UC’s tend to be very GPA focused, so a UC GPA below a 4.0 would make UCB a High Reach. You have a competitive SAT and some solid EC’s. If you have extenuating circumstances leading to a lower than average UC GPA, it could be addressed in one of your personal insight essays.
You need to target UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz and UC Merced if you plan to apply.
Looks like from your post you’re OOS. So I wouldn’t consider UCs unless you are willing to pay 60,000+. And UCs are GPA driven. The only GPA weighting for OOS comes from AP classes.
3.38 UW isn’t going to be good enough for NYU or Cornell either. You’re in the worst demographic possible for elite admissions and unfortunately your grades/test scores are really mediocre compared to most South Asian students.
Unfortunately, a 3.4 GPA is not high enough for Cornell, NYU, and Berkeley. Please don’t take this offnsively, but you look exactly like a lot of the other Asian applicants in the US, from your ECs.
KaboomKP, with your EC’s and academic achievements, I believe you have a strong chance at getting into any top 20 school this year. Focus on your essay and improving your GPA/SAT score if possible. If you can do this and write the perfect college essay along with amazing letters of rec, you can definitely get into NYU, UCI, UCD, and maybe even UCB. Good luck KaboomKP! PM when you get your acceptances and let me know how it went!
A UC GPA of 3.6-3.7 for UCI and UCD is still going to make it a Reach school. Target Santa Cruz, Riverside and Merced but no harm in applying to UCI or UCD. The admit rates based on your UC GPA is post #1 so you can see for yourself, your chances are not great unless you have some compelling personal insight essays that could help you.
@JakeLog Do you mind sharing why you feel OP would be a strong candidate for T20? Just wondering, because everyone else, myself included, seem to have the sentiment that his GPA is below average for the demographic and that his ECs are nothing extraordinary compared to the applications submitted by South Asians to those schools. OP, if you live in Washington state, why don’t you consider Washington or Wash. State? I’d unfortunately have to agree with most of the other posters and say that your GPA isn’t really competitive at the elite universities you mentioned. That’s nothing against you, I’m sure you put in a ton of work through high school to achieve what you did, but just the expectations of the college are too high. GL!
@DJCURRYBEATS19 I echo your sentiment. GPA alone is not going to be competitive enough for the top or even the mid-range UC’s, for instance. Plus, wayyy more expensive than a WA-state school. OP, there are a lot of schools out there that would be a better match for you.
Why not share a little more about what you are looking for in a school. You said that your ultimate goal is Law School. You can do that from any major as long as your college grades are high and you score extremely high on the LSAT, you can get into a fine law school from any reputable four year college.
Forget about arbitrary rankings like “top 20.” They are truly meaningless for most students. Alos, the schools you mentioned are very hard to get into for everyone – even people with much higher stats.
What kind of school are you looking for? Do you have any financial constraints? Do you prefer a certain geographic location? Does anything in particular appeal to you about the schools you mentioned othere than their ranking? The more information you give the people on this site, the better we will be at suggesting good college choices.