UCLA and the most rigorous courseload issue

gatos
Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:53:09 +0000

Yes you have a chance. It could only help to take those classes though. I’m no admissions officer but I can give you my experience:

At my school, we had 3 types of students: College Prep, Honors, and AP students. Only the students who generally took AP classes got into UCLA (athletes/minorities got into some other good schools)

Remember, you are mainly compared against your peers. The UC’s have profiles on every school. They understand that not every school has IB/ as many AP classes/etc. So relative to your PEERS, how competitive are you? If there’s 10 students at your school who took more IB classes yet have a similar GPA to you, you bet they are going to be pushed ahead of you.

And of course, the SAT is another factor where you will be compared against them. I’m not saying you will automatically get in if you are #1 at your school, but it’s a lot better to stand out from your peers. Of course, don’t load up on IB classes and get B’s…that’s not helping your case

Anyway, IMO why not challenge yourself? UCLA is the most applied to school in the country, and it has one of the lowest admissions rates in CA (even lower than Berkeley). You want to make yourself as competitive as possible. Push yourself to do well in class. To be honest, AP/IB are not bad at all compared to college classes.