How do i go to a UC college, what are the steps?

Question

I am in 10th grade, have a overall gpa of 3.58, and plan to take all honors and college courses the next 2 years...i want to study in the medical (neurosurgery) field in a uc school. Is this good enough?..what can i do to make sure i make it?..

also i have read that ucsd has a minimum reqiurement on 3.00...is thatt true..why is it that 86% of the freshman applicants have 4.00 or higher?..that worries me..

Answer 1

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/undergrad_adm/apply_to_uc.html

That will give you the general info into applying to the UCs. They all use one application. You just check the boxes to let them know which schools you want your application sent to.

Now, there are minimum requirements to be eligible, and minimum requirements for a particular school. Berkeley is going to have higher requirements to get accepted than Riverside. If you just plan on getting into Riverside, you should be fine. If you wan to go to UC San Diego, UCLA, or Berkeley, you need to shoot that GPA up and score really high on the SAT. For UCI, Davis, and Santa Barbara, that GPA is likely ok, but you'll need a pretty good SAT to go along with it. That GPA and a not embarassing SAT score should be ok for Riverside, Merced, and Santa Cruz.

Now, the next part of your question deals with neurosurgery. To become a neurosurgeon, you need to go to medical school. Med schools don't care what major you are in, as long as you fulfill their required courses (check each med school to see what each school wants). You can worry about getting into med school more once you're actually accepted to a UC. They won't care what happened in high school.

Answer 2

I made it into UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara with a gpa of 3.85. I did not make it into UCLA for undergrad, though I'm a grad student there now at the Medical School.

I took AP Calculus AB, AP English, AP History, AP Russian (Yes we had Russian !!) I did not sit for AP exams though. AP exams don't help you get admitted. Plus AP credits only work sometimes. You may graduate sooner from college, but the requirements are still there. For English, I still needed English 1C, Creative Writing and 1D American Literature.

You need good references, extra-curricular activities like student counsel and yearbook. I was honor society president, yearbook photo editor, and comissioner of health in my senior year. (On top of four AP classes)

Good Luck !!

Keep up the good work. You can do it just fine.

Answer 3

It all depends on your major you apply under, which you can switch once your admitted. Make sure you fullfill the recommened and required courses, esp for the more popular schools.