got 3.83. Special classes: AP Comp Science(taking the AP test), Honors Pre-calculus. </p>

<p>Next year I’m planning on taking AP stats, AP econ/government, AP psychology, a free period, and then some other class maybe accounting. Instead of free period I may take work exp. im not sure. I wanna major in some business related major. </p>

<p>SAT II scores: 640 on Chemistry. haven’t taken math IIc yet…June 2005…
SAT I score: 1920 (new one) <a href=“Gonna%20take%20it%20again”>680 on math, and 620 on verbal and english</a></p>

<p>I volunteer at Scripps hospital four hours every week and I have been doing this for 13 months now. That including other small volunteer projects sums up to about: 200 hours give or take like 20…I haven’t been keeping track, but im going to ask for a record of how many hours I’ve put in at Scripps. I have a whole bunch of certificates and stuff of the other little projects so yeah. </p>

<p>Other extracurricular activities include drumming, and I’m in a band that seems promising. A whole bunch of people seem to like us, and I think we may win battle of the bands (I don’t know if that helps or not)</p>

<p>The colleges I would like to go for are here:

  1. UCSD, Berkeley, or UCLA. Most likely I will choose SD if i got into all three just because it’s right next to my house.
  2. UC Irvine perhaps, but it doesn’t have any business related majors so I’m not sure
  3. SDSU, I’m pretty sure I can get into this no sweat. </p>

<p>Yeah so UCSD is my goal. Any feedback is appreciated so long as it’s honest. I don’t mind…honestly. Thanks guys, for a while I thought I was screwed because I didn’t have a real idea on what UCSD wanted but then I stumbled upon this website :-D.</p>

<p>Once again thanks guys, I’m sure this is alot to read, and I’ll do my part of trying to help others with their college needs…And am I missing anything in the process, like any SAT II tests or something…hopefully not…</p>

2

<p>I think that writing a good essay is most important…I had pretty good grades and test scores and I did not get into UCSD, which sort of surprised me. I don’t know much about the new SAT so I don’t know how it compares to the old one, but I have friends with low SAT’s who got in. They have a lot of extracurriculars so if you keep doing that you should be fine. Good luck!</p>

1 Like
3

<p>so a good essay and good E.C. makes a difference. All right cool…any other suggestions anyone?</p>

4

<p>SittingMoose:</p>

<p>UCLA: Reach
UCB: Reach
UCSD: Slight Reach
UCI: Match
SDSU: Safety</p>

5

<p>Can’t say without more information - What’s your class rank? Is the GPA you are using the UC GPA (which only includes certain classes and drops freshman year - details at <a href=“Admissions | University of California”>www.ucop.edu/pathways</a>) If you’re just using your reported GPA above, we need to know your actual UC GPA to see what’s what. Also, How many years of science, math, and foreign language will you have taken? Best to max them all out.</p>

<p>Are you not taking English next year? Don’t see it listed. If you aren’t the UC’s REQUIRE four years of English so make sure it is on your schedule. You might also strengthen your course work by taking AP Calculus (or even regular calculus) instead of AP Statistics next year. </p>

<p>Your writing scores are on the low side for the top UC’s but other factors may mitigate that. Actually, having attended Torrey Pines and coming from La Jolla is not going to boost your chances at any of the UC’s. In fact, it will be a bit of a negative in that they give extra points to students from low achieving schools or who come from disadvantaged backgrounds - doesn’t mean you won’t get in but the UC’s are one school system where attending a top ranked high school doesn’t help. </p>

<p>UCSD in particular places huge weight on extra curriculars - you dont need a telephone book full but they do want to see commitment AND leadership.</p>

<p>You should have no problem getting into SDSU but they also require 4 years of English and I know from personal experience that the business program at SDSU would rather see calculus on the transcript rather than stats.</p>

