Hi,
I’m a junior in high school in California with a strong commitment for Nursing, and I am really pushing to get into UCI’s nursing program. I calculated my UC GPA—not sure if I did it correctly—and it came out to be 3.81 UW and 3.92 W, however, my Academic GPA (10-12, A-G classes) on my transcript is 3.71 UW and 4.4 W. My school is also in partnership with a community college so by graduation, I should have three associate degrees in Health Science, Natural Science, and Spanish. My extracurriculars, which are a bit lackluster, are volunteering at a local hospital for 7 months (ongoing), volunteering at a public library, being a student tutor, and being a teacher’s assistant for Chemistry. This summer, I signed up to volunteer at a different hospital with different roles, and an internship. In the spring of 2026 (after college apps), I plan to join a CNA program and hopefully get clinical hours. I want to know what my chances are for the UCI School of Nursing, and what I could do to make myself more of a competitive candidate. If I wasn’t dually enrolled, I’d likely go to CC but that isn’t really much of an option for me.
other things to note are I am taking AP courses (APUSH, Precalc, Lang), but my school does not offer any other classes. All other previous HS classes are Honors and my senior APs are Macro and Gov.
Freshman admission by discipline | University of California says that a recent admission class for UCI nursing had an admit 25th-75th percentile GPA range of 4.28-4.33, and enroll 25th-75th percentile GPA range of 4.26-4.33, and a 1% admission rate (GPAs appear to be UC recalculated weighted-capped).
Calculate your UC recalculated GPAs using the method at GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub
Do your local community colleges offer associates degrees in nursing (ADN)? You can consider that (although they may be competitive admission, unlike other community college programs), followed by an RN->BSN program if you find that you need a BSN. But an ADN/RN will qualify for many nursing jobs if you cannot afford to go to an RN->BSN program at a university immediately.
Thank you for your response, I do plan to get my BSN, and the community college does offer an ADN program. If I don’t get accepted into any of the direct admit colleges I most likely will take that route, but I very much prefer to go straight to university to take advantage of the 1 year head start I get from my transferable classes taken in HS. Using that calculator, I got
- 3.8 UW
- 4.40 W
- 4.33 Weighted and Capped
Check whether your transferable courses will actually match up to course requirements at UCI nursing in a way that would allow earlier graduation.