Please help suggestions for colleges for my daughter [CA resident, 3.67 UW, 1420 SAT, for Psychology]

  • US domestic
  • State/Location of residency: CA
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Middle College (with many college courses - dual enrollment)

Intended Major(s) - Psychology

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: (calculate it yourself if your high school does not calculate it) 3.67

  • Weighted HS GPA: * - 4.0 (based on CA GPA calculation)

  • SAT Scores: 1420 (math 730, reading 690)

Many college level courses in Psychology

Strong extra-circulars and awards.

  • Prefer EA for out of state of CA.
  • Going to apply to most UC and CSU’.s. need guidance mainly on out of state.

Can you share a little about what she is looking for (ex. size of school, campus culture)?

Have you looked at any WUE schools?

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I’m going to link your other thread for context below.

I would suggest University of Arizona, Arizona State, University of Oregon, University of New Mexico, University of Utah…for public universities.

How far from CA does she really want to be?

How much can you pay annually for her to attend college?

ETA…your daughter can major in undergrad psychology at many many many colleges. To work in the field, she will need at least a masters degree. What is her career goal?

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From the other thread:

If the preference is to stay in California, I don’t really understand all of these schools on the list. But if she prefer a bigger state school experience, then I’d consider some of these schools, all of which would be closer to what you say she prefers geographically.

  • Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo
  • U. of Nevada - Reno
  • U. of Arizona
  • U. of Oregon
  • Washington State
  • Oregon State
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Pulling from your other thread.

Weighted GPA - not able to find based how to get this for outside UC colleges. for UC, I think it comes to around 4.0.

Please calculate her UC GPAs following the instructions on this calculator. GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

If she is planning on applying to SLO, please do the same calculation using grades from 9th-11th.

What is your local CSU? If you don’t know, you can look it up here. Psychology is impacted at many of the CSUs - Impacted Programs Matrix

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One of your other posts asks about schools with automatic merit. Are you still looking for merit? What is your yearly budget?

What is she looking for in a school? She can study psychology almost anywhere.

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I saw that as well. In several of OP’s other threads, they don’t return to answer questions or comment.

Edit to link to a few of the other threads by OP:

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apologize for the delayed response. Totally thanks for your time.

We are in northern CA (SJC area). Not sure Local CSU have preferences on residence areas. I didnt know about that.

Interesting to note that Psychology is impacted in many of the key CSU’s. yes she is planning to apply to CSU - SLO, LB, and a few others, including SJSU, SDSU.

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How about CU Boulder? It appears they have an excellent Psychology Department and I believe your scores target well with the school, plus many California kids do attend Boulder. It appears they are not a WUE school and the price tag may be higher than other out of state schools like Colorado State, Oregon State, Arizona State, Washington State, UNLV, etc.

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Has she taken a look at any of the schools mentioned? I just looked at Oregon State and read about research and internships- I think it looks impressive.

Does she have a career goal (it’s fine if she isn’t sure)? Is there anything that stands out to her in any of these schools? That would give us more information.

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Please calculate her UC GPAs using the instructions on this calculator. There is a big difference between a 3.9 and a 4.0 with respect to UC admissions.

From the SJSU website:

San José State gives preference in the competitive admission process to “local” applicants. For freshmen, you are considered a “local” applicant if you will graduate from a high school in Santa Clara County.

All applicants are strongly encouraged to apply to an alternative campus that offers your preferred major.

Impaction Criteria for Freshmen

Freshman applicants who meet the CSU minimum academic requirements will be ranked in each major and admitted to meet the enrollment capacity of their chosen major. In order to be eligible for impaction consideration as outlined below, applicants must first meet the minimum academic requirements.

In addition to the preference given to local applicants, SJSU will consider additional factors in the impaction process.

Impaction Consideration Factor Impaction Point Calculation Value
A-G Grade Point Average (GPA) 800 points x A-G Coursework GPA
Local Admission Area 200 points
Eligible for Cal State Apply application fee waiver 40 points
Military Status (Active Duty, Veteran, National Guard or Reserves) 40 points
First Generation (Applicant is first generation of their family to earn a four-year college degree) 40 points
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UC GPA through the link shared:
Weighted GPA: 4.12 (total AP/college courses taken between 10th and 11th summer is 12)
Weighted and Capped GPA: 3.96 (capped with 8 honors points)

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Drawing attention to Gumbymom’s post in your other thread. How to get college ranked list for a given major - #12 by Gumbymom

What schools is she applying to that would fall into the following categories?

