What UC schools am I elligible to attend with my grades/SAT’s, etc.?

Your priority should be raising your GPA (your freshman grades are not calculated into your UC application GPA). Try the ACT plus Writing Assessment and see if you do better than the SAT. You can take the SAT or ACT however many times you want; the UCs will only look at your top score (same for SAT IIs).

In general, to prepare for UC schools, you should complete the a-g requirements (ask your counselor for the approved courses at your high school or check online at http://www.ucop.edu/doorways/ ), study and do well in your high school courses and standardized tests (SAT and/or ACT, and SAT II), take as many honors and/or AP courses as you can handle (or take community college courses in the a-g subject areas that are UC-transferable), participate in educational preparation programs available at your high school (see a list on my blog), and commit to one or two extracurricular activities in which you develop leadership skills (more is not better, quality is better than quantity).

UCs (including Berkeley and UCLA) will weigh the following components of your application (in the order of importance): 1) your essay (Berkeley publishes a guideline on how to write your personal statement at: http://students.berkeley.edu/files/Admissions/Personal_State_07.pdf ) about your academic achievement, talent or extracurricular activities that highlight your motivation, dedication, and/or initiative to achieve, your potential to contribute to the university, and any special circumstances like hardship; 2) your grades and any grade trends (improvements are better than just maintaining a high GPA); 3) your test scores, including SAT and/or ACT, SAT II; and 4) number of AP courses completed compared to the number of AP courses offered at your high school. Other factors are taken into consideration, but to a lesser extent.

Listen… UC’s have 14 major criteria they look at when going through applications, and GPA and SAT’s are the top two most important as they are numbers and therefore considered more “objective” (which we know isn’t true). Your GPA is okay (though what happened between freshman and sophomore year? What’s with the drop?), but your SAT scores are not that great. I consider a 2100+ to be a good, decent score. Anything below should be done over. I mean… when I first took the SAT *practice* tests, I received an 1810 (if I recall correctly). So, you should really work on your SAT’s. However, the fact that you’re so well-rounded is good if you want to get into a UC. However, do NOT stress yourself out!!!!!!! It’s like you people think it’s the end of the freaking world if you don’t get into your UC of choice! No matter what, someone with your record is inevitably going to be accepted into at least one of the UCs. Just apply for most of them. You’d be surprised by how many of the “smart people” get bypassed for lower-scoring but more well-rounded students.

Oh! And I would advise against taking the SAT’s more than three times. Any more than three, and it does NOT look good in the UCs’ eyes. They might even start averaging scores after three tests are taken, so make your third one count. Also, look at your UCs of choice to determine which subject tests are necessary and/or right for you.