Where else for high average well rounded DD(17)

College Search & Lists
1

Stats:

IB Candidate at California Public Magnet
UW 9-11 GPA- 3.78
W 9-11 GPA- 4.50
UC GPA (10-11) - 4.03
SAT (new)- M 730 V 660 Total 1390
ACT to take in Sept
10 AP’s

ECs-

JV Volleyball- 3 yrs (not playing senior year)
Varsity swim- 3 yrs (will swim senior year, not recruitable)
2 yrs swim instructor/assistant coach for the littles and life guard
13 years club swim
12 years Girl Scouts- on senior troop executive board, helps run many events for younger girls and is the troop “team captain” for their annual competitive nautical skills event (sailing, rowing, swimming, knots, etc.)

Letters of rec should be excellent. Chemistry HL teacher/extended essay adviser or the PhD toxicologist she is doing her EE project with should either or both do a good one. Club swim coach has known her since age 5 and will be able speak to both that activity and her job experience as she works for the same club. Her little swimmers and their parents adore her.

Wishes in college- opp for undergrad research in chemistry. Not really interested in big football scene. Interested in outdoor activities and if a youth swim team is near by or swims on campus, continuing her coaching/instructing. She’s very easy going and seems to see every campus almost as somewhere she could be happy.

Major- chemistry with an eye to patent law

Finances:
EFC of ~40K which we can do, but obviously more merit aid would be nice, or a in-state school that costs less.

Current list

Willamette (admit safety/legacy/$$ reach)

UCSB (match)
UCSD (high match I think)
Cal Poly (match)

UK schools ( will admit entirely based on AP scores for the most part, which we don’t have yet. Financially all about equal and all a little bit of a stretch)

University of Edinburgh (dream school)
St. Andrews
York
Bath

Need safeties and reaches. She’s all over the place and I’m not sure how to advise her. Interestingly her grades went up a LOT from sophomore year (3 A’s 3 B’s) in pre-IB to Junior year in IB (5 A’s 1 B) so the writing, presentation, collaborative/interdisciplinary approach in IB is totally working for her.

2

You may already know these about UCSB since it’s on her list:

  1. They seem to be big on study abroad - they talked about it a lot at orientation - and that might be a good chance to study in the UK.
  2. Compared to other UCs, there are a lot fewer grad students - only about 3000 I think. So that might mean better undergrad research opportunities. Their undergrad/grad numbers are similar to Cal Poly.
  3. The teachers for the first year chemistry classes get really good reviews and my kid confirmed that. He thought they taught the best of the core classes he had.

Those 3 California schools are all on the short list for our rising senior too.

3

Her dad wants her to throw Berkeley and LA in there too, because it is just another few check boxes and $$. They are big reaches though, and I don’t think she’d be happy at either. Just too big/wrong feel.

4

Have you visited UCLA? Our son loved it and it’s very different feeling than Berkeley. Neither of our kids felt comfortable at Berkeley despite the best brainwashing attempts from a couple generations of family.

5

If she is interested in Undergrad research, have her apply to UCSB CCS. It is a separate application but definitely worth a look.

https://www.ccs.ucsb.edu

UCSD looks more like a High Match, definitely not a Match unless she can bump up the GPA and SAT score.

I would have her take a look UCD/UCI and UCR. UCR has been doing some interesting Chemistry research with several joint ventures with City of Hope Cancer Medical Center and would be a very good safety.

http://chem.ucr.edu

6

She refuses to consider UCI/UCR as she views them as commuter schools (we sit between them).

I don’t think there is any way to bump up her UC GPA now that 10-11 grade is complete, is there? The cap on only weighting 8 semesters for 10-11 grade is really hurting her. All her classes in 11th grade were IB/AP and half her 10th grade classes were as well. Her uncapped weighted UC GPA 10-11 would be 4.69

She took the SAT only once with no prep. Definitely think she should study over summer and retake. 30 hours of work a week, plus her EE for IB is cutting in to that available time for sure.

7

Nope, the UC GPA won’t change at this point.

8

The low tier UCs (UCSC,UCM,UCM) could be good safeties, as well as, perhaps some Cal States (Long Beach, San Deigo, Northridge ?)

9

She sounds like she would like the academic and social aspects that might be found at a few of the NESCAC colleges. Within this group, she can find rough matches as well as reaches. Kenyon could potentially be excellent as well.