  • Assured (100% chance of admission and affordability):
  • Extremely Likely:
  • Likely:
  • Toss-up:
  • Lower Probability:
  • Low Probability:

I’m focusing on CA schools since you said she would prefer to stay here. The CSUs you listed (SLO, CSULB, SDSU) are impacted. Based on your other threads, it looks like she wants to apply to Stanford, USC, UCLA and Berkeley. All four of those will be low probability. That’s a lot of essay writing and effort in the next few weeks. I would focus her efforts on the UC application over Stanford and USC’s supplemental essays.

In addition to finding schools with a high likelihood of admission, the schools need to be affordable, and they need to be a school that she would be happy to attend. Will she be happy attending Merced, Riverside or Santa Cruz? What about CSUMB?

I believe it was @AustenNut who had a very good post about how different kids respond to being rejected by colleges. Maybe they can re-post it here.

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Thanks,

She has been focusing on UC prompts for a while. since thats her main focus. She also wanted to give a shot to Stan, USC and other reaches - since her non academic profile is very strong. But totally understand they are high order reaches. no issues if we dont get it.

in UC’s. She would happy with UCSB, UC Davis, (ofcourse UCSD, etc), UC SC.
CSU - she is definitely considering SLO and Long beach, SDSU. Others have not check more closely. Havent looked into CSU MB - is that good, and how is it compared to SLO or Long Beach ?

So that we stop bugging you, what schools is she applying to that would be in the likely, extremely likely, or assured categories?

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I am going to repost the Psychology admit data that I have compiled for the UC’s and CSU’s along with the overall UC Campus admit data based on the Capped weighted UC GPA and not major specific.

GPA ranges are the 25th-75th percentile.

Campus Capped weighted UC 4.00+ 3.70-3.99
Berkeley 17% 3%
Davis 64% 25%
Irvine 42% 13%
Los Angeles 14% 1%
Merced 96% 95%
Riverside 92% 84%
San Diego 39% 9%
Santa Barbara 46% 8%
Santa Cruz 85% 65%
Campus Psychology
UC Berkeley 5.8% No longer High Demand major/ UC Capped GPA 4.14-4.29 Unweighted 3.89-4.00 Weighted uncapped 4.31-4.65
UC Davis College of L&S admits by Division/Department Social Sciences 38%/ UC Capped GPA 4.00-4.27 Unweighted 3.80-4.00
UC Irvine 17.9%/ UC Capped GPA 4.03-4.26 Unweighted 3.83-4.00
UCLA 9.8% for College of L&S Social Science majors/ UC Capped GPA 4.20-4.31 Unweighted 3.90-4.00 Weighted uncapped 4.33-4.71
UC Merced 89% UC Capped GPA 3.40-4.00
UC Riverside 63.5% UC Capped GPA 3.70-4.12
UC San Diego 23% for Social Science majors/ UC Capped GPA 4.08-4.28
UC Santa Barbara 28% for College of L&S Social Science majors/ UC Capped GPA 4.12-4.29
UC Santa Cruz 57%/ UC Capped GPA 3.81-4.20
Cal Poly SLO 6% / SLO GPA 4.00-4.25 for College of Liberal Arts
Cal State Long Beach 46% / Avg CSU GPA 4.01 for Psychology
San Diego State 26%/ Avg CSU GPA 4.04 for admitted SDSU students
San Jose State 3.15 CSU GPA meets 2024 Impaction index threshold without considering other factors

Any of the non-impacted Cal States would be Very Likely/Assured along with SJSU as a local applicant and UC Merced.

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With UC Capped GPA a little below 4.0, I would say UCSC is target and UCD is high target. The rest of UCs on your list are all reaches.

Regarding CSUs, CPSLO is reach. SDSU, CSULB and SJSU are all targets. What about CPP? It is a good target for your D’s GPA, unless she doesn’t like the school for some reason.

For OOS, some of them offer merit to bring COA close to in state UCs. S24 received $14.5k/year merit offer from Ohio State and WUE (1.5 x in state tuition) from Oregon State. Good Luck

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The 2024/25 impaction cut off for psychology at CPP was 2.88 GPA so I’d say it’s a likely for this student.

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This is super help. A big sincere thanks. One additional question. For UC Davis, UC SB, UCSD, UCLA, UC Irvine, Is tehre an possiblity to go undeclared in college of letters and science (where Psyh is offered), to improve the chance of admit. Or choose another major in that college. Considering Psycholgy major is not termed as impacted in many of these. Or if a college offers both BA and BS, if choosing BA will increase the chance.

This is super help. A big sincere thanks. One additional question. For UC Davis, UC SB, UCSD, UCLA, UC Irvine, Is tehre an possiblity to go undeclared in college of letters and science (where Psyh is offered), to improve the chance of admit. Or choose another major in that college. Considering Psycholgy major is not termed as impacted in many of these. Or if a college offers both BA and BS, if choosing BA will increase the chance.