6

<p>I didn’t understand your comment about UCI not having a business-related major. They have a fine economics department, which is, of course, what you’ll probably be majoring in at UCSD or UCLA if you want a business-related major. UCB is the only UC on your list that has an actual undergrad business major.</p>

7

<p>reach means that i probably wont get in and slight reach means i may get in i may not? That’s what I’m assuming…</p>

8

<p>a few things to clear up and a few questions:
I am taking english next year, i just forgot to put it down. Regular english 12.
This is the GPA by UC standards And that’s good news that they drop my freshman year because I did terrible in it! </p>

<p>I took 3 years of Science
Freshman Bio: B/C
Sophomore Chem: B/B
Junior Physics: A/hopefully A</p>

<p>4 years of math
Freshman geometry: A/A
Sophomore Alg 2 Trig/honors: B/C
Junior Pre-calc honors: B/probably B
Senior AP Stats: Haven’t taken it yet</p>

<p>4 years of english
Freshman Hon. English: B/C
Sophomore Hon. English: B/B
Junior Hon. English and regular: B/A
Senior Regular English: Assumed it’s A/A</p>

<p>yeah I don’t think I’m missing anything…</p>

<p>Spanish 3 years
7th Grade Span I: B/B
8th Grade Span II: B/B
9th Grade Span III: C/C</p>

9

<p>bump…?</p>

10

<p>Sitting, I’m going to only give you the stats for UCSD but you can find out more details about the other UC’s admit numbers at
<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles.html[/url]”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/selecting/camp_profiles.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>These numbers are older (2003) and do not, obviously, reflect the new SAT but they can give you some idea of how you stack up. When I say “percent admitted with GPA or scores” I do not mean that say 76% of all admits had GPAs above 4.0. I am saying that IF you had a 4.0 or above GPA, you had a 76% chance of being admitted but IF you had a GPA of between 3.7 and 3.99, you had only a 32.4% chance of being accepted (of course, this is a cummulative affect, none of these factors alone will get you in). Additonally, bear in mind that these are ranges. You can assume that someone applying with a 620 test score actually had a lower chance of getting in that the entire 600-690 RANGE of test scores, because, naturally, those in the top of the range will have a better chance.</p>

<p>The average UC GPA of accepted students for UCSD: 4.06 (yours is 3.875)
Overall acceptance rate (lower this year) 37.2%
PErcentage of students accepted who had a GPA

  • above 4.0 76.7%
    Between 3.7 and 3.99 32.4%</p>

<p>PErcentage accepted with SAT Verbal scores
between 700-800 71.1
between 600-690 47.8</p>

<p>Percentage accepted with SAT Math scores
between 700 -800 64%
600-690 39.5%</p>

<p>Percentage accepted with SAT II Writing scores (for comparison with the new writing section on the SAT):</p>

<p>700-800 72%
600-690 46%
Below 600 26,3</p>

<p>However, UCSD uses more than just grades and test scores for admissions. HEre is a detailed explanation of the UCSD comprehensive review process. Read through it and you can get an idea of what your strengths and weaknesses might be beyond grades and test scores:
<a href=“http://admissions.ucsd.edu/dev3/info/comreview.html[/url]”>http://admissions.ucsd.edu/dev3/info/comreview.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Hope this all helps. Same info for the other UC’s is available at the link I gave at the start.</p>

11

<p>It helps alot, thanks a bunch.</p>

12

<p>Sitting, make sure to see the note I just added about what the percentages mean. Since you like statistics, you probably already figured it out, but I hated statistics in grad school and sometimes have trouble saying things the right way. :slight_smile: </p>

<p>Good luck!!!</p>

13

<p>Yeah I do like the stats, but one question that bugs me now…You’re saying that IF I had above a 4 there would a 76% chance or whatever the stats say of getting in, but IF i had just under that, (3.91) my chances would drop nearly 40 percent? (according to the stats) im not trying to force you to say that i can get in, but don’t you think that’s…odd? </p>

<p>Once again, im not trying to argue, im just “wondering”…</p>