Answered May 12 · Upvoted by Joanne Serin, B.A. French & Education, University of California, Los Angeles (1970) and Arno Vigen, B.A. Mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles
My son had a 2300 SAT, 4.4 GPA, yet did not get into any UCs nor Cal poly, Urbana Champagne, in 2016. His world came crashing down. I did not know how to react… Things really could have gone nasty. My son could have gone into depressions and downward spirals.
Yet, none of these nasty things happened. He plotted a better second inning by taking the required 90 credits over 2 years from 5 different community colleges here in the San Francisco bay area. Last 2 years been dedicated, focused surgical precision work( I wouldn’t call hard work because my son excels in lazy exuberance) which led to straight As. He also cracked a few extra courses from UC Berkeley over 2017 summer.
Fast forward to May 2018 and he got into Computer Science and Engineering ( the most competitive hard to get into major) as a transfer student to UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Irvine and UC San Diego… Now the biggest decision of his life and our lives was which one to choose and which one to let go. He has chosen to be a UCLA Bruin over Cal Golden Bear and today we were in that super cool awesome UCLA campus… I firmly know and believe my boy has chosen the best for himself…
So focused belief and knowing exactly what it takes to produce the desired result is the only thing to remember…
A huge shout out to the great community colleges of America… Without them my boy would have been devastated and shattered. Thank you to the community colleges of De Anza, Los Positos, Dougherty Valley and Ohlone.
AFAIK, recently State mandated UCs to take in so many transfers from CCs that it is actually more competitive to go to UCs directly from High Schools. Easier to go to CCs then UCs. Btw, old points that I have said at least half a dozen time Game the system, man ch
Awesome. Admissions are now based on favorite color and spirit animal. Just wait until all the unprepared students have bad grades. Then they’ll have to lower the grading standards in the name of racial justice.